Article | Can we accept a world without butterflies? | Dr (Ms) Sharad Singh | Central Chronicle

⛳Friends ! Today my article "Can we accept a world without butterflies?" has been published in the Sunday edition of #CentralChronicle. Please read it.  

🌷Hearty thanks Central Chronicle🙏

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Article | Can we accept a world without butterflies?

-  Dr (Ms) Sharad Singh

Writer, Author & Social Activist

Blogger - "Climate Diary Of Dr (Ms) Sharad Singh"

A very soft, delicate, small, beautiful butterfly is what makes nature beautiful or does a butterfly have any important role in our life? Yes sure. But do you remember the last time we thought about this? The truth is that in today's technological age, we love virtual butterflies and are drifting away from real butterflies which are in danger due to climate change. Can we imagine our world without beautiful real butterflies?

The last, the very last,

So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.

Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing

Against a white stone. . . .

Such, such a yellow

Is carried lightly 'way up high.

It went away I'm sure because it wished to

Kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I've lived in here,

Penned up inside this ghetto.

But I have found what I love here.

The dandelions call to me

And the white chestnut branches in the court.

Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.

Butterflies don't live in here,

In the ghetto.

.....It is the poetry of Pavel Friedmann. He was a Jewish Czechoslovak poet who was murdered in the Holocaust means concentration camps of Nazi Germany. He received posthumous fame for his poem "The Butterfly". In fact, the butterfly was the last thing that gave Pavel mental support in his last days. Just think! A soft, delicate, tiny butterfly can be a living support for a dying person in his last days because she is full of beauty and vitality. But we humans are so much immersed in our comforts that we are taking away their home, their life from butterflies and surprisingly we are unaware of it.

There are about 17281 species of butterflies in the world. There are 1643 species of butterflies in India. The rise in the temperature of the earth due to global warming is dangerous for the life of butterflies. Many butterflies possess an unusually heightened sensitivity to overly warm environs. Minute increases in temperature, imperceptible to humans, are of such significance to butterflies that they have triggered new patterns in the ancient process of metamorphosis and have even driven the creatures out of their native habitats. Many studies have already shown that butterflies are among the species that have responded the most to climate change, usually in the form of northward or elevation range shifts. Federally listed as endangered, ‘Quino’ Variable Checkerspot is an example of a butterfly population that is directly threatened by climate change and habitat destruction. The butterfly's reproductive development—and development across all life stages—is triggered by temperature. The climate affects the butterfly's body temperature, which helps it find a mate, increase fecundity and lay eggs. A 2012 study by Viktoriia Radchuk and Camille Turlure showed that the number of eggs laid by the female butterflies, egg survival, and pupa survival increased with warming temperatures. However, because of a warmer winter, the overwintering larvae were more vulnerable to diseases and fungal infections, thereby decreasing larva survival. These results suggest that because temperature increases will negatively impact the overwintering and warmer winter stage of the butterfly life cycle, the most temperature-sensitive life stage, the overall population of butterflies will decrease significantly in the coming years due to climate change.

 

In India mainly Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus), Striped Tiger (Danaus genutia), Common Crow (Euploea core), Blue Tiger (Tirumala limniace) and Grass Yellow (Eurema hecabe) butterflies are found in approximately every state but by a study Monarch Butterflies are very sensitive to changes in temperature as they rely heavily on this factor to prompt migration, hibernation and reproduction. Thus, changes in temperature due to climate change are expected to influence and potentially disrupt these critical stages of the butterflies’ life cycle. For example, it has been discovered that exposure to cold temperatures at the overwintering sites is the key factor in determining a switch in the direction of the migration from southward to northward in overwintering butterflies. This suggests that warmer temperatures at the overwintering sites could potentially significantly modify or even prevent the return trip north of the butterflies in spring. It also suggests that unseasonal cold episodes during the autumn could have serious consequences on the migration of Monarchs undertaking their southward migration. Temperature also influences the butterflies’ hibernation period. The butterflies need to overwinter in forests where the temperature is reasonably low so that their metabolism is not too demanding, but not so low that they freeze. Therefore, higher temperatures and erratic freezing events due to climate change threaten the butterflies’ ability to survive hibernation. Actually, areas filled with butterflies, moths, and other invertebrates benefit with pollination and natural pest control. Butterflies and moths are also an important part of the food chain, providing food for birds, bats, and other animals.

 Undoubtedly, increasing temperature and unbalancing in weather are a global tragedy but something going wrong by us directly. In the last few decades, we have continuously expanded the cities. We have established new colonies by converting new farms into residential land, cutting down forests and expanding the boundaries of cities. The number of such flowering plants in cities has decreased, which can run the life cycle of butterflies. If we are so careless towards butterflies, we will lose these beautiful creatures. More important than the amusement park is for us, such parks where butterflies can get a favorable habitat. In the zeal of our urban development, we cannot ignore our symbionts.

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 (27.02.2022)

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