Extreme weather events are adding a new, ominous threat to the monarch butterflies’ key wintering habitat in Mexico, according to a report by the WWF-Telmex-Telcel Alliance, the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, and the Institute of Biology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Monarch butterflies are highly sensitive to weather and climate, however, they also have a high capacity to adapt to longer term changes in climate. Explore this and other traits which make monarch butterflies vulnerable to climate change, as well as recommended climate-adaptive management strategies.

A new survey of migratory monarchs at their wintering habitat shows a 69% increase in the area they occupied this winter in relation to last year’s winter. Yet this is still the second smallest area occupied by these butterflies in Mexican sanctuaries since 1993.

The monarch butterfly population in Mexico was the lowest ever since 1993 (the year scientists started to monitor monarch butterfly colonies), according to research just released by the WWF-Telcel Alliance and the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve Office of the Mexican government.