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Monarch butterfly population decline in North America: identifying the threatening processes

Overview of attention for article published in Royal Society Open Science, September 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
77 news outlets
blogs
3 blogs
policy
1 policy source
twitter
109 X users
facebook
5 Facebook pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
172 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
230 Mendeley
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Title
Monarch butterfly population decline in North America: identifying the threatening processes
Published in
Royal Society Open Science, September 2017
DOI 10.1098/rsos.170760
Pubmed ID
Authors

Wayne E. Thogmartin, Ruscena Wiederholt, Karen Oberhauser, Ryan G. Drum, Jay E. Diffendorfer, Sonia Altizer, Orley R. Taylor, John Pleasants, Darius Semmens, Brice Semmens, Richard Erickson, Kaitlin Libby, Laura Lopez-Hoffman

Abstract

The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) population in North America has sharply declined over the last two decades. Despite rising concern over the monarch butterfly's status, no comprehensive study of the factors driving this decline has been conducted. Using partial least-squares regressions and time-series analysis, we investigated climatic and habitat-related factors influencing monarch population size from 1993 to 2014. Potential threats included climatic factors, habitat loss (milkweed and overwinter forest), disease and agricultural insecticide use (neonicotinoids). While climatic factors, principally breeding season temperature, were important determinants of annual variation in abundance, our results indicated strong negative relationships between population size and habitat loss variables, principally glyphosate use, but also weaker negative effects from the loss of overwinter forest and breeding season use of neonicotinoids. Further declines in population size because of glyphosate application are not expected. Thus, if remaining threats to habitat are mitigated we expect climate-induced stochastic variation of the eastern migratory population of monarch butterfly around a relatively stationary population size.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 109 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 230 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 230 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 37 16%
Student > Ph. D. Student 35 15%
Researcher 31 13%
Student > Master 28 12%
Professor 8 3%
Other 26 11%
Unknown 65 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 76 33%
Environmental Science 44 19%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 11 5%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 5 2%
Engineering 4 2%
Other 13 6%
Unknown 77 33%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 723. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 February 2024.
All research outputs
#28,213
of 25,550,333 outputs
Outputs from Royal Society Open Science
#71
of 4,805 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#517
of 325,760 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Royal Society Open Science
#2
of 140 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,550,333 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,805 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 51.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 325,760 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 140 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.