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Lincoln P. Brower, one of the most prominent monarch butterfly specialists, spent six decades studying the life cycle of the delicate orange and black insect and then directed efforts to preserve his winter habitat in a mountainous region of Mexico. , died July 17 at his home in Nelson County, Virginia. He was 86 years old.
He was suffering from Parkinson's disease, said his wife, Linda S. Fink.
Brower, who taught at Amherst College in Massachusetts and at the University of Florida before becoming a research professor at Sweet Briar College in Virginia in 1997, began studying the monarch butterfly in the 1950s. 19659004] He made some key discoveries In the 1970s, other scientists discovered that monarchs had extraordinary migratory powers, more like birds or whales than insects. Each fall, monarchs from the East Rocky Mountains travel thousands of miles to a Mexican forest where they spend the winter. The monarchs of western North America migrate to California.
"The most complicated migration of all insects is known," Dr. Brower told the Chicago Tribune in 1998. "They know how to get to the same trees every year. This is a very specific behavior that is unique to the monarch butterfly. "
Lincoln Brower in 2016. Dr. Brower has published two books and has been the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific studies.In 2016, he received the EO Wilson Award for his work of Preservation of the monarch of the Center for Biological Diversity.He also received a prize from the Mexican Government. (AP / AP)
It takes three to four generations of monarchs to complete the life cycle of one year. migration to Mexico, butterflies begin their journey back to North America and a new generation is born along the way, passing larvae to caterpillars before fleeing.
With the arrival of cooler weather to In the fall, the grandchildren of the monarchs who flew south the previous year will make the same trip, returning to the mountains visited by their ancestors.
"This is a pattern of behavior inherited and a navigation system that we do not understand Brower said in 2007. "We do not know exactly how they find their way. We do not know how they know where to stop. "
Dr. Brower first visited the winter quarters of monarchs in a Mexican forest, about 80 to 100 miles west of Mexico City, in 1977. At an altitude of 9,500 at 11,000 feet, the tall firs were fully covered with hundreds of millions of butterflies.] When they move their wings, "it sounds like leaves blowing in the fall," said Dr. Brower's son, Andrew Brower, biologist and butterfly expert at Middle Tennessee State University, in an interview. "It's remarkable. You look, and the sky is blue, but then it's orange. It's like an orange stained glass above your head. "
During more than 50 trips to Mexico to study monarchs, Dr. Brower began to see their numbers dwindling.Their mountain habitat is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Ecotourists have mobilized to save the development region, but trees continue to be cut down by loggers or burned by farmers.
In North America, Dr. Brower pointed out, monarchs face another problem linked to the increasing use of herbicides that eradicated much of their food., the once abundant milkweed.
"What we will lose," said Dr. Brower in 1998, it is this incredibly beautiful migration and all that is associated with it.I therefore called this beautiful migration and wintering syndrome a "biological phenomenon threatened."
There are still millions Monarchs in Amé North America, but their numbers fluctuate from year to year, in an ever decreasing trend. In some respects, the population has decreased by almost 90%. (19659015) Brower joined the efforts of environmental groups to recognize the monarch as a threatened species.
"Why should we care?" Said Dr. Brower at the Washington Post in 2005. "For the same reasons, we should be interested in the Mona Lisa. or the beauty of Mozart's music. "
Lincoln Pierson Brower was born on September 10, 1931, in Madison, NJ His parents had a nursery and a rose growing business.
He was 5 years old when he noticed an American copper butterfly landing on a clover flower.
"I stared at this tiny butterfly, and it was so beautiful for me," he once told NPR. "
Graduate of the # 39, Princeton University in 1952, he then received a doctorate in zoology from Yale University in 1957. Some of his first scientific articles were written with his first wife, the former Jane Van Zandt.
This marriage ended in a divorce, just as a second, with Christine Moffitt
Survivors: his wife of 27 years, Linda S. Fink, professor of ecology at Sweet Briar College and frequent scientific collaborator; two children from his first marriage, Andrew Brower of Christiana, Tenn., and Tamsin Barrett of S alem, N.H., a brother; and two grandchildren. Brower has published two books and has been the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific studies. In 2016, he received the E.O. Wilson Award for his monarch conservation work at the Center for Biological Diversity. He also received a prize from the Mexican Government
In 1998, Dr. Brower recalled his first visit to wintering monarchs in the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico
"Suddenly, the color of changed, "he told the Tribune," I did not realize what I was looking at. It was like a wall, going from green to gray. These were the monarch's wings, folded while they were resting – the underside of their wings was greyish.
"So here is this wall of butterflies, and I just could not believe it, for the first time in my life I saw millions of monarch butterflies right in front of me. trees, they were everywhere on the branches They were on the trunks They were on the limbs They were in the bushes They were everywhere.This is one of the most wonderful views you can see in the biological world. "
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