I know I am missing butterflies in my back yard as well.

So sad and trying times we live in… keep praying. We may need prayers more than ever if some of these mysteries are not solved soon!

Seems to be the same this yeah, none around anywhere, lots of horrid wasps though.

Mike

I don’t use Round Up or any of this stuff.

I planted milkweek and have a huge garden for them, but they aren’t to be found.

Last winter the dam broke on the 10 acre pond we live on, draining the pond. It was repaired in early spring. This is the only thing that
has changed.

Other places to research include Entomology journals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entomology_journals

The fluctuations in butterfly populations maybe due to several factors – man-made and natural. Below is a summary from a recent impact study on land use and how habitat fragmentation can influence local populations of pollinators.

- The Journal, Current Biology – Published July 21, 2011
Paper Title: The Circe Principle Explains How Resource-Rich Land Can Waylay Pollinators in Fragmented Landscapes
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211007184

Summary:
“Global declines in pollinators, associated with land-use change [[1], [2], [3], [4], [5] and [6]] and fragmentation [[7], [8], [9] and [10]], constitute a serious threat to crop production and biodiversity [11]. Models investigating impacts of habitat fragmentation on pollen flow have categorized landscapes simply in terms of habitat and nonhabitat. We show that pollen flow depends strongly on types of land use between habitat fragments. We used paternity analysis of seeds and a combination of circuit and general linear models to analyze pollen flow for the endangered tree Gomortega keule (Gomortegaceae) [12] in the fragmented Central Chile Biodiversity Hotspot [13]. Pollination probability was highest over pine plantation, moderate over low-intensity agriculture and native forest, and lowest over clearfells. Changing the proportions of the land uses over one kilometer altered pollination probability up to 7-fold. We explain our results by the novel “Circe principle.” In contrast to models where land uses similar to native habitat promote pollinator movement, pollinators may actually be waylaid in resource-rich areas between habitat patches. Moreover, pollinators may move with higher probability between habitat patches separated by some resource-poor land uses. Pollination research in fragmented landscapes requires explicit recognition of the nature of the nonhabitat matrix, rather than applying simple binary landscape models.”

Where are they? Something doesn’t seem quite right.