The Monarch Misconception: Why Saving Insects Requires a Bigger Picture

Click here to read article on CUNY website

Professor David Lohman, author of “The Lives of Butterflies,” explains why concern for the monarch butterfly obscures a bigger threat.

The iconic Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an ambassador for butterfly and pollinator conservation.

Each year, monarch butterflies embark on one of nature’s most astonishing migrations, traveling thousands of miles across North America. But in recent years, populations have suffered heavy losses. The decline of this beloved species has dominated conservation discussions, with campaigns urging people to take individual action —planting milkweed, creating butterfly gardens, and reducing pesticide use. But according to David Lohman, a professor of Biology at the CUNY Graduate Center and The City College of New York, focusing conservation efforts on a single butterfly species risks missing the larger crisis: the widespread decline of insect biodiversity worldwide.
The monarch’s migration path east of the Rockies faces challenges due to habitat loss, particularly the reduction of milkweed, and climate change. While the monarch’s migration phenomenon is indeed threatened, the species itself is not critically endangered, as it remains widespread and common throughout much of the world, Lohman says. He suggests that instead of concentrating conservation efforts on a single, well-known species, broader systemic changes — such as preserving wild habitats and reducing pesticides — would benefit not just monarchs but entire insect communities.

Conservation strategies for charismatic megafauna, such as tigers, pandas, and rhinos, often involve focused funding for breeding and maintaining reserves for individual species. But Lohman explains that insects require a different approach. This is in part due to insects’ unique reproductive strategies and ecological roles: Unlike birds or mammals, which invest heavily in raising a few offspring, most insects produce hundreds or thousands of eggs, of which only a fraction survive. This means that traditional conservation approaches, such as breeding programs or protected reserves for individual species, are less effective for insects. Instead, protecting the habitats that sustain these vast, interconnected populations is key.

“Insects have a capacity for rapid population growth, and their roles in the food chain are much different than that of other animals, not only in how they support the trophic pyramid but in their dietary specialization,” Lohman said. “Many animals are generalists that can eat a variety of foods, while insects are often highly specialized, consuming or parasitizing only one or a handful of species. This dependency of one organism on another makes habitat diversity incredibly important to all insect conservation. An insect population cannot survive without its specific hosts.”
Butterflies, like all insects, rely on diverse, stable environments to thrive. But habitat destruction, climate change, pesticides, and light pollution are severely reducing these supportive environments, contributing to what scientists are calling the “insect apocalypse.”

“It’s not one single thing leading to insect declines,” Lohman explains, “it’s a combination of many factors — essentially death by a thousand cuts.”

Insects’ public relations problem
Another overlooked challenge is the public’s perception of insect conservation. In a study Lohman co-authored, researchers found that people are far less interested in protecting insects than charismatic animals like pandas or elephants. Even among insects, public attention is skewed toward a few iconic species — like monarchs — while thousands of lesser-known but equally vital insects receive little concern. This bias, he argues, has serious implications for conservation funding and policy.

“Charismatic vertebrates like polar bears and elephants tend to captivate people, and unfortunately, insects don’t have as good of a PR machine, so they go unnoticed,” Lohman said. “It's hard to capture public interest for something so tiny and often nondescript.”
The way humans engage with insects also differs from interactions with larger fauna. Many people can recall raising monarch butterflies or ladybugs in a classroom, or catching fireflies in their backyards, fostering an appreciation for insects. However, these outdoor experiences are becoming less common for children today. Lohman argues that these experiences are critical for increasing public interest in insect conservation and provide unique hands-on engagement that isn’t often possible with other animals of conservation concern.

“To justify insect conservation, it is often pointed out that they provide many ecological services that directly benefit humans and are worth protecting,” Lohman said. “But for me personally, the reason why I think it's important to conserve insects is that they’re so damn fascinating. There are so many stories of unique biology, including morphology, diets, lifestyles, and adaptations, that really highlight the diversity of life. I specifically chose certain species with these fascinating traits to write vignettes about in my book, hoping others will appreciate this diversity as well.”
​
Butterflies’ colorful lives and how to preserve them
Lohman’s research goes beyond conservation, exploring the ecology and evolution of insects, particularly butterflies, in the tropics of Africa and Asia to understand how species interact with each other and their environments. Recently, he co-authored The Lives of Butterflies: A Natural History of Our Planet’s Butterfly Life, which showcases the diversity of butterflies — not just in their coloration, but across their behaviors, life histories, and more.

“My hope is that the book has something for everyone, from amateur lepidopterists to experts who study butterflies like I do,” he said. “I’ve had colleagues tell me that they learned new things about species with unusual life histories reading my book, and I’m gratified that even people who have spent a good chunk of their life appreciating butterflies can still find something in the book that is new and interesting.”
Ultimately, Lohman’s perspective is a call to rethink how we approach insect conservation. Instead of asking how we can save the monarch butterfly, he urges people to ask how we can save the ecosystems that support all butterflies and countless other insects. By planting native plants, minimizing pesticide use, and advocating for policies that protect wild spaces, individuals can make a meaningful impact, he said.
​
The future of butterflies, and indeed all insects, he argues in his book, depends not on isolated efforts to rescue individual species, but on a broader commitment to preserving the natural world.