Michael Belitz (he/him)

Hot off the presses 🔥🦇! In a new paper, we describe a new migratory strategy (pell-mell migration) in which hoary and eastern red bats migrate north in the autumn— sometimes long distances— before turning around and migrating south. 1/n

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS Insects are declining worldwide. These declines have been documented across taxonomic groups and are worrisome given ecosystem services provided by...

More bad news for butterflies. Our new paper led by Wendy Leuenberger shows common species are declining even more rapidly than rare ones. @ZipkinLab

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501340122

A map of the historical extent of the tallgrass prairie (gray) and 319 sampled remnants (black circles) in RELIX across the Midwestern United States. 34 remnants are not shown on the map since they did not have precise location information.

New from my colleagues at the University of Illinois: a dataset of vascular plant species presence for 353 prairie remnants across the Midwestern United States (doi.org/10.3375/2162...)

screenshot from the NSF budget request to congress showing that the number of people involved in NSF activities will drop from 330,100 to 90,000.

The bottom line with the proposed cuts to NSF is to cut the number of working scientists and disappear opportunities to train new scientists.

This is a PROPOSED budget to Congress. Call your reps.

Our article is now available open access! Come learn what we learned about the last 50 years of invertebrate conservation under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

doi.org/10.3389/fcos...

Photo of a Common Yellowthroat holding a caterpillar by Nigel/Flickr. Text on photo says: New Paper Using MAPS Bird Banding Data! When spring comes earlier or later than usual, trees and caterpillars shift their schedules to match it, but migratory birds can't adjust as well.

🪶🌎🧪 Learn more about it and read the @mikesmothmodels.bsky.social 's paper here: birdpop.org/pages/blogPo...

Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century Numerous declines have been documented across insect groups, and the potential consequences of insect losses are dire. Butterflies are the most surveyed insect taxa, yet analyses have been limited in ...

Populations of butterflies across the United States are declining. In addition to dramatic declines for individual species, the study concluded that total abundance of butterflies has declined by 22% from 2000 to 2020. This work was supported by the #USFWS and #USGS

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century Numerous declines have been documented across insect groups, and the potential consequences of insect losses are dire. Butterflies are the most surveyed insect taxa, yet analyses have been limited in ...

Our paper is out, and it is distressing.

Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Woohoo! I'd be interested in a link!

MSU researchers bring new approach to stopping the biodiversity crisis What if saving one animal species from extinction at a time isn’t the most effective approach?

Press release out today! msutoday.msu.edu/news/2025/ms...

A case for assemblage-level conservation to address the biodiversity crisis - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Conservation efforts can be directed at multiple ecological scales, from species to ecosystems. This Perspective calls for conservation at the scale of ecological communities or assemblages and discus...

Had a fun time writing this perspective with colleagues making a case for assemblage-level conservation to address the biodiversity crisis! www.nature.com/articles/s44...

A conceptual diagraph comparing pros and cons of conservation actions at different ecological levels: species, assemblage, and ecosystem.

A Perspective from Belitz et al. suggests that focusing conservation and management actions at the assemblage level has multiple benefits relatively to purely species-focused or ecosystem-focused actions. go.nature.com/40F5MNa

Temperature niche and body size condition phenological responses of moths to urbanization in a subtropical city Urbanization in temperate climates often advances the beginning and peak of biological events due to multiple factors, especially urban heat islands. However, the effect of urbanization on insect phe...

The last chapter of my dissertation is now published! We tested how the timing of forest moths was influenced by urbanization. We found the timing of moths are influenced by canopy cover, which also interacts with temperature niche and body size. esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The insanity of being a fire ecologist in the epicenter of a major fire event, bags packed and ready to evacuate, watching active fire from my window, while taking media requests and explaining to the public, for the 100,000th time how climate change is largely responsible for this

“Monarch Butterfly Proposed for Listing Under the US Endangered Species Act” A monarch butterfly happily feeding on a swamp milkweed flower, showing its orange and black wings in profile.

US Fish & Wildlife has just announced their proposal to list the monarch as Threatened! ESA protections can allow us to tackle the systemic issues monarchs are facing: pesticide overuse, diseases, & habitat loss, especially at their overwintering locations.
🦋 Learn more: xerces.org/press/monarc...

Logo for National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, with name in white over a purple background.

What is the status of insects in North America? In 2025, the @nationalacademies.org will launch a study to find out. Experts are sought in entomology, ecology, technology, and more. Apply or nominate by December 31: https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/status-of-insects-in-north-america

Re-posting b/c 1) applications are due in 2 days AND 2) I've doubled my followers since I last posted

👋pick me, pls :)

How do you protect a species that lives across a continent? Monarch butterfly decision may soon try The monarch butterfly is widely recognized and widely dispersed across North America and it's in trouble. Federal officials decide soon whether it gets protection under the Endangered Species Act.

NPR article about upcoming monarch butterfly listing decision: www.opb.org/article/2024...

📣Michigan State is hiring an Assistant/Associate Professor & Curator of Vertebrate Collections! Neat opportunity for anyone who does collection-based research on vertebrates. Please repost so this can reach beyond my 30 Bsky followers :) careers.msu.edu/en-us/job/52...

Hi folks, first post! I'm an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with mentors at Michigan State University and the University of British Columbia. My research focuses on developing quantitative workflows that bring together diverse ecological data to tackle complex environmental questions.