Washington.-The widespread use of Roundup herbicide Monsanto put the brink of extinction American population of the Monarch butterfly, today warned a report by the Center for Food Safety.
The iconic American lepidopteran insect species is threatened directly by agricultural technology that promotes Monsanto said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the American environmental organization.
The extensive report from the Center for Food Safety reveals the serious impacts on the population of the Monarch, which has plummeted in the last 20 years.
Monsanto technology, which combines the use of glyphosate, the herbicide active substance, with the cultivation of genetically modified plants, decimated the main food source Monarch butterflies, milkweed and other herbs of the genus Asclepias, scientists say.
Both nectar like leaves of Asclepias are essential to the lives of those butterflies. The caterpillar consumes their cardiac glycosides, a poisonous compound of these herbs which then distributes the fabric of their wings to present danger to predators.
The venom of these insects Asclepias protects much of the attacks and increases your survivability. At maturity butterflies prefer to feed on nectar from flowers of the same herbaceous species that farmers are just weeds.
The researchers calculated that the herbicide Roundup and eliminated 99 percent of Asclepias in the fields of the Midwestern United States, the main habitat of the Monarch.
