Invasion of Buckeyes into Canada

[John Shuey]

I too vote for the mild winter scenario.  And if this year continues on
it's current path, you can bet next year will be big as well.  I saw a
mating pair of buckeyes yesterday in south central Indiana!!!!  We've had a
few hard frosts, the leaves are all down, but it was in the 70's F.

John Shuey

gochfeld at EOHSI.RUTGERS.EDU wrote:

> My vote for the invasion was the extremely mild winter of 1998-99 (and
> the mild winter of 1997-98) rather than the summer weather (1999). The
> mild winter(s) allowed the butterflies to overwinter further north than
> they usually do.  Thus to begin with the new 1999 generations of some
> southern species were much further north than the new generations
> usually are, which allowed them  to establish breeding populations
> further north than usual.
>
> This predicts that Buckeyes would also have shown up 1-2 months earlier
> than usual at intermediate locations.
>
> M. Gochfeld

--
John Shuey
Director of Conservation Science
Indiana Office of The Nature Conservancy

phone:  317-923-7547
fax:  317-923-7582
email:  Jshuey at tnc.org