Monarchs as mothers

Biologist Jaap de Roode talks about how study of simple creatures can lead to startling discoveries in the field of medicine.

March 05, 2015 05:32 pm | Updated 06:04 pm IST

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06dfr deroode

This is an interesting talk which projects visions far beyond the subject of delineation, but the subject itself is a source of wonder. Did you ever stop to wonder if butterflies that flit across your window pane or sit elegantly in your garden, could also fall ill? You have learnt something new…they do get sick. They not only fall ill, but also medicate themselves…and they even have home remedies.

Jaap de Roode, who studies ecology and the evolution of parasites says, “As a biologist, I have been studying monarch butterflies for the last 10 years. Now, monarchs are extremely famous for their spectacular migrations from the U.S. and Canada down to Mexico every year, where millions of them come together, but it’s not why I started studying them. I study monarchs because they get sick. They get sick like you…like me. And I think what they do can tell us a lot about drugs that we can develop for humans. The parasites that monarchs get infected with are called ophryocystis elektroscirrha –– a mouthful. What they do is they produce spores, millions of spores on the outside of the butterfly that are shown as little specks in between the scales of the butterfly. And this is really detrimental to the monarch. It shortens their lifespan, it reduces their ability to fly, it can even kill them before they're even adults.”

Roode grew some greenhouse plants for his butterflies because monarchs are “picky eaters”. Roode tells us they eat only milkweed as larvae. Roode has observed them so closely that he says they eat different varieties of milkweed and, “…all these milkweeds have cardenolides in them. These are chemicals that are toxic. They’re toxic to most animals, but not to monarchs. In fact, monarchs can take up the chemicals, put it in their own bodies, and it makes them toxic against their predators, such as birds. And what they do, then, is advertise this toxicity through their beautiful warning colorations with this orange, black and white.”

In this process of feeding monarch butterflies, Roode came across some butterflies which got sick. He also found, “…that some of these milkweeds are medicinal, meaning they reduce the disease symptoms in the monarch butterflies, meaning these monarchs can live longer when they are infected when feeding on these medicinal plants.”

The most interesting finding is that when mother monarchs lay their eggs they do so on the medicinal plant so that their larvae have less severity of the disease. Mothers are wise even as butterflies!

Roode has observed, “… monarchs strongly prefer the medicinal milkweed… what these females are doing is they’re laying 68 per cent of their eggs in the medicinal milkweed…they actually transmit the parasites when they’re laying the eggs. They cannot prevent this. They can also not medicate themselves. But what these experiments tell us is that these monarch mothers can lay their eggs on medicinal milkweed that will make their future offspring less sick.”

Roode looks at this phenomenon to uncover larger solutions to the problem of contagious diseases that affect humans. “…these are animals that are very small and we tend to think of them as very simple. They have tiny little brains, yet they can do this very sophisticated medication…we know that even today, most of our drugs derive from natural products, including plants, and in indigenous cultures, traditional healers often look at animals to find new drugs. In this way, elephants have told us how to treat stomach upset, and porcupines have told people how to treat bloody diarrhoea. What I think is important, though, is to move beyond these large-brained mammals and give these guys more credit, these simple animals…The discovery that these animals can also use medication opens up completely new avenues, and I think that maybe one day, we will be treating human diseases with drugs that were first discovered by butterflies…”

The bottom line as of now, remains that motherhood is synonymous with wisdom, eh?

sudhamahi@gmail.com

Web link:http://goo.gl/MQnRr7

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