RBI Assistant 2022 · Question 37 of 118

What did scientists’ study convey about eastern monarchs? Read the given passage carefully and answer the following questions. Certain parts have been highlighted to help answer the questions. The monarch butterfly is threatened with extinction, but will not come under federal protection because other species are a higher priority, federal officials announced. Monarchs have long captured human hearts, fluttering through yards, parks and fields on wings that look like miniature works of art. But their numbers have been decimated by climate-change-fueled weather events and pervasive habitat loss in the United States. “We conducted an intensive, thorough review u sing a rigorous, transparent science-based process and found that the monarch meets listing criteria under the Endangered Species Act,” Aurelia Skipwith, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement. “However, before we can propose listing, we must focus resources on our higher-priority listing actions.” As part of the decision, monarchs’ status will be reviewed each year by the agency and conservation efforts will continue. The number of Eastern monarchs — which undertake an astonishing, multigenerational migration from as far north as Canada to overwinter in central Mexico — has declined by 75 percent since the 1990s, scientists estimate. Across the Rocky Mountains, Western monarchs have seen an even more alarming drop. Some of this collapse is tied to a need for milkweed, the only plant that monarch caterpillars can eat. Milkweed has declined across monarch breeding grounds throughout the United States since farmers started using crops that are genetically modified to tolerate Roundup, a brand of weedkiller. Milkweed often grew among crops, but cannot survive spraying. In recent years, as the monarchs’ _____________has grown more dire, a movement has emerged to sustain the species by planting milkweed for caterpillars along with other native plants that nourish the adults. Everyday citizens, advocacy groups and government agencies have planted 500 million milkweed stems, officials said, providing a lifeline for monarchs. But given the increasing toll from climate change, which is fueling winter storms that wipe out millions at a time in Mexico, droughts that kill them in the United States and temperature changes that may cause them to migrate too early or too late, efforts to protect monarchs have not been enough. “While all of these people that care about monarchs are doing a lot of positive things, there are a lot of negative things happening at the same time,” said Karen Oberhauser, a conservation biologist at the University of Wisconsin who has studied monarchs since 1985. “We’re running as fast as we can to stay in the same place.”

Reading Comprehension

1. AMonarch butterflies are mainly inhabitants of East America which later spread throughout the country
2. BThe number of monarch butterflies has decreased by one-third since 1990Correct
3. CMonarch butterflies are migrating from central Mexico to Canada which has a cold climate
4. DBoth (a) and (c)
5. EBoth (b) and (c)