The invisible threat to monarchs in our homes and backyards

Hello blog readers and fans of monarchs,

Today's blog entry is going to be a bit different from most others, since today, I'm going to discuss a topic for which there is almost NO research relating to monarchs! That's right, to my knowledge, this issue has rarely been studied in the world of monarchs, at least not directly, but yet, it really, really needs to be, as you'll soon see. As the blog title indicates, there is an invisible threat lurking in all of our homes and yards, even our neighborhoods - a threat to monarchs and all other insects, and to some degree, even to us humans!

I'm talking about electromagnetic radiation. This is an all-encompassing term for any radiation given off by all of our modern technology, including our latest high-tech devices, but also our common household appliances, like toasters, fridges, and even clock radios! Basically, everything that is plugged in to a socket gives off radiation, in the form of electric radiation or magnetic radiation, or both. We humans can't see it or feel it, though we can test for it. I recently did this, in order to gather some information for an upcoming project. I purchased a small, handheld radiation tester on Amazon, pictured below, and spent some time walking around my own house, yard, neighborhood, etc., getting a sense for how prevalent this radiation is. It was an eye-opening experience!

Me, measuring my toaster, which indicated unsafe levels when on!

This device gives two readings - one for electric radiation, and one for magnetic, and the three lights at the top glow when the radiation for either is "above the safe level" for humans. In case you are wondering, the World Health Organization recommends magnetic daily field exposure limits of 0.08 "microteslas" or µT. For occupational settings, the limit is typically higher, at 0.4 µT. At 2 Teslas, people can get nausea and dizziness. As for the electric radiation levels, for the general public, the limit is often 5 kilovolts per meter (kV/m) which is 5000V/m, while for occupational settings, it's typically higher, such as 10 kV/m. In my toaster example above, my device registered 0.27µT and 56 V/m, and this was registering as "unsafe" levels right next to the toaster.

Anyway, once I spent some time reading about these limits, I walked around with this device in my pocket for a few days, pulling it out now and then. It beeped. A lot. Meaning, it detected unsafe levels a lot, even in my own house. What I learned is that there are electrical and magnetic fields everywhere, from lamps, to overhead lights, to clock radios, and even the wall sockets. But the one saving grace (to us humans) is that the fields wane with distance from the origin, as in, within a few feet.

Here is an example, I turned on my microwave and held up the detector one foot away. It beeped (unsafe levels). 2 feet away, it beeped. at 3 feet, it stopped beeping. Another example - it detected unsafe levels when held next to a lamp (!), but then this waned moving away by a foot. Basically, everything that has a power cord (and even the power cord!) gives off fields of invisible radiation, which is highest next to the emission source, but wanes quickly with distance. And, I learned that the stronger the emission source, the farther away you need to be to be "safe." Interestingly, some of the strongest sources appear to be appliances with heating components, like hair driers, toasters, microwaves and air fryers.

Now for the outside. In my researching and walking around, I learned that there are some "hotspots" even in my own yard, where my device beeped, like when standing under the power line that runs to my house, or the power lines running down the street. Even when the lines are 20 feet above my head, I was still getting beeping at ground level. Scary. At least this too waned with distance from the line though.

Then, I also checked out a local power "substation" down the road, where power from the grid is transformed for household use and distributed. A screenshot of one of these from the internet is pictured below. You see some of these in every county in the country. As you might expect, my device beeped even before getting out of the car, and when walking around the spot, it was registering the highest levels I ever got. And, these levels were still high within 50 yards from the station.

OK, so I think you get the gist here - what I learned is that we humans are living in a world of hidden radiation in our daily lives. Is it making us sick? Good question. There is oodles of biomedical research on this issue, at least with humans. From my read, it seems like there is good evidence that things like cancers, brain issues, and other health problems do tend to be higher for people living in high-exposure situations. Though this is another situation kind of like smoking though, like where cigarettes are known to be a risk factor for cancer, but not everyone gets cancer from smoking. It's more of a statistical relationship. So if you live next to a power substation (I hope you don't), you are at a higher risk for health problems.

Now, here is what I learned about how this radiation affects insects. While there is little research focusing exclusively on monarchs, there is some solid research with other bugs, and I read a number of thorough review papers on the topic. From this work, one thing is clear - insects are much, much more sensitive to radiation than us big humans are, as in, like 100 times more sensitive! This has been shown in a lot of very controlled research, where researchers exposed bugs in their labs to different levels of radiation to monitor their health (or mortality). And they consistently found that even the tiniest levels can mess with insects internally, or simply outright kill them. In other words, the "unsafe levels" for insects are miniscule compared to ours.

This also means that the "unsafe distances" for insects would be greater than ours. The device I used was certainly detecting radiation in my own house at low levels even standing away from the powered devices, and, that level was easily within the danger zone for insects. The same would be true in my backyard, where the power lines overhead would be emitting radiation that could easily affect insects even if they were not near the line. And the power substation? Any bug within the grass, the fields nearby, etc, would be easily affected.

The extreme sensitivity of insects, combined with the sheer ubiquity of our manmade radiation, has even led to recent scientific speculation that this radiation is one of the factors responsible for insect declines. One review paper is even titled, "Electromagnetic radiation as an emerging driver factor for the decline of insects." Here is a link - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144913.

Now, here is where it gets really interesting (and scary) for monarchs. While it is true that there is no direct research on how these fields affect monarchs, there was one study years ago that bears mentioning here. It was conducted by Chip Taylor's lab in 1999, and it was a study done to understand how exposure to electromagnetic radiation affects the adult monarchs' ability to navigate during the fall migration. The idea here is that monarchs have an internal "compass" that tells them which way to fly, and it is based on their detection of the earth's magnetic field. At the time, scientists were only beginning to understand how monarchs can navigate, and there was speculation that they have an innate ability to sense magnetic radiation. Taylor and his crew wanted to test this, by trying to "disrupt" their navigation when exposed to a very powerful electromagnet.

Briefly, they captured 300 fall migrants, and held some next to a powerful magnet (with a strength of 0.4 Teslas) for just 10 SECONDS before placing them them onto a board in the middle of a field. Those that had been exposed to the magnet did not fly off in the normal southward direction, instead, flying randomly. Thus, this project proved (in a cruel way) that monarchs do use a magnetic compass, but it also proved that this compass can easily be disrupted by exposure to an electromagnetic field.

So, when you put all of this together, it becomes clear that even if the magnetic or electrical fields are not strong enough to outright kill monarchs, their navigational ability could easily be disrupted if they are exposed to them. Keep in mind that Taylor's team only exposed wild, adult monarchs for 10 seconds! What would happen if a caterpillar were developing on some milkweed under a powerline, for example, where it basically grows up in constant exposure to the radiation? Or if there are caterpillars on milkweed in someone's backyard near their porch that happens to have a radio plugged in? If a monarch spends its entire early life being exposed to this radiation, will it's navigation be disrupted? No one knows.

Think about this too - what about powerline cuts, where there tends to be patches of milkweed, directly under high-capacity powerlines? Or roadsides, where powerlines run directly overhead?

Or, what about the people who rear monarchs in their homes - even though scientists (like me) scream at these people to stop doing this, they still do, thinking they are helping. And, a lot of research has shown how these home-reared monarchs are not as good at migrating as those from the wild... hmmm. See where this thought is going?

As you can see, this is a scary topic, not just for insects, and monarchs, but also for us humans, because of the sheer ubiquity of the threat, and, because we can't see it. It really is an unseen danger. And, we really, really do need more research on this. Though if you think about it, what would more research do for us? Confirm that yes, the threat is real? Then what?

OK, now that I've given you the chills, I'll finish for now.

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Direct link to this blog entry:

https://www.monarchscience.org/single-post/the-invisible-threat-to-monarchs-in-our-homes-and-backyards

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