Featured image: The population of monarch butterflies has plummeted over several decades. Credit: Mario Vazquez/AFP/Getty

Researchers in central Mexico have planted a forest of firs. Now they’re hoping the imperiled Eastern monarch butterflies will come.

Almost 1,000 oyamel firs (Abies religiosa) have been transplanted to a mountain in Michoacán, where they are growing at elevations beyond what was considered the species’ upper limit. If the trees survive over the next few decades, they could help to shield the migratory eastern population of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), which spend the winter roosting in oyamel fir forests, from the impacts of climate change.