Climate Corner: Tough times in Margaritaville

Feb 15, 2025

Linda Eve Seth

editorial@newsandsentinel.com

National Margarita Day – Feb. 22, 2025

If you are planning to celebrate National Margarita Day on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, here is something to think about as you make your plans: The margarita — triple sec, tequila, and lime juice — created in 1938 in Mexico, is facing a sustainability crisis. The delicious concoction’s main ingredient is threatened by changing weather patterns.

Beyond the lime wedges and salt lies a complex ecological story involving the blue agave plant – the cactus-like plant which forms the base ingredient of tequila – and bats, which are both under threat due to current shifts in the climate and agricultural practices.

Climate change is impacting agave plants primarily through increased drought conditions and extreme weather events which can disrupt their growth cycle and potentially threaten the production of tequila, as agave is the key ingredient for these spirits. While agave is naturally drought-tolerant, extreme fluctuations in temperature and unpredictable rainfall patterns still negatively affect its development and impact pollination, which are crucial for its reproduction.

The spiky plants are sensitive to sudden shifts in weather, such as extreme heat followed by unseasonable storms. These shifts caused by climate change, coupled with overgrazing from cattle ranching and other human activities, disrupt the distribution and cultivation of agave, the main ingredient of tequila. Agave plants also grow more quickly in hotter seasons, but they don’t concentrate as much sugar in their cores. This means that more agave plants need to be planted to meet the growing popular demand.

Compounding the problem, the only animal that pollinates this special plant is rapidly disappearing as its natural habitat and food sources succumb to a warming world. Agave plants are pollinated by bats. If you like tequila, you should love bats! Without bats, you can have no tequila because that’s the only thing that pollinates the agave plant that makes tequila. The bat-plant association is so strong that the disappearance of one would threaten the survival of the other.

Warming temperatures have become a growing concern for the Mexican long-nosed bat — a key species for tequila. Leptonycteris nivalis, known as the greater long-nosed bat or Mexican long-nosed bat, and the lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris curasoae), are the primary pollinators of this economically and ecologically valuable plant.

This agave-bat relationship is mutually beneficial. These one-ounce mammals fly over 750 miles each year — from their winter roosts in central Mexico to birthing caves along the U.S.-Mexico border — in search of flowering cacti and agaves. The bats rely on agave nectar to fuel their return trip, and the agaves depend on the bats to cross-pollinate their flowers so they can produce seeds.

A 2019 study showed that suitable environments for the species are being reduced due to the changing climate. New research has shown its natural habitats are disappearing and its food sources are starting to dwindle as temperatures rise higher in the region. Scientists warn that as bat numbers dwindle, their interaction with agave plants will be reduced by 75%.

The potential extinction of the bat would have negative effects on the sexual reproduction and genetic variability of agave plants, further increasing their vulnerability to future environmental changes.

But don’t despair! Help might be on the way: By combining educational resources with financial incentives, there is an opportunity to make sustainable practices more appealing to farmers. The goal is to strike a balance that benefits the environment, particularly the bats, while ensuring the long-term viability of the blue agave crop.

Scientists have recently learned that agave has a nocturnal “body clock” which allows it to “breathe” at night and withstand the driest of conditions. New research has shown that agaves have evolved to supply most of their nectar after dark to attract the nocturnal fliers. Now scientists are hoping to harness this reverse molecular clock to engineer new drought-resistant crops that will be able to adapt to our changing climate.

So, if you are celebrating National Margarita Day on Feb. 22, take a moment to raise your glass and drink a toast to the hard laboring scientists, wildlife organizations, and farmers who are striving to help keep tequila and margaritas available at your local bar/liquor store. SALUD!

Until next time, be kind to your Mother Earth.

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Linda Eve Seth, SLP, M Ed., mother, grandmother, concerned citizen and member of MOVCA.