Monarch Watch “Fan” Page on Facebook

You can now find Monarch Watch on Facebook!

Check out our official “fan” page at

facebook.com/monarchwatch

and help promote our program by becoming a fan – we have 559 Facebook Fans so far and counting!

Becoming a fan is simple – just log in to your Facebook account (or create one, it’s free), visit us at facebook.com/monarchwatch and click the “Become a Fan” graphic near the top of the page…it should look something like this:

You can also click on the “Become a Fan” graphic right here:

Please feel free to pass this info on to friends, family, and other monarch enthusiasts you know – thanks!

Monarch Tagging Kits for 2009

Our tags for the 2009 Monarch Watch Tagging Kits arrived this week and we will begin assembling the kits this weekend! Those of you that ordered between January 1st and June 30th of this year should receive your tags within the next ten days or so.

If you haven’t ordered your tagging kits yet, there is still plenty of time before the migration begins – but the tags are going fast. If you would like to participate in monarch tagging this fall, please place your order for tags as soon as possible so that you don’t miss out.

Monarch Watch Tagging Kits are only shipped to areas east of the Rocky Mountains.

As usual, each tagging kit includes a set of specially manufactured monarch butterfly tags (you specify quantity), a datasheet, tagging instructions, and additional monarch / migration information. Standard Tagging Kits for the 2009 season start at only $15 and include your choice of 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, or 500 tags. Sets of 20 Mini Tagging Kits (5 tags each) are available for $40 – for Nature Center programs, etc. that would like to distribute a small number of tags to participants.

Monarch Watch Tagging Kits and other materials (don’t forget to pick up a butterfly net!) are available via the Monarch Watch Shop online at Shop.MonarchWatch.org

HAPPY TAGGING!

Monarch Population Status

The number of migrating monarchs this fall should be similar to those observed in each of the last three years and the total area occupied by monarchs at the overwintering sites in Mexico should once again be close to five (5) hectares.

The last two strong migrations in recent history occurred in 2005 and 2003. It appears that strong monarch migrations occur when the temperatures and rainfall are favorable during the breeding season, including the two periods of migration in the spring and early summer.

This year, the temperatures were a bit higher than normal during the March–April period but perhaps more important were the conditions during the period from late April through mid June. Temperatures in May and June were below normal in many areas, and Minnesota (one of the big production areas for monarchs) experienced below normal rainfall and moderate drought conditions. Overall, the production of monarchs in the south appears to have been moderate, followed by conditions that limited the numbers and reproductive success of the monarchs reaching the northern breeding areas.

Nevertheless, if you have been tagging over the last three years, you should expect to see and be able to tag a reasonable number of monarchs this fall.

Stay tuned for updates as the season progresses…

Plant Fundraiser A Success

Whew, we were busy! Our annual plant fundraiser last month was a huge success – a big THANK YOU goes out to everyone that came out to see us and buy plants for their gardens as well as all those that helped prepare for the event and assisted us throughout the day.

We welcomed nearly 1,000 visitors (our best guess) and a good time was had by all. As a part of our Spring Open House we had lots of things to see and do for kids of all ages – videos and games for children, tours of our garden and lab space, a ton of critters (all monarch life stages, silkworms, tarantulas, hissing cockroaches, cecropias, honeybees, mantids, etc.) and a whole bunch more.

We also had a number of webcams going that were broadcasting the event live over the internet to any Monarch Watchers around the globe that wanted to check in to see what we were doing.

Here’s a short slideshow (33 photos) of the day’s events:

Now we need to start getting ready for our fall events (butterfly festival, open house, tagging, and others) – see you there!

Spring Open House & Plant Fundraiser

It’s that time of year again!

Monarch Watch Spring Open House & Plant Fundraiser
Saturday, May 9th 2009 8am-3pm
KU’s West Campus, Lawrence, KS

This free public event usually attracts 500-1000 visitors and we expect the same this time around.

Nearly 4,000 butterfly plants (both annuals and perennials), including seedlings of several milkweed species, will be available (modest contributions are suggested). A list of available plants is posted at the bottom of the Open House page.

We will also provide refreshments, lots of show & tell, videos and games for children, tours of our garden and lab space, iChat videoconferencing demonstrations, and, of course, monarch butterflies!

We’d love to see you here so mark your calendars! If you can’t make it in person, be sure to check us out online – we plan to post photos and broadcast some LIVE video throughout the day.

Complete details, including a map and directions, are available online at

monarchwatch.org/openhouse

If you have any questions please feel free to drop us a line anytime!

Climate Report 2008

If I’m paying attention, I can find information about the environment every day in newspapers or on major websites that cover national and international news. The stories are often disturbing and I tend to make a mental note of the general themes and move on. There is too much bad news to absorb. Sometimes all these stories get pushed aside due to politics, conflicts, and disasters. This may be what happened with the report of the earth’s surface temperature for 2008 that came out recently:

I haven’t seen this report cited in the papers or on any of the major internet news outlets. The report was authored by the renowned James Hansen and a team of climatologists. If you don’t have the time or patience to read this article, scan the figures as they tell the story of climates past and show where we are at present. If you are a teacher of middle school or high school students, this report will give your students some of the background they need to understand the issues associated with climate change, a topic that all of us as concerned citizens should be aware of. The general increase in the surface temperatures of the world are shown in the figures. As predicted from all the models, Figure 1 (Right) shows that the temperate and arctic regions are heating up faster than the rest of the planet.

Figure 1. Left: Annual-mean global-mean anomalies. Right: Global map of surface temperature anomalies for 2008.

Note also the hot spot that represents California on this figure. High temperatures in California over the last 15 years are certainly one of the factors associated with the decline of western monarch populations but that is another story:

In Figure 2 you can see that global surface temperatures began to increase significantly in the 70s and they continue to rise. In spite of being a bit cooler in 2008 than in recent years, 2008 was still the eighth warmest year on record. But, there are other curious patterns in the climate data. I’ve spent many hours trying to relate monarch numbers to climate variability and one of the things that jumped out at me in the climate data was the dramatic shift in the pattern of year-to-year variation that began in the mid 70s.

You can verify this shift by visiting Climate at a Glance, and plugging in the data for winter months from 1895 to the present for your state or region of the country. Below is the record for Kansas for the month of March. Note how the amplitude of the variation of year-to-year temperatures has been reduced since the mid 70s. March temperatures used to be both colder and hotter than they have been in the last 30 years – on average – and the general trend is for warmer early spring temperatures. These warmer springs are one of the reasons for the phenology project.

March 1901 – 2000 Average = 42.59 degF
March 1895 – 2008 Trend = 0.19 degF / Decade

And then there is the October record for Kansas (check out your state). Again, we see that the amplitude of the average monthly temperatures for October show less variation from the mid-seventies to the present than at any previous time in this record.

October 1901 – 2000 Average = 56.72 degF
October 1895 – 2008 Trend = -0.02 degF / Decade

What does this mean? In general, it means that the last frosts in the spring will be earlier and the first frosts in the fall are later than in the past, giving rise to longer growing seasons. But, why is the warm period of the year getting longer and longer? There must be something larger at work here. What is damping the variation in the average temperatures of these months that provide the transitions from one season to another? I’ve shown these trends to a meteorologist and several ecologists and no one has been able to provide a good cause and effect explanation for these trends.

Unfortunately, there are no indications that the warming trend indicated by all of these data is going to slow down or decrease. Greenhouse gases that trap outgoing radiation are increasing. Indeed, given the rate of increase in the number of part per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in recent years (average increase in ppm per year for the last 5 decades starting in 1959 = .91, 1.23, 1.63, 1.53, 1.97 – from NOAA Research), it is likely that the global surface temperatures will rise even more rapidly in the coming decades. The prospective consequences of such changes are much debated but it is certain that emissions must be reduced or the world will be a very different and less hospitable place in the future.

2008 Season Monarch Tag Recoveries – First Look

We’ve posted a preliminary list of Monarch Watch tags recovered at the monarch overwintering sites in Mexico this spring. We are still proofreading this listing and will be revising and/or adding to it as we receive new information. As before, the records are ordered by tag code so that you can easily look for tags you have used:

2008 Season Monarch Watch Tags – Mexico Recoveries

If you have any questions about this list please feel free to drop us a line anytime!

Monarch Butterfly: Top Ten Facts

Although monarchs get lots of press, news accounts and video productions often contain errors and misrepresentations that detract from the quality of the productions. The source of these errors is not clear but a quick scan of a number of websites with information on monarchs reveals that there is a lot of confusion about the monarch migration and basic monarch biology. I have written two “briefing documents” that will, I hope, serve to reduce the number of errors appearing in the media. I’ve covered a good deal of basic biology in these materials and, if they contain errors, they are mine, and will be corrected if I’m shown to be wrong.

I have provided two versions of these briefing documents, a “top ten” (included below) based on questions frequently asked by reporters and a longer version (available at monarchwatch.org/press) that covers another 30 or so aspects of monarch biology.

MIGRATION
Hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies migrate from eastern North America to Mexico each fall to overwinter in the high elevation oyamel fir forests of the Transvolcanic Range of central Mexico. Monarchs are unable to survive freezing temperatures and those breeding in temperate regions must escape to moderate climates to reproduce the next season.

GENERATIONS
Most of the monarchs joining the migration each fall are 3-4 generations removed from those that made the journey the previous year.

TIME AND DISTANCE
The migration begins in mid August in the north and in September at mid latitudes. The migration progresses at a pace of 25-30 miles per day, although individual butterflies often fly further during periods when conditions are favorable. Most monarchs originate from locations more than 1500 linear miles from the overwintering sites. The duration of the migration appears to be 2-2.5 months.

RECOLONIZATION OF THE SUMMER BREEDING AREAS
The monarch breeding areas in eastern North America are recolonized by two generations of monarchs; the overwintering butterflies that move north in the spring and their offspring. The latter reach maturity and begin flying N/NE in late April, reaching the northern limits of milkweeds by mid-June.

LONGEVITY
Migratory monarchs that survive the winter in Mexico are 8-9 months of age and may be the longest lived of all butterflies. In contrast, reproductive monarchs breeding during the summer months only live 2-5 weeks due to the high cost of reproduction.

NUMBERS
Monarch populations are measured as the number of hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres) of trees occupied by clustering butterflies in mid-December of each year. The size of the population has varied from 2.19 to 18.2 hectares over the last two decades; averaging close to 9 hectares in the 90s and between 5-6 hectares in this decade.

NAVIGATION
Migrating monarchs in the interior of the continent fly in directions that seem to be geographically appropriate given the need to reach Mexico. How the butterfly determines these directions is the unanswered navigation question. Components of the navigational system that are known involve a time-compensated sun compass linked to the circadian clock, and a protein (Cry1) that is sensitive to blue light and ultraviolet wavelengths.

TAGGING
Tagging by Monarch Watch volunteers has helped define the migration window as well as the timing and pace of the migration. Tagging also shows that the probability of reaching Mexico is related to geographic location, size of the butterfly, and the date (particularly as this relates to the migration window for a given location).

DIMINISHING RESOURCES: THREATS TO THE MONARCH MIGRATION
During the breeding season monarchs require milkweed plants upon which to rear their larvae and nectar sources to sustain the adults during reproduction. Nectar sources are also required by the butterflies to fuel the fall migration to Mexico as well as the spring flights northward. Overwintering monarchs require shelter and water. All of these resources are diminishing. Deforestation at the overwintering sites in Mexico has eliminated a number of former colony sites and others have been badly degraded so as to reduce the shelter and water available to wintering butterflies. In the United States, 6000 acres are converted to development each day, eliminating milkweeds needed by monarch larvae and nectar sources required by adult monarchs. Chemically intensive agriculture and roadside management by excessive mowing and use of herbicides have also eliminated monarchs and their milkweed hosts. Lower numbers of overwintering monarchs in this decade may be related, at least in part, to habitat loss.

CONSERVATION
Sustaining the monarch migration will require the cooperation of all three countries (U.S.A., Canada, Mexico) that are home to monarchs for some portion of the year. Future efforts will be based on the “North American Monarch Conservation Plan” – a program that advocates the implementation of measures to enhance, restore, and protect monarch habitats.

Again, this document and the expanded version are available online at monarchwatch.org/press – additional materials will be added in the future. If you have any questions about any of these facts please feel free to drop us a line anytime!

New Monarch T-shirts

We’ve just added a couple of new t-shirts to our promotional and educational items available via the Monarch Watch Shop – both include a small Monarch Watch logo printed on the sleeve.

Our Monarch Metamorphosis T-shirt features a colorful illustration of monarch metamorphosis from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. The question posed on the front is answered on the back.

100% cotton t-shirt (natural) printed front and back with water-based ink for your comfort and our environment.

Available in Adult and Youth Sizes.

Our Milkweed Village T-shirt features a colorful illustration of monarchs and other insects you’re likely to encounter on milkweeds – an important resource for many insects.

100% cotton t-shirt (white) printed on the front with water-based ink for your comfort and our environment.

Available in Adult Sizes.

Remember, each purchase from the Monarch Watch Shop helps support Monarch Watch, so go get your t-shirts today!

Phenology 2009

Remember “phenology”?

This term was new to many of you last year when I tried to recruit Monarch Watchers to observe and report the seasonal development of milkweeds and nectar plants used by monarchs. Phenology seems like a strange word and it is all too similar to the more familiar term – phrenology (the study of the bumps on people’s heads as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities). Phenology, on the other hand, is the study of the seasonal changes in plant and animal life brought about by increasing temperature in the spring. Recording the dates of phenophases, or stages, in the development of plants such as first emergence, first flowers, first fruits, is becoming an important means of assessing the impact of climate change. However, to be usefully applied to this end, the same data has to be recorded each year by many, many observers over broad areas of the continent.

Being interested in this topic, and in climate change, I contacted the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) last year and asked if Monarch Watch could become a partner in this endeavor. Fortunately, they agreed and Monarch Watch became their first partner organization. My hope was that this partnership would encourage many of you, as well as others who are interested in phenology, to record the developmental stages of milkweeds and nectar plants used by monarchs. Unfortunately, due to growing pains and the fact that everything in life and technology takes longer to accomplish than expected, the USA-NPN website wasn’t quite as ready or user friendly as it needed to be last season; however, the site is ready now.

Before logging on, you might want to review the justifications for this project and other articles posted to the Blog last year:

There are four simple steps to submitting your phonological observations for milkweeds and monarchs via the USA-NPN website:

1. Sign up to become an observer – be sure to select “Monarch Watch” as the Partner Organization at the bottom of the form. Shortly after clicking the “Create new account” button at the bottom of the page you will receive an email message with further instruction.

2. Select your observation site and your plants and register them online.

3. Learn the phenophases for your plants and begin making observations. In the “Search Plants to Monitor” form be sure “Monarch Watch” is selected as the “Partner” to narrow the plant list to the fourteen species we are interested in at this time.

4. Report your observations online.

As mentioned above, there are fourteen Monarch Watch plants – five milkweeds and nine nectar plants. The plants were selected on the basis of their distributions, seasonal importance to monarchs, and period of bloom. A click on each name in the species search will take you to a page with a picture of the flower, a brief description of each plant, and an explanation of the observations you should make.

Other milkweeds and numerous other nectar plants can be found among the plants of interest listed by NPN.

Rather than recording each observation online as it happens, I keep a file on my computer called Phenology 09 (a notebook works well too) to which I add observations made as they occur. The plan is to submit all of the data toward the end of the spring and once again later after the mid and late season observations have been made.

Keeping your own personal records is useful in that it helps you anticipate seasonal changes but also tells you how the present year compares with previous seasons.

The climate is changing and all predictions are that the rate of change is going to accelerate in the coming decade. These changes are certain to affect monarchs and the milkweeds and nectar plants upon which they depend. My hope is that I can persuade many of you to record the phenology of these plants so that we can better understand the relationship of monarchs to the resources they utilize.

Recent articles on this topic:

Local citizens to help catalog climate change
The Kansas City Star, March 2009

First bloom: Butterfly network enlists citizen scientists to record rites of spring
Kansas Alumni magazine, January 2009 (74K PDF file)