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)

A Monarch Watch Visit to the Monarch Reserves in Mexico

Some months ago Dennis Curtin, a writer of ebook instruction manuals on how to use specific cameras, contacted us concerning an ebook he is creating about monarchs. One communication and idea led to another as we discussed the development and marketing of his book. One of the book’s deficiencies at first draft was an absence of coverage of the overwintering monarch colonies in Mexico, and the obvious solution was to invite Denny, with his great camera skills, to join us on our March trip to Mexico. We learned a lot about Denny on this trip. Not only does he have a camera at hand most of the time, but he is a compulsive blogger. Each morning as I awoke I found him hunched over his computer punching out words with two fingers to capture the events of the previous day. Denny has compiled all of these daily jottings along with a kazillion photos into a journal describing the whole adventure:

Monarch Watch has a 9 year old fan

It’s always nice to hear about how Monarch Watch touches people’s lives…

Just thought I’d let you know how much Monarch Watch has influenced my 9 year old daughter. We’ve enjoyed visiting your tent at the Powell Garden’s Butterfly Festival for several years now. Last month, my daughter Zoe chose to participate in a local Science Expo and made her display on monarchs.

She even passed out fliers she made that said “Take Some Seeds Plant Some Milkweed” and included a small packet of seeds with each one. She was really proud that her display and fliers were very popular. This year she plans to make our butterfly garden an official Monarch Waystation.

Thanks for doing such a great job educating the public about monarchs. You’ve helped foster a love of science as well as gardening in my child. And I have no doubt that she’ll continue to be a monarch advocate throughout her life.

– Laura Darnell

That’s a great display Zoe – we (and the monarchs) thank you for your continued support!

Monarch Butterfly Conservation Talking Points

There are several organizations concerned with monarch conservation and among these is the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC), a tri-national consortium of more than 90 affiliated organizations (pollinator researchers, conservation and environmental groups, private industry, and state and federal agencies) from Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The major goal of the NAPPC alliance is to develop and implement an action plan to “coordinate local, national, and international action projects in the areas of pollinator research, education and awareness, conservation and restoration, policies and practices, and special partnership initiatives; facilitate communication among stakeholders, build strategic coalitions, and leverage existing resources; and demonstrate a positive measurable impact on the populations and health of pollinating animals within five years.”

I have been a member of the NAPPC Steering Committee since its inception in 2001 and two years ago a Monarch Task Force was created to address issues associated with monarch conservation. The following document was crafted over the last few months by members of this task force with input from other monarch experts – contributors are mentioned at the end of the document.

Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico each fall from Canada and the United States to overwinter in forested areas in mountains west of Mexico City. This migration is truly spectacular and is one of the most magnificent and intriguing of all natural phenomena. The very existence of this migration is under threat due to illegal logging at the overwintering sites in Mexico and the loss of habitat due to development, land management practices and chemically-aided agriculture in the United States and Canada. These talking points further describe the value of the monarch migration, the benefits of conserving monarchs and the steps needed to conserve the monarch migration.

1. As the world’s most spectacular and conspicuous long distance insect migration, the monarch migration has scientific and cultural value and should be preserved.

Monarchs utilize a broad geographic range during their unique and spectacular annual migration. This trans-boundary species is threatened by habitat loss in all parts of their range in Mexico, the United States and Canada.

2. Conservation of monarchs will benefit pollinators and many other plants and animals.

Monarchs can serve as international and iconic representatives of all pollinators. Monarchs use resources common to a large number of pollinators, and the size of their population therefore reflects, in part, the health of the environment for pollinators in general. The security and stability of our food sources and ecosystems are dependent on healthy pollinator populations, and conserving monarchs will protect the habitats for an abundance of species.

3. Understanding the status of the monarch population will help us evaluate many ecological problems, including climate change.

Decreasing monarch numbers resulting from habitat loss indicates other ecological problems at local, regional and international levels. Thus, better understanding of monarch needs and factors that impact their populations can have broad environmental benefits. Because of our understanding of the climatic requirements for monarchs during their annual cycle of breeding, migrating and overwintering, changes in the timing and location of monarch life stages provide indicators of climate change. Recognizing the realities and manifestations of climate change will provide the basis for adaptive strategies designed to help maintain biodiversity and the integrity of ecosystems.

4. Many existing educational and conservation programs focused on monarchs are available and need additional audiences and support.

Government agencies and many non-governmental conservation and educational organizations in the United States, Mexico, and Canada are committed to supporting monarchs. Additionally, there are many opportunities for the public to engage in monarch research via several citizen science programs. All of these efforts need additional support to further engage the public, schools, nature centers, municipalities and government agencies in efforts to create habitats for monarchs.

5. Preservation of the monarch migration will require cooperative efforts to protect, restore and create monarch habitat.

Sustaining the monarch migration will require extensive efforts to educate the citizens and decision makers of Mexico, the United States and Canada of the value of the monarch migration and the necessity of protecting, restoring and creating monarch habitats. The cooperation of citizens, institutions, municipalities, government agencies and decision makers within these agencies will be enlisted in this effort. The North American Monarch Conservation Plan provides a blueprint for and commitment to action.

6. Financial and scientific support for monarch conservation is crucial.

In order for monarch conservation to succeed, we must increase our knowledge about monarch ecology and develop support for implementing research-based conservation measures. Funding is needed to support basic research on habitat restoration in different regions in each country. Also in need of funding are the educational, conservation and research programs focused on monarchs that are so critical in engaging the public and educating both the public and decision makers about the monarch migration. Of particular importance in the United States is better understanding of the distribution and abundance of milkweeds and nectar plants used by monarchs as well as knowledge of how to restore milkweeds to habitats from which they have been eliminated.

Monarch Task Force
North American Pollinator Protection Campaign
Special thanks for the preparation of this document to Task Force Co-Chair Karen Oberhauser, Ph.D. University of Minnesota; Task Force Co-Chair Donita Cotter, US Fish and Wildlife Service; Chip Taylor, Ph.D. MonarchWatch; Kathie Christie, Pollinator Partnership; Robert Lamb, Pollinator Partnership; Brad Stirn, Pollinator Partnership; Larry Stritch, Ph.D., US Forest Service; Wayne Wehling, Ph.D., USDA APHIS; Harriet Crosby, Farview Foundation; Marietta Eaton, Bureau of Land Management, Lincoln Brower, Ph.D., Sweet Briar College, and Elizabeth Howard, Journey North.

Monarch Watch Trip to Mexico (overview)

We have just returned from our annual trip to Mexico to purchase tags recovered at the overwintering sites. This is just a brief overview of the trip – a more detailed report will be posted soon.

1. We purchased about 1,000 tags – some 400 over budget. We received several on-site contributions and we will acknowledge these in the longer report. It will take a couple of week to process this many tags – please be patient a bit longer.
2. Monarchs are heading north and the colony at El Rosario is breaking up rapidly. As reported via Dplex-L, monarchs were seen in Austin, TX on the 6th. This is right on time – end of first week of March – for the earliest monarchs to be reported inland from the coast in Texas and is consistent with the earliest departures from the colonies sometime in the last week of February.
3. The condition of the monarchs at the overwintering colonies is exceptionally good. The number of tattered and worn monarchs relative to those in excellent to near perfect condition is small.
4. Overwintering mortality appears to have been minimal.
5. Federal police have a presence in Angangueo and we heard no large trucks rolling through town in the middle of the night.
6. We met and interacted with a number of tours and individuals who were in the monarch area. More on that later.
7. I spent 4 days working with a film crew from Disney at El Rosario. Disney has commissioned a series of nature films and this film about pollination and pollinators is scheduled for theaters in 2010-2011. The working title for the film is Naked Beauty – but the bets are the title will be changed in time to something like “Nature’s Beauty: A love story that feeds the world”. The film crew was the largest I’ve worked with and there were three cameras going most of the time. The footage will be spectacular and like no other to date.

Monarchs are going to get a lot of press as a result of the Disney production. While acting as the science advisor for this portion of the Disney film, I spoke with reporters from England, France, Germany, Argentina, Mexico, and the United States. All are expected to file stories on the film and on monarchs in highly visible publications.

While we were in Mexico, at least two other film crews from National Geographic and Discovery Channel were making short documentaries on monarchs. I don’t know whether the latter two productions had scientific advisors or had any scientific content.

Oh, and don’t expect to see any people in the Disney film. It’s all about the pollinators. Once the production goes to DVD, there will be lots of background on the different pollinators and it is possible then that you may see a scientist or two and hear their voices as various shots, mostly those not used in the final cut, are shown.

More to come!

Abies religiosa and Danaus plexippus

Daniel Mosquin, Education and Technology Manager at the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, recently posted some photos and video taken at the Sierra Chincua Monarch Butterfly Reserve in Mexico. If you’d like to learn a bit more about Oyamel fir trees (Abies religiosa) – a major element of the monarch’s overwintering habitat – head on over to:

Botany Photo of the Day – Abies religiosa and Danaus plexippus

Try as he might to take better photographs of the fir trees (this is a “Botany Photo of the Day” feature after all), tens of thousands of monarch butterflies kept getting in the way!

World on the Move: Great Animal Migrations

Last year at this time I was working with a BBC Radio crew in Mexico to record observations of the overwintering monarch population – as a part of their “World on the Move” series of programs in which they followed many migratory species around the world.

Overall, the BBC interviewed me four times as they followed the monarchs throughout the year. In addition, Karen Oberhauser provided BBC listeners with a perspective of the arrival of monarchs in the northern breeding area and Homero Aridjis gave an outlook from a Mexican point of view.

If you are so inclined, you can still listen to these radio reports – which the BBC assured me were heard by up to 1.2 billion people around the world, but by few of you I’m sure. In addition to the interviews, there are lots of photos, video, and other commentary.

Here are the links – enjoy!

Running with Monarchs – Part I

Running with Monarchs – Part II

Running with Monarchs – Part III

Running with Monarchs – Part IV

Monarch Caterpillars

Running with Monarchs – Part V

Monarchs Return to Mexico

Monarchs and the Day of the Dead

World on the Move Species: Monarch Butterfly