Spring Open House & Plant Fund Raiser

Everyone is invited to join us this Saturday (May 10th 2008 8am-3pm) for what very well may be our last Spring Open House and Plant Fund Raiser at our current location on KU’s West Campus.

This year’s event will feature activities for children, with the special assistance of Brenda Mott from the Children’s Museum of Kansas City from 11AM-1PM. We will also have live exotic and local insects, videos of monarchs and bees, a honey bee observation hive, and 4,000 continuously blooming butterfly and hummingbird plants you can select from for your garden – and/or as a gift to mom for Mother’s Day. Naturally, we will have lots of milkweed available 🙂

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

We’d love to see you here so mark your calendars! If you’re unable to make it in person, be sure to watch the Blog for photos and updates throughout the day.

Complete information including photos from a past event, directions, and a map is available online at monarchwatch.org/openhouse/

Preliminary List of 2007 Season Recoveries

A preliminary list of Monarch Watch tags retrieved from Mexico last month is now available:

2007 Season Recoveries List

The records are ordered by tag code so that you can easily look for tags you have used. We are in the process of adding them to our Tag Recovery Database and hope to have the complete records online soon.

For further discussion of the recoveries this year, see our “2007 Season Tag Recoveries” posting made earlier this month.

If you have any questions please feel free to drop us a line at monarch@ku.edu

Milkweed and Nectar Plant Phenology Project – Part 3

The University of Kansas issued the following press release last week, calling for fellow Kansans to get involved in our recently announced phenology program.

You don’t have to live in Kansas to participate – we would like to encourage anyone and everyone in the U.S. to join in! This is a great project for classrooms, nature centers, families, and those interested in making additional uses of their Monarch Waystation habitats.

Kansans asked to track climate change in their own backyards

Monarch Watch, a citizen science outreach program at the University of Kansas, invites school children, gardeners and interested citizens to observe and record the growth of 16 common and easily identified plants through the growing season in Kansas.

“With all the talk about climate change, one might suppose that such changes would affect the growth of plants and the first appearances of some birds and mammals,” said Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch. “In fact, scientists are just beginning to record seasonal changes in plant and animal life in a systematic manner.”

The study of the seasonal “firsts” such as first robins, first shoots or first flowers is known as phenology. Monarch Watch is collaborating with a nationwide effort headed by the National Phenology Network to record the phenology, or “firsts,” for plants that are important to the success of monarch butterfly populations.

Input from the public will help scientists to distinguish changes that are due to unusual weather patterns from those attributable to long-term climatic changes.

To participate, visit the Monarch Watch blog (“Milkweed and Nectar Plant Phenology Project“) describing “firsts” that require observation.

Next, record the date of the observed “firsts,” such as first flower, in a notebook and submit the data at the National Phenology Network Web site.

“There are only a few scientists and they can’t be everywhere to record the many ‘firsts’ each year,” said Taylor. “That’s why we need citizens to help. We need observers everywhere.”

Monarch Watch is particularly interested in plants such as milkweeds that are hosts for monarch larvae and nectar plants that are visited by adult butterflies to fuel reproduction or migration.

“Studies of the year-to-year differences in the first appearances of these plants will help us understand the yearly differences in the size of the monarch population,” said Taylor.

Other groups are tracking plants important to honey bees.

Earlier plant growth and flowering due to climate change are of increasing interest to scientists. In 2007, March in Kansas was warmer than in any year since 1910 — with the result that in some areas garden plants, crops and native plants were as much as 12 days ahead of normal by April 2. Then came the “big freeze” of April 4-10, with as much as 60 hours of freezing temperatures.

“It was simply too warm too soon,” Taylor said. “The result was devastating for crops and for all plant life in eastern Kansas as well as the wildlife that was dependent on the pollen, nectar, foliage or fruits, nuts and berries that would have been produced.”

This year is cooler than normal — but how much are plants delayed?

“If we can get lots of people to record their observations, we can make sense of these year-to-year changes,” Taylor said. “Participation in this study is quite easy.”

How Does Your Garden Grow? – Part 2

Last month (“How Does Your Garden Grow?“) I outlined my intention to show you how to use our Monarch Watch Temperature Loggers to record the temperatures in your garden and how to use the data to determine the growing degree days required for different plant species, especially milkweeds, to reach particular stages such as first shoots, first flowers, etc.

The temperatures for the winter (December-February) and March for Monarch Waystation #1 and for Lawrence are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1. Winter and March temperatures (2007-08) for Monarch Waystation #1, Lawrence, KS.

Table 2. Official winter and March temperatures (2007-08) for Lawrence, KS.

As I noted last month, the garden is both warmer and colder than the official weather station for Lawrence. Nevertheless, the mean temperatures are similar. How these differences will translate into growing degree days remains to be seen.

The mean temperature for Lawrence for March was 41F, quite a bit cooler than the average of 46.3F recorded from 1971-2000. In Kansas, the mean temperature for March (1895-2007) was 42.6F degrees and the temperatures this year are much lower than for 2007 in which the mean temperature was 52.2F, second only to the 54.7F recorded in 1910. As you may recall, due to the high temperatures, plant growth was advanced by as much as 12 days last spring leading to disastrous consequences when the jet stream, with temperatures in the teens, dipped into the lower Midwest and swept into the Southeast. In many areas there were 60 or more hours of freezing temperatures resulting in crop losses from Kansas to South Carolina (Figure 1). Fortunately such events are rare and less likely in years such as this one since temperatures through March have delayed plant growth to some degree.

Figure 1. Cold wave of 4-10 April 2007.

From NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC

A sample of the data from one of the data loggers in our garden is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Temperatures recorded for the first 12 hours of 2 March 2008 (data logger #1).

To record the number of degree days (DD) these data have to be imported into a Degree Day Workbook. The workbook calculates the DDs for each hour and summarizes the total number of monarch degree days for each day and for each month. The DD output for the first 6 days of March 2008 for Monarch Waystation #1 is shown in Figure 2. The Degree Day Workbook now found in the Monarch Watch Forums is in the process of being modified so that you can enter data for each month of the year. You will also be able to specify if you wish to calculate the degree days for either monarchs or plants. The methods are the same but the ranges of temperatures over which growth occurs are different for plants and monarchs.

Figure 2. Temperatures and monarch degree days for the first 6 days in March 2008.

There are two things to note about Figure 2: 1) the number of DDs is zero if the temperatures for the entire day are either above or below the developmental thresholds for the monarchs or plants and 2) the most important data is the accumulated DDs (Acc. DD) in the last column.

Assuming there are no freezing temperatures during the period of measurement, the number of degree days required for each of the monarchs’ life stages is: egg 45C/113F, larva 187C/369F, and pupa 120C/248F or about 720F for each generation (egg to egg). For a further discussion of degree days please see “Degree Days and Monarch Growing Season“

2007 Season Tag Recoveries

Predicting the number of monarch tags recovered in Mexico each winter is a bit of a guessing game. If we hear of a winter storm causing a lot of mortality at the colonies, we can anticipate that many tags will be available. Following mild winters the number of tags recovered might be as low as 150 from the tens of thousands of monarch butterflies tagged the previous fall. This winter was quite mild, perhaps even a bit on the warm side, and there was only one report hinting at higher than normal rates of mortality. So, we headed for Mexico expecting to acquire roughly 300 tags but were prepared to pay for up to 600 should this many be available. To our surprise, there were over 600 tags available. In fact, if we had had the funds, we could have purchased 200 more. Adding those purchased to those donated to Monarch Watch by various visitors to the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (MBBR) brings the total number of tags recovered in Mexico this season to about 670.

Why were there so many tags this year? Two factors were involved: increased mortality at Cerro Pelon and encounters with residents with many tags collected during previous seasons. The colony in the El Capulin edijo formed in a degraded forest and moved into an area with an open canopy later in the winter. This combination led to the death of millions of monarchs due to exposure and consequently the recovery of over 90 tags at Pelon – more than four times the normal rate of recovery for this location. Because we are only able to visit each of the monarch sites once each winter, we don’t meet with everyone who has tags. This year we encountered many residents who had older tags along with some from the 2007 tagging season:

Series	Quantity	Year Issued
J	329	2007
H	139	2006
G	75	2005
E	13	2004
C	19	2003
B	8	2002
A	22	2001
multiple	25	pre-2001

Most of you have sent us your datasheets and these have been sorted into eleven large binders. If you haven’t sent in your data, please do so. If we buy tags for which there is no data (and this happens about 20% of the time) it is money wasted – please send in your data!

We are beginning to process the recovered tags and will be reporting on these recoveries in the coming months.

Butterfly on the Brink

The University of Kansas has just posted a feature entitled “Butterfly on the Brink” on their website, in conjunction with a news release. Both deal with conservation issues surrounding one of North America’s most celebrated natural wonders – the monarch butterfly migration.

The feature includes photos and video from our recent trip to Mexico, audio and video interviews with our Director, Chip Taylor, and lots of information regarding threats to the monarch butterfly migration from both deforestation in Mexico and the loss of summer breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada.

Please take a moment to read through the information, enjoy the photos and video, listen to the audio, and then help us by sharing the link and/or information with others – whether it be via email, your own website, a newsletter or flyer, or in person.

Thank you for your continued support of our conservation efforts!

Monarch Butterfly Conservation

In a previous blog entry (“Deforestation and Monarch Conservation“) I outlined my concerns about the loss of monarch habits in both the United States and Mexico. Although my intention in the earlier piece was to draw attention to problems confronting monarch butterflies, I also made a few suggestions as to what has to be done to protect them. To further the discussion, I offer here some thoughts as to what needs to be done to ensure the monarch butterfly migration will continue.

Clearly, we need an international dialog about how to conserve monarch butterflies. Such a dialog has begun with the development of a plan for monarch conservation. The North American Monarch Conservation Plan, which will soon be made public, deals with many of the biological issues related to monarchs including concerns about habitat loss. Unfortunately, the plan is unfunded and it is not clear whether or if funding will be available to implement the plan in a timely manner. Some of the suggestions below are similar to those in the plan, while others are novel and more direct approaches to the problems associated with habitat loss.

We need to create, conserve, and protect monarch butterfly habitats – the following are suggested actions to save the migration of the monarch butterfly.

In the United States and Canada:

In Mexico:

Milkweed and Nectar Plant Phenology Project – Part 2

On the 29th of February I announced the “Milkweed and Monarch Phenology Project“. I was a bit vague about the details but can now tell you that Monarch Watch is working with the National Phenology Network (NPN) to record the phenology of milkweeds and nectar plants used by monarch butterflies.

By the end of the month NPN will have a new web page and the plants we wish to track for monarchs will be incorporated into their lists of plants that are being tracked nationwide. Finding the milkweeds and nectar plants in this list won’t be too difficult but the whole process of recording the monarch plants will become easier by the first of May when NPN completes an interface page that is designed specifically for Monarch Watch and monarch butterfly plants.

For further justification of the need to record the phenology of plants, insects, and birds, please see “Global Warming Rushes Timing of Spring” (ABC News).

As I mentioned in my original posting on this topic, to generate the data needed to make useful comparisons from year to year, we need hundreds of monarch watchers, and those of you with Monarch Waystations, throughout the country to record your observations. This project is a great one for kids. We need to get our young people to become aware of what is happening seasonally and to our planet.

Since you won’t be able to enter your data at the NPN website until the end of the month, please keep notes on the first emergence of milkweeds and first buds, etc. for now. I’ll announce when it is possible to record your data on the NPN website.

Deforestation and Monarch Conservation

The rapid degradation of monarch habitats in both Mexico and the United States is now too compelling to ignore. We must act.

DEFORESTATION AND MONARCH CONSERVATION
Chip Taylor (Monarch Watch)
13 March 2008

Earlier this month, Lincoln Brower, Dan Slayback, Robert Simmon, and Isabel Ramirez published NASA photos showing deforestation within the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. At the time of publication, we (Monarch Watch) were in Mexico buying recovered tags as part of our program to assess the dynamics of the monarch migration. We visited four monarch colonies and witnessed first-hand the impact of deforestation. The rapid degradation of monarch habitats in both Mexico and the United States is now too compelling to ignore. We must act. In this communication, I’ll summarize my views on the effects of habitat loss in Mexico and the United States and will reflect on what needs to be done to conserve the monarch migration.

Impact of Deforestation on Monarchs

Deforestation is already contributing to the mortality of overwintering monarchs. In the winter of 2006-2007 a small monarch colony formed at a site known locally as Aseradero on the northwest aspect of Cerro Pelon, one of the most deforested areas in the region. The trees at this location were relatively small (4-10 meters) and offered little protection from winds and cold weather. A large proportion of the monarchs died at this site when the temperature dropped below freezing in January 2007. No surviving monarchs were present when we visited this location in March 2007 (see “New Tree Nursery Near Cerro Pelon”).

The degradation of the forest surrounding the Aseradero colony can be seen in satellite photos of the area (see monarchwatch.org/mx/aseradero.jpg).

This year at Cerro Pelon, the El Capulin colony formed in a relatively degraded forest near the top of a ridge. Monarch colonies typically move during the winter and tend to progress down southwesterly-facing slopes. In this case, the monarchs moved progressively down-slope to the northwest across a badly degraded area and settled in the Las Canoas arroyo where we saw them on the 6th of March. There is one large tree in the arroyo and it was covered with monarchs (see monarchwatch.org/mx/capulin.jpg and monarchwatch.org/mx/capulin-tree.jpg). The surrounding trees were also covered with monarchs but there was little in the way of canopy to protect the butterflies from freezing temperatures. I was shocked to see how exposed this colony was at this time but now realize that it has been exposed through most of the winter, resulting in the death of millions of monarchs. Typically, 10-20% of the monarchs at each colony die of various causes during the winter, though rainfall followed by freezing temperatures can be devastating as it was in January of 2002 and January and February of 2004. Excessive mortality due to exposure throughout the winter is not the norm for monarch colonies. Evidence of greater mortality for the El Capulin colony this year comes from eyewitness accounts and is also reflected in the number of tag recoveries. In years without catastrophic mortality due to winter storms, we recover an average of twenty-two tags from the residents of communities on Cerro Pelon. The tags are usually found on dead butterflies beneath the clusters and the numbers recovered from most of the colonies appear to be proportional to the overwintering mortality. Ninety-two tags were recovered at Cerro Pelon this season – more than four times the typical rate of recovery.

Deforestation

The rate of deforestation in the Monarch Biosphere Reserve exceeds the rate of natural forest replacement and the current efforts at reforestation. It is simply not sustainable and must be reduced. Estimates of the rate of deforestation vary depending on the time period, the authorities involved, and perhaps the methodologies used to make the estimates. Nevertheless, it is clear that the average annual rate of deforestation (2-5%) is devastating the monarch overwintering habitat and destroying the forests that sustain the water supplies supporting the people in the region. Nearly all of the old growth forests with >200 year-old oyamel fir trees are gone from the monarch reserve and for decades monarchs have overwintered in areas with trees ranging from 40 to 80 years of age. In the last two years, possibly due to the lack of more mature forests, monarchs have attempted to overwinter at three sites at which most of the trees were less than 15 years old. Such forests do not protect the monarchs from periodic freezes and monarch mortality is known to have been high at two of these sites.

Illegal logging persists in spite of President Calderon’s attempts to crack down on these activities (see “Crackdown on Illegal Logging in Mexico”) and it seems certain to continue. Local residents at Cerro Pelon told me that 2-3 loaded logging trucks leave the core zone on that mountain each night – with the knowledge of local officials. In their view, the only way to control illegal logging is to station rotating units of the Mexican army in areas where illegal logging is extensive. Stopping illegal logging may be impossible, but reducing these activities to manageable levels through enforcement and incentives is needed to slow the rate of degradation of these forests.

Reforestation

At current levels of planting, reforestation can’t keep pace with deforestation. Close to half of the 56,259-hectare Monarch Biosphere Reserve is degraded and in need of some degree of reforestation. Two reforestation efforts are underway, one by World Wildlife Fund Mexico (WWFMX), in collaboration with the Mexican government, and the other by the Michoacan Reforestation Fund (MRF). The former has planted more than 2.1 million fir, pine, and cedar trees (mostly in the core of the reserve) over the last 4 years. MRF, using contributions from individuals and grants from American Forests, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and United States Fish and Wildlife Service has worked with the La Cruz Habitat Protection Project in Mexico to plant more than 2.7 million fir and pine trees (mostly in the buffer zone and areas adjacent to the reserve) over the last 10 years. Although both of these programs are striving to reforest the monarch reserve, more trees need to be planted just to keep pace with the rate of deforestation. Frankly, reforestation efforts need to increase 2-3 fold in the next few years so that areas progressively degraded over the life of the reserve can be replanted. A promising development is the creation of a new tree nursery with the capacity of 800,000 seedlings per year at San Juan Xoconusco by WWFMX and Mexican government agencies (see “New Tree Nursery Near Cerro Pelon”). Four additional nurseries are in the planning stages, each with an annual capacity of 50,000 seedlings. MRF is increasing its capacity as well but more money is needed by both of these programs to assure that more seedlings are propagated, planted, and well tended.

The ease of reforestation depends greatly on the type of landscape being planted. Areas that have been selectively logged and contain mature trees reseed and therefore require little planting. Landscapes that were formerly crop lands are easily reforested as secondary growth is readily controlled. Clear-cut areas, which are rapidly invaded by dense 3-4 meter tall weedy vegetation, are particularly challenging to reforest since this vegetation competes for light, space, and nutrients and chokes out the newly planted trees. The north side of Cerro Pelon has been nearly clear-cut and the growth and survival of seedlings planted in the cut over areas appears to be quite low (see monarchwatch.org/mx/pelon.jpg). Reestablishing the forest on this slope will involve many replantings, take a long time, and cost a great deal.

Habitat Loss in United States

Habitat loss in the United States is also a threat to the monarch population. Development consumes 6,000 acres (9.4 square miles) a day, 2.2 million acres per year – this is roughly equivalent to losing an area of habitat the size of the state of Illinois (the 24th largest U.S. state) every sixteen years. In addition, the adoption of Roundup® Ready soybeans and corn has reduced monarch habitat by at least 100 million acres since 1996 (see “Roundup Ready Crops and Resistant Weeds”). Further, the incentives to produce biofuels over the last three years is leading growers to convert monarch habitat in the form of marginal lands and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acreage to cornfields. In an attempt to compensate for these losses, Monarch Watch initiated the Monarch Waystation program in 2005. The goals of this program are to create, conserve, and protect monarch habitats and to educate the public about the need to do more to preserve wildlife. To date, 1,900 Monarch Waystations have been certified and registered, but this is not enough. We need to create and protect more habitat for monarchs and other species. It is easy for me to envision the monarch migration as already being on a long slow death spiral – I have worked with monarchs for the last sixteen years and witnessed habitat degradation in both the United States and Mexico. Indeed, the population may be declining already (see “Overwintering Monarch Population 2007-2008”). What a shame it would be to lose this magnificent natural phenomenon – a sad indictment of the quality of human stewardship. This need not happen; all of the problems associated with monarch conservation can be solved. We need the will, cooperation, and dollars (and pesos) to make it happen.

The Solutions

A Mexican colleague wisely pointed out that the monarchs will not be saved unless a way is found to make the living trees more valuable than those that are cut for lumber. This statement makes sense but how can the “collective we” (i.e., all of those interested in monarch conservation including WWFMX and the Mexican government) convince the members of the ninety-one ejidos and indigenous communities in the monarch reserve that it is in their best interests to protect the forests? A possible solution is a system of incentives. To make the living trees more valuable may require paying the local residents to plant, thin, and otherwise maintain the forests rather than paying them not to cut the trees. A system of incentives involving fair compensation for forest management, rather than one of prohibitions, is badly needed. Incentives available to all communities are likely to be more successful than the present scheme in which some of the communities benefit from tourism while others do not receive this source of income. Some progress is being made in providing incentives through funds available from the Monarch Fund. This fund, which is administered by WWFMX, was established from a $5 million grant from the Packard Foundation with an addition of $1 million from the Mexican government and a total of $750,000 from the states of Michoacan and Mexico. The interest from this fund is used to pay cooperating communities. However, these funds (about $224,000/year) are not sufficient to engage the residents of all the communities within the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in the level of stewardship required to sustain the forests. Fully funding the incentive program I envision will necessitate an increase in the Monarch Fund’s endowment from the $6.75 million at present to at least $25 million. Endowments are used to sustain many worthwhile programs and could be used effectively to conserve monarchs as well. This incentive program is not the only solution. Complimentary programs such as Alternare are needed to train local residents so they can more efficiently farm their lands and develop alternative sources of income.

Monarchs as a Metaphor for Conservation

Monarch conservation involves international and local politics, inadequate international cooperation, insufficient funding, habitat loss due to legally sanctioned development and illegal exploitation, a group of passionate advocates, and a largely uninformed and indifferent public. Efforts are underway to improve international cooperation but progress is slow. Insufficient funding limits most conservation efforts and that is the case here. More funding is needed to support international cooperation, reforestation, and protection of the existing forest resources.

Further, the planet is changing rapidly and monarchs are certain to be negatively affected by global warming and indirectly affected by increasing levels of carbon dioxide, nitrification, and the increasing unpredictability of rainfall (see “Changes in the Composition of Plant Communities”). To effectively protect the monarch migration, we will need to address numerous political, economic, and environmental issues.

Acknowledgements

Lincoln Brower, Carlos Galindo Leal, and Eduardo Rendon Salinas provided information used in this summary but all the opinions in the above are mine. Jim Lovett, Ann Ryan, and Janis Lentz reviewed the text and provided useful suggestions.

Orley R. “Chip” Taylor
Director, Monarch Watch
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045

Where in the World?

Some of you may have noticed that we have been out of touch this month. So where in the world were we? Instead of giving you 1,000 words at this time, I think a quick photo of Ann and I that Chip took last week should do the trick for now. We’ll have lots more to say and show very soon – stay tuned!