Monarch Watch Update - June 6, 2001
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
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Contents:
1) Welcome!
2) New and improved Butterfly Condos
4) New t-shirts, mugs, mousepads, and more!
9) Sad News
10) How to unsubscribe from this update
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1) Welcome to Monarch Watch's Update list!
You are receiving this email because you have provided Monarch Watch with your email address at some point and expressed interest in receiving updates from us. If you do not wish to receive these periodic (probably monthly) email updates or feel that you were subscribed in error, please see the unsubscribe information at the end of this message.
If you know someone that you think might be interested in receiving these email updates from Monarch Watch with monarch news, special announcements, tips on raising monarchs in your classroom, monarch tagging information and a whole lot more, please send them on over to
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/signup
to join our new Monarch-Watch-Update email list - it's easy!
Monarch Watch (http://www.MonarchWatch.org) is a not-for-profit educational outreach program based at the University of Kansas. We run a Monarch tagging program and offer Monarch Rearing Kits, Monarch Tagging Kits, and other promotional/educational materials that allow you to actively experience the Monarch life cycle and its spectacular fall migration.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us anytime!
Your friends at Monarch Watch
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
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2) New and improved Butterfly Condos
This fall we will be offering these wonderful insect rearing tents once again. These 24" x 24" x 24" (approx.) white mesh and clear plastic collapsable tents are perfect for raising and observing Monarchs other insects at home or in the classroom. Details and photos will be posted on our website soon.
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250,000 Monarch Watch tags have been ordered and will arrive in 6-8 weeks, just in time to begin shipping the Tagging Kits beginning August 1st. We ran out tags last year, so be sure to get your order for Tagging Kits or Tagging Membership Kits in early!
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/order
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4) New t-shirts, mugs, mousepads, and more!
Thanks to an online service called CafePress we are able to offer t-shirts, mugs, mousepads, baseball caps and more with several different designs. Visit our "store" (link below) to purchase these items and stay tuned for new products and more designs coming soon.
Also, if you have any ideas for these new products (or want to create your own design), please let us know and we will see what we can do :-)
Visit http://www.MonarchWatch.org/cafepress for complete details.
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If so, you can designate that a small percentage of your purchase amount go to Monarch Watch. Doing this does not affect your purchase price in any way as the 5% "commission" is paid by Amazon.com after your transaction is complete.
There are also several books that Monarch Watch does not keep in stock, but that we can offer via Amazon.com. By purchasing these books through our link to Amazon, Monarch Watch receives 15% of the purchase price.
Visit http://www.MonarchWatch.org/amazon for complete details about how your Amazon.com purchases can help support Monarch Watch.
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The Monarch Population Dynamics Meeting hosted by Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas from 20-23 May was a great success. We anticipated a meeting with 20 speakers and perhaps 40-50 attendees. Instead, there were 31 speakers (about 11 hours of talks in total), 8 posters (seven of which were presented by students), and a total of 90 attendees.
A detailed account of this meeting will appear in the 2000 Season Summary (http://www.MonarchWatch.org/order/seasum.htm) which will be published later this summer.
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The overwintering monarch population in Mexico was the lowest (2.83 hectares) yet recorded by Eligio Garcia for all overwintering colonies combined. If we use the number of monarchs per hectare suggested by Bill Calvert at the recent meeting in Lawrence (10 million) this means the overwintering population numbered roughly 28 million. Given that approximately half of the monarchs die during the winter and many more die on the way north before they have an opportunity to lay eggs, the number of female monarchs entering the US in March may have been in the range of 5-6 million.
The question is: Is this a sufficient number of females to result in a recovery of the population to normal levels (roughly 60 million) this breeding season? The answer is: Maybe! It depends on how successful the monarchs are in reproducing over the next three months.
Fortunately, even though the arrival of the monarchs was delayed in Texas and throughout the country, the rains of the previous fall, winter and early spring in Texas provided excellent conditions for milkweed and nectar resources for the breeding monarchs. Each year the key to the rest of the season often seems to be the reproductive success of the first generation. This year the reproduction seems to have been better than usual. Good numbers of monarchs have been seen moving northward through eastern Kansas since mid May and this movement has continued into June. More importantly monarchs arrived in the northern states in mid May and good numbers of eggs have been reported in a number of locations. At this point, the prospects are good for a fall population that will be larger than that of the drought-plagued 2000 season.
Our website is overdue for a redesign and/or revision. We have lots of great ideas, but we simply don't have the resources available to implement all of them at this time (see http://www.MonarchWatch.org/letter.html). So we'd like to hear what you think about the current site and the changes you would like to see made.
Please take 5 minutes to fill out our short survey at
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/sitesurvey/
or send an email message with your feedback and/or suggestions to our webmaster at
Thank you in advance!
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On the 13th of May, 23 year-old KU senior Shannon Martin was murdered while in Golfito, Costa Rica doing research. Shannon had worked in the Monarch Watch lab for 6 months and and was about to graduate with honors. She spent a semester in Costa Rica last year with KU's Study Abroad Program and returned for a week last month to collect additional plant samples for her research. Shannon's work will be completed by her advisor, Dr. Craig Martin (no relation). Shannon was a very positive and responsible person with a promising future in plant biology. She will be missed by all of us.
Lawrence Journal-World articles: http://www.ljworld.com/section/costarica
Obituary in the Topeka Capital-Journal: http://www.cjonline.com/stories/051601/obt_martin.shtml
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10) How to unsubscribe from this update
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http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
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