The Monarch Larva Monitoring Project: a UniversityCitizen Research Initiative

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The Monarch Larva Monitoring Project a
University/Citizen Research Initiative
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Outline

• Protocol and Initial Findings
• Extensions
• Outcomes

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MLMP Protocol

• Volunteer and Choose a Site
• Gardens, parks, roadsides, prairies (need
  milkweed)
• Site Description
• Location, size, type
• Milkweed species and density
• Weekly Monitoring (2-3 hours)
• Estimate monarch densities
• Quantify milkweed quality
• Estimate parasitism rates
• Track weather conditions

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MLMP Volunteers

• Range in age from 20-85 (77 monitor with
  children)
• Variety of occupations (from teacher to aircraft
  inspector)
• More than half participate for gt 1 year

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MLMP Training
www.mlmp.org
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Monitoring Locations as of Summer 2000
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Initial Findings
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Temporal Patterns
Egg and L5 Densities in Upper Midwestern Sites,
1999
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Temporal Patterns
1997
1998
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Spatial Patterns
UMW NE UMW NE 1999
2000
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Spatial/Temporal Patterns Monarchs in Southern
US
2000 data from Kathy Phelps, Harrisburg, IL
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Population Dynamics
approximate measure of survival from egg to 5th
instar
Total of 5ths Total eggs

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Photo by Anurag Agrawal
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Tachinid Fly Parasitism
1999
2000 2
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Data Quality Issues

• Incomplete/unusable data
• Too few plants
• No plant numbers
• Inaccurate data
• No eggs, lots of larvae
• Too many eggs
• Over-representation of late-instar larvae
• Training, reviewing hard copies of data, and
  recognition of normal patterns help to address
  these issues

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MLMP Extensions

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Risk Assessment Bt Corn and Monarchs

• Losey et al. 1999 Consuming Bt corn pollen can
  kill monarch larvae
• Milkweed is a common agricultural weed

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Preliminary Findings Industry/EPA Summary

• Monarchs and Bt pollen shed may not coincide in
  time.
• Monarchs prefer milkweed away from corn.
• Few milkweeds are found very close to cornfields.

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Relative Usage of Habitats MN/WI
Corn gt Edge and non-ag (p0.002) Datehabitat
(plt0.001) corn 7/17-8/5
Anthesis 7/19 - 8/7
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Average height of milkweed (blue) in cornfields
compared to corn plants (black) for 5 MN sites.
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Round-up ReadyTM Crops
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Documenting Impacts of Environmental Perturbations
January 2002 Mexico Storm
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Research Questions

• Sources of mortality temporal/spatial variation
• Tachinid flies effects of habitat type, presence
  of other hosts, location and season
• Host plant choice
• Changing landscape and ag practices
• Multi-trophic level interactions

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MLMP Outcomes

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Key Motivators

• My work may help promote monarch conservation
• My work is leading to increased understanding of
  monarch biology
• I am involved in real scientific research

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Potential Obstacles
20 of volunteers feel that

• Monitoring takes too much time
• Finding a site to monitor is difficult
• Filling out the forms takes too much time

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Volunteer Testimony

• Involvement in this program has been an
  invigorating experience. It saved me from
  getting sucked into the black hole of the
  teaching profession.
• I share my information with a local radio show
  to help foster interest in habitat preservation,
  and talk to everyone I meet about the project.
• This is a great way to involve citizens in
  important research.

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Scientific Outcomes

• Much can be learned from basic distribution and
  abundance data
• In addition, data can
• provide direction for experimental and
  theoretical research
• inform public policy and conservation efforts