1. The Monarch Larva Monitoring Project: a University/Citizen Research Initiative

3. Outline Protocol and Initial Findings Extensions Outcomes

4. 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

5. 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 > 1 year

6. MLMP Training www.mlmp.org

8. Past and Current Monitoring Locations as of Summer 2002

9. Weekly Monitoring Densities 1999 data from Cindy Petersen and students, Chanhassen, MN

10. Temporal Patterns Egg and L5 Densities in Upper Midwestern Sites, 1999

11. Egg densities in the Upper Midwest

12. Spatial Patterns

13. Spatial and Temporal Patterns: Monarchs in Southern US 2000 data from Kathy Phelps, Harrisburg, IL

14. Population Dynamics Total # of 5ths Total # eggs approximate measure of survival from egg to 5 th instar =

15. Upper Midwest Survival 2799 179 1223 10951 2423 1997* 2799 (# of eggs in blue) 3015 5539 10988 1223 180

16. Photo by Anurag Agrawal

17. Tachinid Fly Parasitism

18. MN and WI Survival

19. 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

20. MLMP Extensions

21. Risk Assessment: Bt Corn and Monarchs Losey et al. 1999 – Consuming Bt corn pollen can kill monarch larvae Milkweed is a common agricultural weed

22. Relative Usage of Habitats: MN/WI Anthesis: 7/19 - 8/7

23. Corn field in Rosemount, MN Overlap of pollen anthesis and monarch larvae

24. Round-up Ready TM Crops

25. Documenting Impacts of Environmental Perturbations January 2002 Mexico Storm

26. 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

27. MLMP Outcomes

28. 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”

29. 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

30. 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