Hello MLMP monitors!
The season of monitoring is upon us! Monarchs have finally arrived in Minnesota and there is plenty of milkweed popping up all over. MLMP volunteers over the entire northern part of the summer breeding range are reporting their first eggs.
WHO’s WHO at MLMP
We wanted to introduce you all briefly to the 2008 MLMP team. Below is a little bit about each person, as well as their area of expertise, so you’ll know the best person to direct any MLMP questions you may have. Even more information and full color pictures of each team member can also be found on our website, www.mlmp.org, under the tab “About us”.
Karen Oberhauser - MLMP Director: oberh001@umn.edu
Karen and her graduate and undergraduate students at the University of MN have studied monarch reproduction, disease dynamics, overwintering biology, larval nutritional requirements, and larval ecology. Some of their more applied work has included a risk assessment of the potential impacts of genetically modified corn on monarchs, and impacts of common garden insecticides. Karen is excited by the way in which the MLMP blends monarch conservation, education and research; and is happy to have made the acquaintance of such a wonderful group of volunteers throughout the US.
Dina Kountoupes - MLMP Coordinator: kount002@umn.edu
Dina just completed her Master’s degree in environmental education. Her thesis evaluated the MLMP to learn how it could better serve a youth audience. She has continued to look at ways the MLMP contributes to monarch conservation and education, and is involved with developing curriculum materials for our Schoolyard Ecology Explorations program. She also helps coordinate the nuts and bolts of the MLMP programming and can answer many logistical questions you may have about monitoring.
Alma P. DeAnda - U of MN PhD student researcher: deand003@umn.edu
Alma is interested in plant-insect interactions and predator-prey dynamics. Currently she is working on predator-prey dynamics using monarch butterflies as a model system. Her work will provide the first comprehensive study of monarch population regulation during the breeding portion of their annual migratory cycle. Alma knows a lot about the insect world in a monarch habitat and would be a wonderful contact for questions you had about that subject.
Reba Batalden - U of MN PhD student researcher: smit2007@umn.edu
Reba’s research focuses on the effect that climate change could have on monarchs' summer and migratory habitat. This project relies heavily on data collected by MLMP volunteers. Reba would be a great person to contact with questions about monarch migration trends both locally and internationally.
Grant Bowers – MLMP community program assistant: bowe0182@umn.edu
Grant just finished his undergraduate degree in Biology at the U of MN in 2008. He has been working in the Monarch Lab since 2005. In addition, Grant has monitored monarchs, collecting data for both Alma and Reba’s research projects. Grant also took on his own monarch research as an undergrad, studying milkweed flower color inheritance patterns. Contact Grant about ordering monitoring supplies or any other monarch monitoring resources you may need.
Amy Witty – MLMP webmaster: webadmin@mlmp.org
Amy is our website guru. She manages the MLMP website as well as the monarchlab.org website. Along with collecting and organizing the huge amount of monarch data sent in from all over North America, she also takes any suggestions on how to make the interface for monitors as user-friendly as possible.
MLMP BLOG!
MLMP now has its own blog site at blog.mlmp.org (note that there is NO www in this URL). On the blog there are “posts” written by monarch lab team members that anyone can read. Anyone can also make a “comment” on the postings. To do this you simply click on the word “comments” under the posting and it will bring you to a new interface to write your comment. (*NOTE: you need to choose one of the authoring buttons on the bottom. I suggest clicking on the “name” button and just signing it in that way.) You do NOT have to have a Google account to leave a comment. You can also “subscribe” to the blog. When you subscribe you will receive email notifications whenever a new entry has been posted on the site. So check out what all the MLMP bloggers are talking about at blog.mlmp.org.
2008 NEWSLETTER now posted on website in FULL COLOR
Our latest newsletter has just hit the press and can also be printed off our website where it appears in full color. Just let us know if you would like a hardcopy by mail by contacting us at info@mlmp.org.
Happy monitoring!
From the MLMP Team at the University of Minnesota
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Letter to 2008 Volunteers
Dear Monarch Larva Monitoring Project (MLMP) Volunteers,
Welcome to a new season of monarch monitoring! This is the first of several periodic e-mails meant to increase communication among our monarch larva monitoring team. They’ll be short and infrequent to avoid clogging your in-boxes, and if you’d rather not receive them, please let us know.
1. Thanks so much for your contributions to the MLMP. With your data, we’ve learned a lot about monarch biology. We hope that monitoring monarchs provides an enjoyable way for you to learn more about your own corner of the world, and a good excuse to spend quality time outside.
2. There are two things that you should do once EVERY year, and we’ve noticed many volunteers (including us) forget these things. At the beginning of every season, you should update your site information. Even if nothing has changed, the site information data sheet asks when the milkweed first comes up at your site. A good strategy might be to do this on your first monitoring date every year. Sometime in the middle of the season, after the milkweed is up and before it starts senescing, or dying, you should estimate milkweed density, either by counting all of the plants on your site or using the sampling method described on the milkweed density data sheets. If you have an April or May birthday in the south, or a June or July birthday in the north, a good strategy would be to do it on the monitoring date closest to your birthday. Otherwise choose another date that you’ll remember from year to year.
3. We published two scientific papers using MLMP data in 2007. One looked at rates of parasitism by the tachinid fly parasitoid throughout the monarch’s eastern breeding range, and another used ecological niche and climate change models to predict where monarchs’ niche will be in 50 years. There are links to both of these papers on our website, as well as detailed summaries. We’re currently working with Dr. Leslie Ries from the University of Maryland and Scott Taron from the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network to come up with a comprehensive view of monarch movement and reproduction, using MLMP, NABA and datasets from Butterfly Monitoring Networks, particularly those in Illinois and Ohio.
Our next communication will include, among other things, a brief introduction to the folks at the U of M MonarchLab who are working on the MLMP. If you have suggestions for things to include, please let us know. We love hearing your monarch musings, questions and observations, and after you know more about what we all do, you can direct these to one of us specifically, or to all of us.
Thanks again, the University of Minnesota MLMP crew
Welcome to a new season of monarch monitoring! This is the first of several periodic e-mails meant to increase communication among our monarch larva monitoring team. They’ll be short and infrequent to avoid clogging your in-boxes, and if you’d rather not receive them, please let us know.
1. Thanks so much for your contributions to the MLMP. With your data, we’ve learned a lot about monarch biology. We hope that monitoring monarchs provides an enjoyable way for you to learn more about your own corner of the world, and a good excuse to spend quality time outside.
2. There are two things that you should do once EVERY year, and we’ve noticed many volunteers (including us) forget these things. At the beginning of every season, you should update your site information. Even if nothing has changed, the site information data sheet asks when the milkweed first comes up at your site. A good strategy might be to do this on your first monitoring date every year. Sometime in the middle of the season, after the milkweed is up and before it starts senescing, or dying, you should estimate milkweed density, either by counting all of the plants on your site or using the sampling method described on the milkweed density data sheets. If you have an April or May birthday in the south, or a June or July birthday in the north, a good strategy would be to do it on the monitoring date closest to your birthday. Otherwise choose another date that you’ll remember from year to year.
3. We published two scientific papers using MLMP data in 2007. One looked at rates of parasitism by the tachinid fly parasitoid throughout the monarch’s eastern breeding range, and another used ecological niche and climate change models to predict where monarchs’ niche will be in 50 years. There are links to both of these papers on our website, as well as detailed summaries. We’re currently working with Dr. Leslie Ries from the University of Maryland and Scott Taron from the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network to come up with a comprehensive view of monarch movement and reproduction, using MLMP, NABA and datasets from Butterfly Monitoring Networks, particularly those in Illinois and Ohio.
Our next communication will include, among other things, a brief introduction to the folks at the U of M MonarchLab who are working on the MLMP. If you have suggestions for things to include, please let us know. We love hearing your monarch musings, questions and observations, and after you know more about what we all do, you can direct these to one of us specifically, or to all of us.
Thanks again, the University of Minnesota MLMP crew
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Welcome to the MLMP Blog!
We hope that MLMP volunteers and other people interested in monarchs will contribute postings to this blog, sharing their thoughts, insights and observations. Please let us know if you have any suggestions for ways to improve the blog or ideas for things to include.
Karen
Karen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
