MLMP Website Redesign Coming!

We will be shutting down the MLMP website temporarily beginning on Friday evening, March 5, 2010. It will be down for several days while we migrate all of the monitoring data into our new database format. When the site comes back online, it will have a whole new look and feel. If you have any questions, comments, or experience any technical difficulties, please contact us.

Monarchs in Maryland

"We seemed to have an abundant year by the number of chrysalids that I saw in our gazebo. I even had a chrysalis on our soda vending machine that I had to rescue." -Stephanie Jacob, Upper Marlboro, MD

Hello and happy autumn to all MLMP volunteers!

I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your participation in the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project in 2009. Your contribution is an invaluable part of monarch conservation research!

The Northern U.S. monarch season is over (with 2 inches of snow here today in St. Paul, MN!) yet the Southern U.S is still going strong with welcomed rains bringing new growth and vigor to the milkweed. As the monarchs begin their migration south to Mexico, I wanted to bring your attention to an interesting article on monarch migration research recently covered by the BBC. There are some very cool findings about how those little butterflies find their way back to those Fir trees on that same mountain in Mexico every year. You can read the article by clicking on the link below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8273069.stm

I would also like to remind participants to please send in your original monitoring data sheets, if you haven’t already. It’s important that we have original data for validity of this 12-year-long citizen science research project.

Monarch population analysis for the Upper Midwest of the U.S. based on MLMP monitoring data.

Click on graph (at right) for larger view.

Recently, we have looked at our volunteers’ monitoring data and have been doing some analyses of the Upper Midwestern monarch population. Above is a graph that shows a compilation of data - eggs per milkweed plant observed – throughout the upper Midwest. The data represented in the graph combine all sites in that region. The height of the bar is the proportion of plants occupied by a monarch egg on the peak July week for each year (eggs per milkweed) from 1996-2009. The data for 2009 are incomplete, since not all volunteers have reported in yet.

Overall, it's hard to see a clear trend - certainly the last few years have been below average (the average is 0.13 eggs per milkweed), and we haven't had a "big year" for a long time. Note that in both 2002 and 2004 there were freezes at the two largest monarch overwintering sites in Mexico, causing the deaths of tens of millions of monarchs. We can see the dips in the monarch population during those years on the graph.

Dina Kountoupes and Karen Oberhauser
MLMP
University of Minnesota

Monarchs in Texas - October 2009

MLMP volunteers are really helping us to understand the dynamics of the fall southward migration. For years, we've been noting the occurence of eggs as monarchs move through Texas in the fall. This year, after months of terrible drought, monarchs are moving into a well-watered central Texas, and are responding to the fresh milkweed by laying eggs - perhaps breaking diapause in response to these ideal conditions for reproduction. Read the following Oct 3 post from Kip Kiphart, volunteer MLMP coordinator at Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne TX, for more:

"What an incredible day at Cibolo Nature Center Wildlife Field Research doing MLMP@CNC monitoring. We checked 114 milkweeds and found 50 eggs and 9 1st instar monarch larvae. Both double WOWs. Two weeks ago there were no milkweeds found in our milkweed patch. Last Saturday 40 milkweeds and 3 eggs were found. What a difference the rains have made! The hanky - panky is not confined to CNC. Monarchs are fooling around in Mary Kennedy's garden, and one of the MLMP@CNC volunteers sent me a photo of a 5th instar munching on A. texana in his garden." Kip Kiphart MLMP@CNCBoerne, TX

What good is a butterfly?

I received the below on the Pollinator Listserv, and thought that it was well worth reading to the end.

Best, Karen

From Bill Hilton:

There have been lots of butterflies flitting around as of late, which reminded us of a query once posed by Marston Bates: "What good is a butterfly?" That odd question long ago had major impact on the way we study and teach about natural history, so we decided "This Week at Hilton Pond" to ruminate on a butterfly's value. To view our latest photo essay for 22-31 August 2009, visit http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek090822.html. While you're there, please scroll down for a list of all birds banded and recaptured during the period, plus some miscellaneous nature notes--including one about a significant local increase in hummingbird numbers. Happy Nature Watching!

BILL HILTON JR. Executive Director
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road, York, South Carolina 29745 USA
(803) 684-5852

Monarchs on Minnesota Public Radio

I was recently interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio, discussing monarch numbers (as reported by MLMP volunteers) in Minnesota this year. You can read or hear the interview at

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/08/19/minnesota-monarch-butterfly-population-falls/

Ilse Gebhard, MLMP volunteer from Kalamazoo Michigan, just got back from a week in Michigan's upper peninsula. She and her husband stopped at Peninsula Point (Stonington Peninsula) on 8/13/09 and saw no monarchs aggregating there. They did see monarchs daily flying (no directional flight) or nectaring as they were driving or walking east and north of Peninsula Point in the central and eastern UP wherever they went.

It's also been dry in central Michigan, where Ilse lives. They only had .55 inches rain on 5 different sprinkle events in a 7 week period between 6/20 and 8/8/09. They've had adequate rain since then.