June 2024: A research paper titled "Insecticides, more than herbicides, land use, and climate, are associated with declines in butterfly species richness and abundance in the American Midwest" has been published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE. The butterfly data for this study came from monitoring surveys conducted by four volunteer programs associated with the North American Butterfly Monitoring Network. The full paper is available online at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304319.
News
2024: Thanks to a collaboration between Carolinas BMP director Jeff Pippen and Paul Super of the NPS Appalachian Highland Science Learning Center, a new butterfly monitoring program is launching! This monitoring program will extend coverage of butterfly monitoring into the Blue Ridge Mountain region of Virginia, specifically along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Welcome to our new volunteers!
In March of 2023, the Carolinas Butterfly Monitoring Program (CarBMP) was launched. The program aims to track butterfly populations using scientifically sound, standardized survey methods as well as opportunistic sightings across both North and South Carolina.
July 2020: The New Mexico BioPark Society is launching a statewide New Mexico Butterfly Monitoring Network. This program aims to contribute to the scientific knowledge of New Mexico’s butterfly fauna. Through this initiative, the BioPark Society will continue to fulfill its commitment to wildlife conservation, education, and the community. The standardized long-term data collected by citizen science volunteers, will be utilized by researchers, land managers, and conservationists to evaluate trends in butterfly populations.
In 2019, Monarch Joint Venture launched an education program which has received support from US Forest Service, as well as donations and fees. This program provides:
- Professional development workshops to teachers, educators, partners, and other stakeholders
- Curated educational resources to share widely within and outside of the MJV partnership
- Webinars to inform the public on current issues and science updates in monarch conservation
- Local outreach to communities where MJV staff are based
In 2019, the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network conducted over 1000 butterfly surveys. We celebrate this milestone for one of the longest-running butterfly monitoring network!
This past December (2013) the overwintering Monarch butterflies covered only 1.65 acres of forest in Mexico, compared to 7.14 acres in 2011. This is a record low since the monitoring of the overwintering colony began in 1993, which covered a record 45 acres in 1996. The steep decline in the population size over the last decade is due to both unusual weather events that impede migration & reproduction, as well as declining availability of the milkweed host plant due to increased herbicide use in the midwest.
Read more from the New York Times.
2014: 1st Data Management Workshop for New Database (PollardBase) to allow data entry and management of pollard-based monitoring schemes
Location: Peggy Notebaert Museum, Chicago, IL
Participants: Doug Taron, Karen Wilson, Allan Lawrance (IL-BMN), Ashley-Anne Wick, Kyle Bibby, Sarah Redding (MI-BMN), Jaret Daniels (FL-BMN), Steve McGaffin (TN-BMN), Nathan Brockman (IA-BMN)
Groups planning to use our new system, PollardBase, gathered to be trained on the database and give feedback. The system, launching April 1st allows volunteers to enter surveys directly through a web portal and for directors to manage and share data. In the future, we will add visualization and download tools for the public.
2nd Data Management Workshop for New Database (PollardBase) to allow data entry and management of pollard-based monitoring schemes
Location: Peggy Notebaert Museum, Chicago, IL
Participants: Doug Taron, Karen Wilson, Allan Lawrance (IL-BMN), Tad Yankoski (MO-BMN), Sarah Garret (CO-BMN), Jutta Burger (Irvine Ranch Conservancy), Regina Rochefort (Cascades Butterfly Project), Leah Morgan (Northeast-BMN)
Groups planning to use our new system PollardBase, gathered to be trained on the database and give feedback. The system, launching April 1st allows volunteers to enter surveys directly through a web portal and for directors to manage and share data. In the future, we will add visualization and download tools for the public.
SESYNC funds new working group focused on the analysis of insect monitoring data.
PIs: Dan Sheldon, Justin Calabrese, and Leslie Ries
Project summary:
The recent explosion of citizen‐science programs is a result of an increasingly engaged citizenry eager to document their interactions with nature coupled with the science community’s need for biological data at the largest spatial and temporal scales. Insects have an increasingly high public profile, are known to be sensitive indicators of change, and are key ecosystem service providers. The surge in the number of citizen‐science insect monitoring programs together with the recent release of powerful climate products offers new possibilities to make the most of insect distribution data over continental scales. Our ultimate goal is to develop the best visualization and analytical platforms to share these data and increase the connection between the public and the scientific, conservation, and policy communities. But first, we must determine the best approach for utilizing these neglected datasets. We have assembled a team of experts in informatics, computational biology, and mathematical, statistical, and ecological modeling. Our focus will be four diverse insect orders: Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), Hymenoptera (bees and ants) and Coleoptera (beetles). The three main goals of this Venture are to 1) develop general analytical models to extract the most robust population indices from citizen‐science insect monitoring data; 2) integrate daily growing degree day models to improve model parameterization and account for changing climates; and 3) perform cross‐validation analyses for programs with different protocols. This Venture will be a timely effort to take advantage of the current enthusiasm for citizen‐science programs and lay the groundwork to develop novel platforms to increase public engagement in understanding our current biodiversity crisis.