Frequently Asked Questions
The following questions have been compiled to assist both MLMP users and volunteers. If you still have questions after reading the following, please email us. Click on the Question to be directed to the Answers.
Training
Q1. I would like to volunteer to monitor monarch populations
in my area. How can I be trained to monitor my own site?
Q2. We are a nature center outside the state of Minnesota and
would like to host a training sessions for several nature centers in our
area. How do we go about doing this, and what are our responsibilities?
Monitoring
Q3. When should I start and stop monitoring my site?
Q4. There have been no monarchs at our site so far this year.
Do you still want my data even though it shows no monarchs?
Q5. I recently came back from vacation and my site was mowed
down. What should I do now that I no longer have milkweed?
Q6. How will the data that I collect be used?
Q7. I have a question about activity #4, Comparing Plants Occupied
by Monarchs to Random Plants. I found an additional 7 monarch eggs when I
filled out the sheet on Characteristics of Random Milkweed Plants. Do I transfer
this data over to the sheet Characteristics of Milkweed Plants with Monarchs
sheet and double count them, or do I keep the counts separate?
Q8. Can I report daily temperature and rainfall data from my
home or the National Weather Service if it is collected close to my site?
Milkweed Community
Q9. I have observed gnawing by other insects on the milkweed
plants. What eats milkweed leaves like a caterpillar besides monarchs?
Q10. I observed a mass of 50-100 caterpillars (not monarchs),
about 1/3 inch long and white with black heads. The first stage of the larva
looks slightly furry and light brown. They are skeletonizing the milkweed,
eating everything but the veins and ribs. Any idea what these might be?
Q11. As I am monitoring I find a lot of eggs, but I don't see
many larvae. What would most likely be eating the eggs or first instar larvae?
Q12. I read that while there are 106 types of milkweed, monarchs
only lay their eggs on certain kinds and that they avoid others becasue of
the level of toxicity. I'm worried because the only type of milkweed we have
so far is the butterfly weed (asclepias tuberosa) and it has no milky substance
in the plant. What milkweeds do monarchs like?
Monarch Biology
Q13. How do you tell which "instar" a larva is in?
Q14. Is it unusual to find more than one monarch egg on a milkweed
plant?
Q15. Do the same monarchs that migrate to Mexico each fall
return to my area each spring? How long does a monarch live, and how far
can they fly in a day?
Answers
Training
Q1. I would like to volunteer to monitor monarch populations in my area. How can I be trained to monitor my own site?
A. The training methods are described on our website (www.mlmp.org). You could teach yourself by using the directions on the website, or attend a training session given by a naturalist who attended a train-the-trainer session in your area. The dates of these sessions are found by clicking on the "training" tab on the webpage.
Q2. We are a nature center outside the state of Minnesota and would like to host a training sessions for several nature centers in our area. How do we go about doing this, and what are our responsibilities?
A. Contact us (oberh001@umn.edu) to see if a training session in your region fits into our long-term plans. If it does, we ask that the cooperating nature center takes care of all the recruiting and planning, and schedules meals and lodging for the naturalists that attend. We pay all of these costs and also pay your nature center about $1800 for doing the planning.
Monitoring
Q3. When should I start and stop monitoring my site?
A. It's best to monitor every week as soon as the milkweed comes up. It is just as important to document monarch absence as it is to document presence. You will almost always see eggs before you see adults. In the fall, you should monitor until all of the monarchs are gone. We recommend going out twice after you've seen your last egg or larva.
Q4. There have been no monarchs at our site so far this year. Do you still want my data even though it shows no monarchs?
A. We definitely are interested in your data. Even though it is discouraging to find nothing, understanding where there are no monarchs and when is just as important as learning where and when there are monarchs. This is so important after the storm in Mexico because if we learn that mortality like that affects different locations in different ways, we'll learn a lot about monarch distribution and population dynamics.
Q5. I recently came back from vacation and my site was mowed down. What should I do now that I no longer have milkweed?
A. You should note that it was mowed in the notes for that site, and then hopefully when the milkweed comes back it will have even younger plants that are more attractive to monarchs. If no milkweed comes back within a few weeks, you won't be able to monitor – at least until next year.
Q6. How will the data that I collect be used?
A. Once your data is entered into our database, you will be able to see graphs showing the numbers of monarchs that were found at your site each week that you monitor. Graphs for each year are also posted for all of the other sites that are a part of this project, along with annual graphs for the eastern population. The data you collect will help us answer basic ecological questions about the abundance and distribution of monarchs over time and geographical locations. A more comprehensive list of questions that the data can be used to answer appear in the monitoring section of the website.
Q7. I have a question about activity #4, Comparing Plants Occupied by Monarchs to Random Plants. I found an additional 7 monarch eggs when I filled out the sheet on Characteristics of Random Milkweed Plants. Do I transfer this data over to the sheet Characteristics of Milkweed Plants with Monarchs sheet and double count them, or do I keep the counts separate?
A. The goal with these two activities is to compare a random sample of plants to plants with monarchs on them. Some of the random plants may have monarch eggs or larvae on them and you should just note the monarchs as invertebrates on the plants. You can also put data for theses plants onto the Characteristics of Milkweed Plants Occupied by Monarchs sheet. However, if you are going to count them in your density count for the week, you need to include the 30 plants that you checked as part of your sample size. You should only do this if your random sample of plants did not cross the transect you took to get monarch density. Thus, you aren't really double-counting them.
Q8. Can you collect daily temperature and rainfall data from your home or the National Weather Service if it is collected close to your site?
A. Collecting rainfall and temperature data from your site would be best since rainfall and temperature can be quite “patchy”. However, if the weather service station is within a reasonable distance from your site, then using that data would be fine. You should make a note of this on your data sheet.
Milkweed Community
Q9. I have observed gnawing by other insects on the milkweed plants. What eats milkweed leaves like a caterpillar besides monarchs?
A. Our field guide to invertebrates on milkweed will be available soon and should answer many of these questions. Milkweed beetles chew on the plants, as do milkweed weevils, milkweed bugs (although they mostly eat seed pods), milkweed tussock moths and some others. They all leave a characteristic pattern that you will learn to recognize.
Q10. I observed a mass of 50-100 caterpillars (not monarchs), about 1/3 inch long and white with black heads. The first stage of the larvae looks slightly furry and light brown. They are skeletonizing the milkweed, eating everything but the veins and ribs. Any idea what these might be?
A. These are milkweed tussock moth caterpillars. They are gregarious for the first week or so, and then will go their individual ways. They'll soon be furry with big tufts at each end of their body. The female lays an egg mass, and the larvae are synchronized in everything they do, including molting.
Q11. As I am monitoring I find a lot of eggs, but I don't see many larvae. What would most likely be eating the eggs or first instar larvae?
A. There are lots of things that eat monarchs! Ants, spiders, red velvet spider mites and stink bugs are some we see frequently. Some monarch larvae also die when their mandibles get gummed up by the milkweed latex.
Q12: I read that while there are 106 types of milkweed, monarchs only lay their eggs on certain kinds and that they avoid others becasue of the level of toxicity. I'm worried because the only type of milkweed we have so far is the butterfly weed (asclepias tuberosa) and it has no milky substance in the plant. What milkweeds do monarchs like?
A: There are actually very few species of milkweed that monarchs won't eat. Among the ones they will eat, they certainly have preferences. We know that female monarchs will lay their eggs on Asclepias tuberosa, and monarch larvae will eat it. However, we find in the lab that A. tuberosa is not one of their favorite milkweeds to eat. If you monitor a patch of A. tuberosa, you will likely find some eggs and larvae on it, but you may not find as many per plant as you would find on some other species (e.g. common milkweed [A. Syriaca] or swamp milkweed [A. incarnata]).
Monarch Biology
Q13. How do you tell which "instar" a larva is in?
A. If you look on our website under the monitoring tab, and then go to "tools", there's a section called the larval field guide. This shows you comparisons of the head and tentacle sizes for the different instars. The card sets, available in the monitoring kit, also give great descriptions of each stage.
Q14. Is it unusual to find more than one monarch egg on a milkweed plant?
A. It's not too unusual to find more than one monarch on a milkweed plant. Although an individual female usually lays only one egg per plant, multiple females may use the same milkweed plant.
Q15. Do the same monarchs that migrate to Mexico each fall return to my area each spring? How long does a monarch live, and how far can they fly in a day?
A. If you live in the northern part of the country, the same monarchs that leave in the fall, on there way to Mexico, don't return to your area in the spring. Monarchs that migrate to Mexico live about 8-9 months as adults (from late summer or fall until the following spring). When these monarchs return to the southern US in March, they lay eggs there and die. The offspring of the migrating monarchs are the ones you see in the mid-section and northern part of the country in the spring. Monarchs that you see in your area during the summer breeding season live about 4-6 weeks. The ones that migrate live longer because a) they don't reproduce until spring and reproduction uses up a lot of energy and other resources, and b) they are in a semi-dormant state while they are overwintering in Mexico. They can fly about 50 miles a day while they're migrating.