MJV Webinar: Designing Monarch Overwintering Habitat in California: Advances in Measuring Canopy Structure and Modeling Microclimate

Join the Monarch Joint Venture for the February session of the Monarch Conservation Webinar Series.

Title: Designing Monarch Overwintering Habitat in California: Advances in Measuring Canopy Structure and Modeling Microclimate

Presenter: Stuart B. Weiss, Chief Scientist, Creekside Science

Western monarch butterflies migrate from inland breeding areas to the California coast each fall, where they seek wind-sheltered sunny nooks within forest groves of all shapes, sizes, and species composition. Bringing many of these sites under scientific management to maintain these microclimate conditions is a priority for monarch conservation. We use several tools to quantify canopy structure and microclimate. Hemispherical photography (hemiphotos) looks from below, and identifies “good” canopy gaps that let in sun, and “bad” canopy gaps that let in wind. LiDAR (laser

scanning from above) builds a 3-D model of the forest that complements the hemiphotos, and allows for modeling sunlight using ARCGIS, and wind using WindNinja and Eddy 3D. This talk highlights several case studies of canopy analysis, management recommendations, and monarch responses that illustrate the process.