Monarch Joint Venture Webinar: The Science of Radio Tagging Monarchs

The Science of Radio Tagging Monarchs presented by Sean Burcher, Ashley Fisher, Lee Brown, Helen St. John

Project Monarch - Pioneering High-Tech Community Science- Project Monarch is a high-tech community science effort to track monarch butterfly migration.  The project relies on the combination of newly designed miniature radio transmitters and a free smartphone application. The transmitters weigh only 60 milligrams allowing them to be safely deployed on monarch butterflies without impeding their ability to migrate.  These transmitters also utilize the same frequency as Bluetooth, meaning that every smartphone has the potential to be a receiver.  The Project Monarch app allows members of the community to participate in the tracking effort by using their phone to detect nearby transmitters and then upload the detections to the cloud.

Applications of BlueMorpho Tags to Study Western Monarch Movement- Migratory monarch movement has long been a topic of study for conservation biologists and ecologists alike. The new technology of the BluMorpho tag opens a door for studying monarch migration and their winter movements with detail that was previously unattainable for researchers. I will describe an ongoing project that's using BluMorpho tags to document intersite movement of overwintering monarchs along the central coast of California. I'll detail the progress we have made so far, the problems we have encountered along the way, and our plans to expand the network of radio towers that can detect these tags throughout the west.

Techniques, tips and movement tales for telemetry-tagging monarch butterflies- With declines in monarch butterfly populations and the introduction of increasingly small radio telemetry tags, the international Motus telemetry tower network holds promise for understanding monarch butterfly movements throughout their annual cycle and pinpointing regions of conservation concern. Prior to using tags to track monarchs, however, it is critical to understand how tags impact monarch movement and survival. We collected flight path data to compare movement in untagged monarchs and monarchs tagged with Lotek NanoPin or CTT BlūMorpho tags from both breeding and migratory populations. In conjunction with this fieldwork, we conducted a greenhouse study to test the effects of four glue types on monarch lifespan and tag retention times. We share results from both studies, as well as tagging tips and cautionary tales from our experience tagging >250 monarch in the field and greenhouse. While radio telemetry holds great promise for monarch conservation, we recommend future tagging efforts outline clearly defined questions and achievable goals, and limit unnecessary tagging for the sake of tagging.