Webinar: Tracking shifts in food availability for monarchs and other pollinators

Join the Monarch Joint Venture for our monthly Monarch Conservation Webinar Series presented by Erin Posthumus, Outreach Coordinator, USA National Phenology Network

Description: Monarchs depend on a diverse suite of host plants along their migration path. Knowledge of when and where plants are leafing and flowering, and how climate change is shifting the timing, is critical for understanding availability of food resources. In this presentation I will describe how the USA National Phenology Network engages volunteer and professional scientists in collecting data on presence and intensity of leafing and flowering with simple yet scientifically rigorous phenology protocols. I’ll also describe our recent efforts to establish climate drivers to flowering and seed timing to make predictions of how this timing will shift under future climate conditions.  

Bio: Erin Posthumus coordinates local, regional, and national data collection projects for the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN). The USA-NPN is a national-scale monitoring and research initiative based at the University of Arizona focused on collecting, organizing and delivering phenological data, information, and forecasts to support natural resource management and decision-making, to advance the scientific field of phenology, and to promote understanding of phenology by a wide range of audiences. Erin has a Bachelors in Environmental Biology and a Masters in Wildlife Conservation and Management and has worked for the USA-NPN since 2010.