- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Where are all the monarchs? Not in our pollinator garden here in Vacaville.
Milkweed? Check.
Floral resources? Check.
Praying mantids? No. (Haven't seen any, but they're out there!)
Birds? Yes. (Nesting California scrub jays eat their fill of caterpillars, mainly Gulf Fritillary 'cats.)
Shade? Yes. (Crepe myrtles and cherry laurels await.)
Monarchs? No. (Danaus plexippus, where are you?)
On previous Fourths of July, monarchs fluttered, nectared, and eclosed in our pollinator garden.
Today, July 4, 2023, we celebrate our nation's birthday, and yes, it's "Hurrah for the Red, White and Blue!"
However, we are s-o looking forward to "Hurray for the Black and Orange!"
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Visitors "can learn about the defensive strategies these insects use for survival, such as camouflage, warning coloration, mimicry of other species," says entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera collection. "We love to teach about the importance of Lepidoptera in the environment, either to their habitat directly or possibly as an indicator of the health of their habitat."
Both Smith and fellow Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas are usually there to show the specimens and answer questions. The Bohart draws scientists and citizens from all over the world.
At the last open house, Kareofelas and Bohart research associate Britanny Kohler showed specimens to a family from Mexico City: mother Martha Leija, daughter Valentina, 8, and father Mario Preciado.
Valentina is keenly interested in morphos and monarchs, and the excitement on her face told it all.
"Without a doubt, the biggest 'Wow Factor' comes from the huge and brilliant metallic blue morpho butterflies from tropical America," Smith said.
The Bohart's monarch butterfly specimens comprise five drawers and they include specimens from the Pacific Islands, Australia and Eastern Asia, as well as the United States.
When are the next open houses?
- Saturday, April 15. The Bohart will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. as part of the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day. The Bohart theme? "Bugs, Boom, Bang."
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Sunday, May 21. "Ants!" will theme this open house. It's set from 1 to 4 p.m.
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Saturday, July 22. It's the traditional Moth (and Flies) Night. The event takes place in the evening from 8 to 11.
The open houses are always free and family friendly.
The Bohart Museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is also the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum in 1946.
Special attractions include a live "petting zoo," featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas. Visitors are invited to hold the insects and photograph them. The museum's gift shop, open year around, includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.
The Bohart Museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The museum is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free. More information is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or Tabatha Yang, education and public outreach coordinator at tabyang@ucdavis.edu
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Louie is known for being a strong advocate for his students and fostering creative and critical thinking," wrote nominator Steve Nadler, professor and chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. "Whether they be undergraduates, graduates, high school students or members of the community, he engages and challenges students in his lectures, in the lab, and in the field. He attends to the unique needs and interests of each student, respecting their perspectives and ideas. He epitomizes what makes a great professor and advisor: his command of the subject matter, his ability to stimulate discussions and involvement, and his kindly concern for their education, welfare, and success."
The award will be presented at PBESA's annual meeting, set April 2-5, in Seattle. PBESA encompasses 11 Western states, plus parts of Mexico and Canada and U.S. territories.
Louie, who received his bachelor's degree in ecology and evolution from Cornell University in 1999, and his doctorate in population biology from UC Davis in 2006, joined the UC Davis faculty in 2009. Since then, he has mentored an estimated 300 persons, including three PhD students who have graduated from his lab; his current five students; 20 undergraduates associated with his lab; students in three UC Davis graduate groups, Entomology, Graduate Group in Ecology, and Population Biology (40), and 140 community members (nearly all high school students), in the Monitoring Milkweed-Monarch Interactions for Learning and Conservation (MMMILC) project.
Professor Yang has welcomed and mentored students from UC Davis and from around the country with the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program and the UC Davis-Howard University Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Ecology and Evolution Graduate Admissions Pathways (EEGAP) program.
He co-directs and mentors students in the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB), a campuswide program that he and Professors Jay Rosenheim and Joanna Chiu co-founded in 2011 to help students learn cutting-edge research through close mentoring relationships with faculty. The program crosses numerous biological fields, including population biology; behavior and ecology; biodiversity and evolutionary ecology; agroecology; genetics and molecular biology; biochemistry and physiology; entomology; and cell biology. The goal: to provide academically strong and highly motivated undergraduates with a multi-year research experience that cultivates skills that will prepare them for a career in biological research.
The group letters from his current students and alumni echoed the praise.
Yang believes that “science progresses by confronting our assumptions, ideas, and hypotheses with data. This dynamic process of confrontation requires a powerful combination of logic and objectivity that is widely recognized as the domain of science. However, the raw material of scientific creativity—the fundamental wellspring for the scientific process—depends on variability in the way people think about how the world works. This diversity of human perspectives allows the scientific community to ask new questions, imagine new solutions to problems, and reconsider entrenched assumptions—all of which accelerate scientific progress. New ideas are the engine of science and that is why I encourage diversity in science.”
In his research, Yang is involved in monarch conservation science and planning in collaboration with the Western Monarch Conservation Science Group, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Xerces Society of Invertebrate Conservation, Monarch Joint Venture, Environment Defense Fund, and the Monarch Summit in DC. Science Friday, National Public Radio, interviewed Yang about his monarch-milkweed research in February 2022. (Listen to the archived interview.)
The UC Davis professor launched the Monitoring Milkweed-Monarch Interactions for Learning and Conservation (MMMILC) project in 2013 for high school students in the environmental science program at Davis Senior High School or those associated with the Center for Land-Based Learning's Green Corps program. Their tasks: monitoring milkweed-monarch interactions in a project funded by the National Science Foundation. Yang organized and led a 135-member team, all co-authors of the paper, “Different Factors Limit Early- and Late-Season Windows of Opportunity for Monarch Development,” published in July 2022 in the journal Ecology and Evolution. The 107 co-authors included high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, and community members. (See News Story)
In mentoring, Yang follows several goals:
- To be honest to the unique needs and interests of each student.
- To facilitate intellectual independence.
- To learn from his students.
Highly honored by his peers and students, Yang received the 2017 Eleanor and Harry Walker Academic Advising Award from CA&ES. In 2018, he received the regional (Pacific Region 9, California, Nevada and Hawaii) Outstanding Faculty Academic Advisor from NACADA, also known as the Global Community for Academic Advising, and then went on to win NACADA's international award for the Outstanding Faculty Academic Advising Award.
Yang writes on his website: "As a lab, we work to maintain an open, supportive and encouraging environment to do good science. We are open to multiple research areas and approaches, and encourage students and postdocs to develop their own innovative ideas and creative questions along the way. Our lab values straightforward communication, intellectual independence, determined problem-solving, constructive persistence, helpfulness, integrity, humility and humor. Although we aim to maintain a small lab group, we always welcome inquiries from prospective graduate students, postdocs and undergraduates. If you are interested in joining the lab, please send an email to Louie H. Yang at lhyang@ucdavis.edu."
The complete list of 2023 PBESA winners is posted here. The archived list of mentoring award recipients dates back to 2012 and includes UC Davis forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey, who won in 2020 and UC Davis distinguished professor Jay Rosenheim, the 2018 recipient.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
On Friday, Aug. 26, he met with success. He spotted four within half an hour.
It all began with his stroll through the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, "where construction at Wyatt Deck was finally completed and the paths have been reopened," he related in a group email.
"It was my first time there in about 3 weeks. As usual, I scoped out the big Asclepias speciosa clone and found...nothing." He then crossed over Arboretum Drive to the Environmental Horticultural gardens where he knew of another small clone of A. speciosa. "By now it was 4:30 p.m. and the area was in dappled light and shade--and there were two brilliantly fresh-looking male monarchs chasing each other in the trees above the milkweed!"
"I looked over the plants for evidence of larval feeding and found absolutely none; I can't believe they were 'born' there despite being so brilliantly fresh-looking. I then walked west on Arboretum Drive, intending to turn north toward Mrak Hall, when an old, worn male monarch flew directly in front of me near eye level. It was now 4:50.
"As I went to turn toward Mrak (Hall) a fresh-looking one--sex undetermined--was cruising up in the trees near the bridge. I believe I saw four different individuals within half an hour. That's almost as many as I've seen in Davis all year."
Then, on Aug. 29, Shapiro ventured to north Davis where Professor Louie Yang of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and collaborators had planted several dozen narrow-leaf milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis, several years ago for their research projects. "Nearly all the plants are in seed; I only found three still in bloom," Shapiro said. "And one had a beautiful, fresh-looking male monarch nectaring at it at 11.55 a.m. I didn't try inspecting all those plants but on casual inspection, I noted no evidence of larval feeding, nor pupae nor pupal exuviae."
That's good news on The Monarch Front.
Shapiro's colleague and former doctoral student Matt Forister, the McMinn Professor of Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), alerted him to more good monarch news: "They're passing through Reno with increasing frequency. I am personally seeing ~1 per day now. All stopping for nectar, and heading your way, Art. Looks like the production in the desert has been good." (See latest research by Forister and colleagues on "Milkweed Plants Bought at Nurseries May Expose Monarch Caterpillars to Harmful Pesticide Residues," published in the science journal Biological Conservation.)
As you may know, Shapiro has been studying the butterfly populations at 10 sites in Central California for 50 years and maintains a research website, Art Shapiro's Butterfly Site, aka Art's Butterfly World.
The North American Butterfly Monitoring Network (NABA) website praises his work as "the longest continually running butterfly monitoring project in the world":
"Art Shapiro began monitoring 10 transects in 1972 and has been conducting bi-weekly monitoring of those sites ever since. He also monitors an additional site as part of NABA's Seasonal Count Program! Art's program is the longest continually running butterfly monitoring project in the world, predating even the British Butterfly Monitoring Scheme."
Elsewhere in Davis, Bohart Museum of Entomology associate Greg Kareofelas has seen monarchs in his Davis backyard three times this year: May 6, May 11, and in early June. "A couple of days ago, in the Inner Coast Range, Glenn county I saw nine or ten adults and that many larvae."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Why? Hypothesis: the milkweed may have been treated with pesticides before it was shipped to the nursery.
Newly published research led by scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), in collaboration with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation--and appearing in the peer-reviewed science journal Biological Conservation--sheds some light on pesticide contamination of milkweed plants being sold in retail nurseries across the United States.
The article, titled "Milkweed Plants Bought at Nurseries May Expose Monarch Caterpillars to Harmful Pesticide Residues," indicates that every single plant tested in stores across the nation--every single one!--contained multiple pesticides, "even those that were labeled 'wildlife-friendly," according to the researchers, who included co-author Matt Forister, a UNR biology professor.
The team collected leaf samples from 235 milkweed plants purchased at 33 retail nurseries across the United States to screen for pesticides. "Across all samples, we detected 61 different pesticides with an average of 12.2 compounds per plant," they wrote in their abstract. "While only 9 of these compounds have been experimentally tested on monarch caterpillars, 38% of samples contained a pesticide above a concentration shown to have a sub-lethal effect for monarchs."
"In a previous study in California that primarily looked at milkweed in agriculture and urban interfaces, we had looked at a small number of plants from retail nurseries, and found that they contained pesticide but it was surprising to see the great diversity of pesticides found in these plants," Forister told Mike Wolterbeek in a Nevada Today news release. "In many ways, they are as contaminated or even worse than plants growing on the edges of agricultural fields. That was a surprise, at least to me."
Forister, who is the Trevor J. McMinn Endowed Professor in Biology, Foundation Professor, holds a doctorate in ecology from UC Davis, where he studied with major professor Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of ecology and evolution.
Forister's doctoral student, Christopher Halsch, is the lead author of the paper. “The farther along in the life stage you go, the higher concentration you need to have a sublethal effect," Halsch explained. "For the caterpillars, this means a low concentration can have a more damaging effect than it would have on the butterflies.”
So did the plants labeled "wild-life friendly" have fewer pesticides on the leaves? No.
“That was the most shocking part," Halsch related. "The fact that plants labeled as potentially beneficial or at least friendly to wildlife are not better and in some cases might be worse than other plants available for purchase. This research sheds light on how pesticides may impact western monarchs, but many other butterflies are facing even steeper population declines, and pesticides are likely one driver.”
Thus, it's crucial that those milkweed plants that we purchase in retail stores--and elsewhere--be pollinator friendly and pesticide-free.
AsXerces' Pesticide Program Director Aimée Code, pointed out in the news article: “Everyone can take steps to address the risks we uncovered. Consumers can let their nurseries know they want plants that are free from harmful pesticides. Nursery outlets can talk with their suppliers and encourage safer practices, and government agencies can improve oversight. And it's important to keep gardening for pollinators for the long term, just take steps to reduce pesticide exposure: cover new plants the first year, water heavily, discard the soil before planting, as it may be contaminated, and avoid pesticide use.”
We asked entomologist and monarch researcher David James of Washington State University today what he thinks of the study: "We all suspected this was the case, given all the reports in social media of caterpillars dying, etc. I'm glad they did this scientific study to confirm it. Pretty shocking, really."
Indeed, scientists fear that the rapid decline of monarchs could lead to extinction. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) placed the migratory monarch butterfly on its Red List of threatened species on July 21, 2022, classifying it as endangered.
"In the 1990s, nearly 700 million monarchs made the epic flight each fall from the northern plains of the U.S. and Canada to sites in the oyamel fir forests north of Mexico City, and more than one million monarchs overwintered in forested groves on the California Coast," according to the Xerces Society. "Now, researchers and citizen scientists estimate that only a fraction of the population remains, monarchs have declined by more than 80% since the 1990s from central Mexico, and by more than 99% since the 1980s in coastal California."