Congrats to the University of California recipients of awards from the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE), an international association of communicators, educators and information technologists who focus on communicating research-based information.  

ACE officials recently handed out gold, silver and bronze awards at their 107th annual conference, held in Asheville, N.C.  ACE's first conference occurred July 10, 1913, when land-grant college agricultural editors gathered at the University of Illinois. 

And now, the California winners:

The University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) won the gold award in the Information Technology category, Instructional Design for a Non-Academic Public Online Course, for its “Self-Paced Online Course: Urban Pyrethroid and Fipronil Use-Runoff and Surface Water Protection.” 

The team: Petr Kosina, Cheryl Reynolds, Robert Budd, Aniela Burant, Carlos Gutierrez, Karey Windbiel-Rojas and Loren Oki.

The course, for pest management professionals who work primarily in structural pest control or landscape maintenance,  “presents information on the Surface Water Protection Regulations that were put into place to reduce the amount of pyrethroids in surface water runoff. It discusses the types of applications allowed under the regulations as well as those that are prohibited and those that are exempt." The course, available for free, must be completed by Dec. 30 of the current year.

Kathy Keatley Garvey (yours truly), communication specialist for the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, won a bronze award (third place) in the pictorial series category. Her submission included a series of monarch images published July 27, 2022 on her Bug Squad blog, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources website. 

Headlined “Monarch Butterflies: Closer to Extinction,” the blog included photos of a monarch egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and male and female butterflies, all images she captured in her family's pollinator garden in Vacaville. 

The blog dealt with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announcement on July 21, 2022 that the migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is now on its "Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered--threatened by habitat destruction and climate change."

Wrote Garvey:

“The good news? That the iconic monarch landed on the Red List, which means opening safeguards to protect it."

“The bad news? Being on the list means that it's closer to extinction. The other bad news? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has not yet listed it as endangered or threatened, only that it's a candidate for its list of endangered and threatened wildlife."

“The sad news? The IUCN Red List now includes 147,517 species, of which 41,459 are threatened with extinction."

Garvey launched the Bug Squad on Aug. 6, 2008 and writes it every night, Monday through Friday. The insect blog draws worldwide rankings and accolades.

The ACE winners represent universities or higher institutions of learning in 18 states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming. (See list)

Did someone come in the middle of night and tie-dye this flower?

No, just Mother Nature showing us some tri-colors: combining a brilliant blue, a soft yellow, and a creamy white in two starburst patterns.

We weren't expecting this beauty--a dwarf morning glory, Convolvulus tricolor--when we seeded part of our pollinator garden last April. Seed packets usually tell us what's inside: the common and scientific names, whether it's a perennial, biennial or annual, its plant height, days to harvest or bloom, and habit--whether it climbs, curls, cowers, spreads, bushes out, insists on standing up, etc.  

This seed packet figured it had the right to remain silent. An introverted seed packet? "I'm shy. Guess what I am!"

Fact is, it's native to Mediterranean Basin, it's an annual, it likes full sun, it self-sows, and it's an award-winner: It won a Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. 

Insects, including bees and flies, seem to like it.

One thing's for certain, Mother Nature really knows how to put on a show. 

"Recent studies have continued to shed light on the ecology of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) in western North America. These studies have documented a declining overwintering population over several decades, punctuated by unexpected variability in recent years. Understanding this variability will require grappling with the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of resources and risks presented to western monarchs throughout their annual life cycle. Recent changes in the western monarch population further illustrate how interacting global change drivers can create complex causes and consequences in this system. The complexity of this system should inspire humility. However, even recognizing the limits of our current understanding, there is enough scientific common ground to take some conservation actions now"

That's the abstract of UC Davis community ecologist Louie Yang's review article published June 26 in the journal, Current Opinion in Insect Science. Yang, a Department of Entomology and Nematology professor who researches monarch butterflies, suggests three broad guidelines for western monarch conservation.

The article, “Complexity, Humility and Action: A Current Perspective on Monarchs in Western North America,” is “meant to provide a concise review of and perspective on recent western monarch research,” Yang said.

The western monarch population overwinters along the California coast. Estimated at 4.5 million in the 1980s, it has dropped significantly over the past five years, the professor related, noting an “86% single-year population decline in 2018, an overwintering population of less than 2000 butterflies in 2020, and an unexpected >100-fold increase in 2021."

Yang defined the western monarch population as occupying "a geographically distinct region of North America west of the Rocky Mountain...Ongoing climate change has made the western monarch range warmer, drier, and more prone to heatwaves, wildfires, and winter storms  with complex effects on their ecology. Land development and changes in the structure of landscape mosaics have modified both the breeding and overwintering habitats of western monarch butterflies, changing the spatial distribution of resources and risks across their range. Shifts in agricultural and horticultural practice have changed the nature of potentially deleterious chemicals in the environment, including novel herbicides and insecticides."

Yang said the spread of non-native milkweed species has likely had both positive and negative consequences for western monarchs, and more research is needed. 

His three suggestions:

1. "First, we should continue to support both basic and applied monarch research. This includes efforts to better understand fundamental aspects of monarch biology, studies to examine the ecological factors that limit monarch populations in the West and efforts to improve more targeted adaptive management and monitoring efforts. Basic research in monarch biology and ecology improves our understanding of this complex system and can inform conservation actions in profound and unexpected ways. In turn, applied research can address recognized gaps in knowledge that would otherwise limit available strategies for conservation planning and management."
2. "Second, recognizing the limits of our current understanding, we should follow the precautionary principle to minimize the risk of counterproductive action. The complexity of this system makes it difficult to anticipate or assume future changes in behavior, species interactions or population dynamics. In practice, this may mean prioritizing efforts to better understand and facilitate existing mechanisms of ecological resilience and recovery over direct actions to manipulate or augment the population with less certain consequences. More broadly, this approach would probably emphasize common sense approaches to mitigate the widely recognized upstream drivers of global change (e.g., climate change and land use change), rather than those requiring a detailed understanding of their complex, interactive effects on species-specific ecologies further downstream."
3. "Third, we should work to improve, protect and maintain the resources required throughout the complex monarch life cycle. In part, this likely means prioritizing conservation efforts that target the times and places that are likely to have the greatest positive effects, building on the common ground of available science. In the case of western monarchs, this includes protecting current and future overwintering habitats, the resources required for population expansion in the early season, and the resources required for the fall migration. Recognizing the potentially widespread and pervasive effects of pesticides, this could also mean efforts to develop more ecologically realistic and relevant metrics for the regulation of environmental chemicals."

Yang opined that "In the broader context, many of the drivers that are contributing to western monarch population declines are likely to also be affecting other species. In turn, many of the strategies that would support monarch conservation would likely benefit other species, and many of the strategies that would benefit other species are likely to also support monarch conservation. As we build on currently available science to better understand and protect the western monarch population, it is imperative that we continue to grapple with the inherent complexity of this system and respond with appropriate humility and necessary action."

Among the 54 scientific publications that Yang referenced was a research article co-authored by UC Davis Distinguished Professor Art Shapiro, who has studied butterfly populations in Central California since 1972. The article, "Fewer Butterflies Seen by Community Scientists across the Warming and Drying Landscapes of the American West," published in Science in March 2021, covered data from the Shapiro transect, the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) community count data and the iNaturalist community observation data.  The study observed widespread declines across 450 butterfly species, including the monarch butterfly, in the American West. The authors estimated a 1.6 percent decrease in overall butterfly abundance each year over a 42-year period from 1977 to 2018.

Editors of the journal, Current Opinion in Insect Science, describe it as "a new systematic review journal that aims to provide specialists with a unique and educational platform to keep up–to–date with the expanding volume of information published in the field of insect science."

Yang's research is supported by a National Science Foundation award. He was a guest on National Public Radio's Science Friday in February 2022. Listen to the interview here.

Ever seen a Phyciodes mylitta, aka Mylitta Crescent?

It's a butterfly that breeds on thistles, such as Cirsium, Carduus and Silybum.

The one that visited our yard June 17 wasn't visiting a thistle, however. It landed on a cactus. 

It's an orange and black butterfly (orange wings with black markings). White fringes the edges.  

UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro, who has monitored butterfly populations in Central California since 1972 and maintains a website, Art's Butterfly World, says it's an abundant, weedy species on his transect." 

The Mylitta Crescent is featured on his website banner.

"The Mylitta Crescent breeds on Thistles," Shapiro writes. "It originally used native species of Cirsium, probably mostly in wet habitats. With the naturalization of weedy European species of Cirsium, Carduus and Silybum, it is now found in all kinds of disturbed (including urban) habitats. Many of the weedy hosts dry up by early summer and it then must contract down to colonies of Bull Thistle, Cirsium vulgare, which persists all summer (or, on the East slope, Canada Thistle, C. arvense). The part-grown larvae overwinter and can be found sunning themselves on mild midwinter days. The upperside pattern of males varies greatly and is sometimes nearly obsolescent. The ventral hindwing is redder in cold seasons, especially in females, and the crescent marking is more strikingly silvered. Males patrol along roadsides and often sit at ground level. Both sexes visit many flowers, from Thistles to Yerba Santa to Heliotrope. Breeds continuously in warm weather: February-November near sea level, June-October in the high country, often one of the last species flying and visiting Rabbitbrush there."

This butterfly isn't as recognizable as the monarch icon, but it's still striking.