Vance McFarland (student researcher) and Dusty Perkins (Assistant Professor, College of Western Idaho) searching for monarch eggs and larvae at Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge near Nampa, ID. Photo: Department of Life Sciences, College of Western Idaho
Impact/Benefits
- Idaho is home to valuable Monarch butterfly habitat, but little is currently known about the butterflies' distribution through the West.
- This partnership helps to bring together data from land managers, conservationists, and others to power future research and new discoveries in Monarch butterfly conservation.
- This effort is creating a pool of citizen scientists and student researchers from Idaho's largest serving community college mapping of Monarch habitat.
Outcome
Dusty Perkins, an assistant professor at the College of Western Idaho, helps manage a project to determine the distribution and abundance of Idaho’s Monarch butterflies and the milkweed plants on which they depend. This work contributes to larger cooperative efforts among federal, state, academic programs and non-governmental organizations, which include the Idaho Monarch Working Group, Western Monarch Science team, and the Monarch Joint Venture. This project has expanded the role of undergraduate research students and citizen scientists in helping to create a more complete understanding of butterfly habitat requirements.