DVM, MSc Sustainable Development, Resource and Environmental Management PhD Candidate, Social-Ecological Wildlife conservation, Systems Dynamics Modeller
+1 (604) 442 5722
MY PROJECTS
My Research
MONARCH BUTTERFLY MONARCH BUTTERFLY CONSERVATION THROUGH THE SOCIAL LENS: ELICITING PUBLIC PREFERENCES FOR MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES ACROSS TRANSBOUNDARY NATIONS
Published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), an iconic species that migrates annually across North America, has steeply declined in numbers over the past decade. Across the species' range, public, private, and non-profit organizations aim to reverse the monarch decline by engaging in conservation activities such as habitat restoration, larvae monitoring, and butterfly tagging. Urban residents can actively participate in these activities, yet their contribution can also be realized as an electorate body able to influence the design of conservation programs according to their interests. Little is known, however about their preferences toward the objectives and design of international monarch conservation policies. In this paper, we investigate these preferences via a survey design using Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs) and Latent Class Analysis (LC) of urban residents across the main eastern migratory flyway in Ontario, Canada, and the eastern United States. Attributes in the DCE included the size and trend of overwintering butterfly colonies, the type of institution leading the conservation program, international allocation of funds, and the percentage of funds dedicated to research. From the general populace, we isolated respondents already engaged in monarch conservation activities to explore how they compare. We sent a smaller set of surveys deliberately withholding the expected-success forecast of the monarch recovery program to assess the value of information for urban residents within a conservation context. The LC distinguished three groups of respondents among urban residents: (1) the main group, labeled “Eager,” accounting for 72.4% of the sample, that showed a high potential for supporting conservation policies and had remarkable similarities with the monarch enthusiasts' sample; (2) a “Pro Nation” group (18.4%) marked by their increased willingness to support conservation initiatives solely focused within their country of residence; and (3) an “Opinionated” segment (9.23%), that was highly reactive to changes of the leading institution, resources allocation, and economic contribution proposed. Key findings from this research reveal that to maximize potential support amongst urban residents in the monarch's breeding range, a conservation strategy for the monarch butterfly should be led by not-for-profit organizations, should strive for transboundary cooperation, and should include the communication of anticipated ecological outcomes.
UNDERSTANDING THE
MONARCH’S MIGRATION; A SYSTEMS DYNAMICS APPROACH
Research in Progress
The monarch butterfly, iconic species that migrates annually across North America, has steeply declined in numbers over the past decade. Currently, the most studied and supported cause of the monarch’s plight is the milkweed-limiting hypothesis. This hypothesis states that milkweed loss across the monarch’s breeding range due to the use of GM-specific herbicides has been the bottleneck of its migratory and biological cycle. Recently, evidence has accumulated suggesting that this might not be the only factor affecting the monarch, and perhaps not the most important. In this paper, we built a population model of the monarch butterfly through a System Dynamics approach to assessing the leverage that different alternative factors (anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic) may have in the overall trends seen in the overwintering colonies. Namely, we wanted to explore if the monarch was affected by patch configuration (depensatory effects), by parasitism (change in sex ratio over time), and climate change (increase on extreme weather events during the fall migration), and compared them with the effect of the primary current hypothesis, the milkweed-limiting hypothesis. This research is still undergoing effort
A Landscape-Level Assessment of Restoration Resource Allocation for the Eastern Monarch Butterfly
Published in Frontiers in Environmental Sicence
The Monarch butterfly eastern population (Danaus plexippus) is in decline primarily due to habitat loss. Current habitat restoration programs focus on re-establishing milkweed, the primary food resource for Monarch caterpillars, in the central United States of America. However, individual components of the Monarch life cycle function as part of an integrated whole. Here we develop the MOBU-SDyM, a migration-wide systems dynamics model of the Monarch butterfly migratory cycle to explore alternative management strategies’ impacts. Our model offers several advances over previous efforts, considering complex variables such as dynamic temperature-dependent developmental times, dynamic habitat availability, and weather-related mortality across the entire range. We first explored whether the predominant focus of milkweed restoration in the mid-range of the Monarch’s migration could be overestimating the Monarch’s actual habitat requirements. Second, we examined the robustness of using the recommended 1.2–1.6 billion milkweed stems as a policy objective when accounting for factors such as droughts, changes in temperature, and the stems’ effective usability by the Monarchs. Third, we used the model to estimate the number and distribution of stems across the northern, central, and southern regions of the breeding range needed to reach a self-sustainable long-term Monarch population of six overwintering hectares. Our analysis revealed that concentrating milkweed growth in the central region increases the size of the overwintering colonies more so than equivalent growth in the south region, with growth in the northern region having a negligible effect. However, even though simulating an increase in milkweed stems in the south did not play a key role in increasing the size of the overwintering colonies, it plays a paramount role in keeping the population above a critically small size. Abiotic factors considerably influenced the actual number of stems needed, but, in general, our estimates of required stems were 43–91% larger than the number of stems currently set as a restoration target: our optimal allocation efforts were 7.35, 92, and 0.15% to the south, central, and northern regions, respectively. Systems dynamics’ analytical and computational strengths provided us with new avenues to investigate the Monarch’s migration as a complex biological system and to contribute to more robust restoration policies for this unique species.
Understanding the Monarch Butterfly Migration; A Systems Dynamics Approach
Presentation held at the CSEE-ESc meeting at Fredericton, NB, on August, 2019