Iowa is at the heart of the monarch butterfly summer breeding range, but recent research has shown a decline in North America’s monarch population.

The Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium is seeking ways to improve the population, while conducting research at the Southeast Research and Demonstration farm in Crawfordsville. Consortium program coordinator Dana Schweitzer explains why the consortium formed in 2015, “I think from a research perspective there are many concerns around the declines in the monarch population over the past 20 years. The population that overwinters in Mexico has declined by approximately 80% and the monarch butterfly is an indicator species for biodiversity, so there’s a lot of concern around what’s happening related to the decline in the population and what that means not only for the monarch but what it could mean for other insects and pollinators.”

Schweitzer says there is no single contributing factor for the decline in monarch population, “Everytime we try and uncover maybe what the root cause of the decline is or what a significant factor could be in the decline. We always find that we need more information. There are certainly concerns around, is there enough milkweed in the landscape? There are also concerns around how might weather patterns or something like climate change be affecting the population, both in the summertime in the Midwest and in the wintertime when the butterfly population is in Mexico. So there is no one factor and that same concept would apply to any insect population.”

The consortium will be collecting field data over the next couple of years on how many adult monarchs are using different species of milkweed to lay eggs and develop larva. They plan on presenting some of this research at a field day on June 22 at the Southeast Research and Demonstration farm in Crawfordsville.