Desert Botanical Garden is making exciting strides in monarch butterfly research thanks to a generous partnership with the Arizona Lottery Gives Back program. This year, the Garden is enhancing its efforts to track and understand monarch migration patterns in Arizona.
Monarch butterflies are present in the Garden from September through May, but their migration routes remain largely a mystery. While it’s known that some monarchs travel through Phoenix on their way to overwintering grounds in Mexico and California, others remain in the Valley and the low deserts of Arizona and California during the winter months.
“We really want to know how long monarchs live and what their behavior and movement patterns are, especially in the winter months in the low desert,” Garden Plant and Insect Ecology Program Manager Natalie Melkonoff said.
A better understanding of monarch movements will allow conservationists to implement more effective conservation strategies at the right time and place. To assist in this critical research, a new solar-powered radio tag has been developed for monarchs using Bluetooth technology. These tags can be tracked using the Project Monarch app on smartphones.
With funding from the Arizona Lottery Gives Back program, the Garden acquired 50 tags, enabling the tracking of monarch butterflies as part of a collaborative research project with Southwest Monarch Study. The Arizona Lottery Gives Back program supports conservation efforts across the state, with proceeds from ticket sales directly benefiting environmental initiatives.
Visitors to the Garden’s Spring Butterfly Exhibit may even spot some of these tagged monarchs through May 11. This research will help inform strategic conservation efforts, ensuring monarchs have the right resources in the right places at the right times.
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