A fleeting blur of black and orange fluttered past Jenny Welch. Beside a sign labeled “monarch waystation,” the 62-year-old volunteer mingled with guests looking to purchase native Florida plants, including two species of milkweed.
And where there is milkweed, the monarchs will follow, Welch said.
“They find it,” she said. “They’ve already found it here.”
In light of habitat loss and population decline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may give the monarch a slot under the Endangered Species Act by December. Monarchs, which have lingered under the IUCN Red List’s “endangered” designation since 2022, serve as an ambassador for pollinator protection.
Welch, a Natural Treasures Farm & Nursery volunteer at the Nov. 9 GROW HUB Native Plant-a-Palooza sale, said planting native species may be the first step to restoring monarch populations on a local level.
Guests wandered through rows of flowering bushes and art vendors, making their way to where Welch stood beneath a canopy of butterfly garden species. Naturally occurring Florida milkweed – the only plant the monarch lays eggs on – will “die back” during winter, which she said encourages the species to migrate.
Nonnative tropical milkweed has still grown in popularity, Welch said, but what gardeners don’t see is its link to a parasite that can infect, weaken and kill adult butterflies.
“Our insects coevolved with our native plants,” she said. “If we don’t put our native plants back, we’re going to lose our insects.”
GROW HUB, a non-profit Gainesville plant nursery dedicated to employing adults with disabilities, hosted the plant sale to encourage local attendees to purchase these native species. The organization’s two swamp milkweed varieties – one with pink blooms and another with white – are one of the “bigger sellers,” said Alexa Heilman, a GROW HUB vocational program director.
Native plants are “not always as shiny and bright as some ornamentals, but a lot of natives can be just as beautiful,” she said.
However, the draw of nonnative flower gardens, urban development and insecticide use has left the monarch without its needed habitat and threatened by chemicals.
In response to this loss of native host and nectar plants, the Florida Department of Transportation joined a nationwide agreement in 2020 to protect the species by mowing roadsides less frequently and engaging in plant restoration projects, according to an FDOT spokesperson.
The effort called for a collaboration with UF researchers like Jaret Daniels, the Florida Museum interim director of exhibits and public programs. He studies insect ecology and conservation of at-risk species, including the monarch.
Daniels and the FDOT finished mapping native milkweed populations along the state roads and stormwater basins of over 30 Florida counties in 2017. UF researchers, now armed with thorough knowledge of its distribution, aim to plant 9,000 native milkweeds across the state, Daniels said.
“It’s really incumbent upon us to do everything we can to rebuild the resources for biodiversity and protect as much of the natural world around us,” he said.
North America houses three monarch strongholds. Bound by the western Rocky Mountains, one cluster only traverses coastal California, and a separate non-migratory group spans Southwest Florida. However, the large eastern population is known for its bewildering annual feat of strength: a great migration.
In August, the butterflies flock across the North American sky toward the mountains of Central Mexico, a one-way ticket to a temperate winter by late November. After mating and laying eggs on native milkweed leaves, the monarchs complete their lifespan, and a new generation makes the journey back as far north as the lower reaches of Canada.
As scientists and insect enthusiasts across the country await the USFWS endangerment analysis, Daniels emphasized evidence and “ample data” of progressive monarch decline. The species, which was once exceedingly more common than some other pollinators, has dwindled in the last two decades.
“It has shown that really no species are safe,” he said. “The stressors that us humans are putting on the natural world … are having real impacts on biodiversity.”
Though the species has an ecological ripple effect across continents, Daniels said it pales in importance compared to the hefty responsibility of other pollinators, like bees. Instead, the monarch is an “iconic, charismatic” symbol and catalyst of insect ecology and conservation.
Though nectar and host plant replenishment projects benefit the species, the use of insecticides still poses a threat, said Bernie Mach, a UF Urban Landscape Entomology Lab postdoctoral researcher.
During their time studying monarchs in collaboration with Daniels, Mach helped raise a colony of butterflies on about 200 host milkweeds. They observed the impact of insecticides, namely those used to treat pest infestations, on both caterpillars and mature monarchs.
Though only harmful species are meant to be targeted, Mach said the use of these chemicals could be considered a major concern in the monarch’s population decline.
“The butterflies don’t just feed on nectar from milkweed,” they said. “They feed on nectar from many different plants, and so any of those plants could be treated.”
Mach said the butterfly’s potential listing under the Endangered Species Act is a sign other insects – especially those even more threatened – could also have a chance of being federally protected.
David Cook, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission invertebrate conservation coordinator, said he tagged monarchs traveling through the Florida panhandle for 16 years. With a flashlight and long-handled net, he would set out on Saturday mornings before dawn to gingerly collect the butterflies and gently place a numbered sticker on the underside of each right hind wing.
Due to a lack of digital transmitters on the stickers, the tiny creatures could only be cataloged by those who spotted them along their annual route to Mexico.
“It feels like putting a note in a bottle,” he said. “First, someone has to find the bottle, and then they have to read the note in order to be able to have recovery information.”
The annual St. Marks monarch festival draws families eager to learn about the insect during its fall migration period. It was there that Cook said he used to show young children how to release tagged monarchs, aiming to spark a lifelong investment in both the species and the environment.
Laura Warner, a UF Department of Agricultural Education and Communication professor and extension specialist, felt similarly. As a social scientist involved in Daniels’ research, she studies human perceptions of monarch conservation.
Though she generally sees enthusiasm toward protecting pollinators, she said negative attitudes about the stereotypical “messy” look of wildflower gardens can deter the momentum for local conservation. But the monarch, a species recognized as a hallmark of the natural world, could change that.
“It gives that connection to people,” she said. “It gives meaning.”
Contact Rylan DiGiacomo-Rapp at rdigiacomo-rapp@alligator.org. Follow her on X @rylan_digirapp.
Rylan DiGiacomo-Rapp is a third year journalism and environmental science major and the Fall 2024 Enterprise Environmental Reporter. Outside of the newsroom, you can usually find her haunting local music venues.
