Monarch butterfly and milkweed models the western U.S.

Today Matt Forister and I presented the results of our habitat modeling work for monarch butterflies and milkweeds for the western U.S. I've been involved in this research now since January 2017 and am very excited about having some preliminary maps and models ready. The work is an extension of the 2015 habitat modeling effort by Madeline Steele while she was at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Our work is a collaborative effort by University of Nevada Reno, the Xerces Society, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and others. I'm excited to get to work with such an iconic species, and I hope that through conservation and societal awareness of pesticides we can halt the decline of one of the most beautiful insect species in the world.