Biology students monitor butterflies as campus becomes monarch waystation

KOKOMO, Ind. - Liliana Lamberson sits on the hill behind Indiana University Kokomo's Main Building, binoculars trained on the Earth Stage.

As what appears to be a brown leaf floats down, she suddenly drops the binoculars.

"I see one!" she says, pointing in the direction of flowering plants on the edge of the stage. Lina Rifai, associate professor of vertebrate biology, follows where she points, creeping forward, then swooping from below to scoop a butterfly into a net.

It's all in a day's work when you host a monarch waystation.

Rifai, along with students in her introduction to biology class and research students, is monitoring the campus's monarch butterfly population, catching them to record data, tagging them with butterfly-safe identification stickers and transmitters, and safely releasing them on their migration journey.

"We're helping gather data that's going to help us find out more about their migration," said Rifai. "We're going to find out more about their migration routes, which helps us create habitats for them to feed along the way."

They are among thousands of volunteers participating in Monarch Watch, a citizen science project hosted by the University of Kansas. They will capture monarchs throughout the fall migration season, record the tag code, tag date, sex of the butterfly, and geographic code, then tag and release them. At the end of the tagging season, the data will be added to its database to use in research. Tracking where the migration paths are also shows where additional habitats are needed.

Rifai said monarch waystations offset the loss of milkweeds and nectar sources needed to create, conserve, and protect monarch butterfly habitats. The campus has several natural areas that qualify, including by the Earth Stage, in Sustainability Meadow, and behind the Kelley House along the creek, where the Student Sustainability Council has planted native plants.

Having students participate makes them more aware of the wildlife around them, and how humans impact them, she said.

"We talk about conservation and how everyone can be involved," Rifai said. "As citizen scientists, they can contribute to real research. Hopefully they will like it and continue it."

It also allows them to learn what real field work is like - that sometimes you will wait and see nothing, and sometimes, like today, you will catch a butterfly, and it won't be the right species. The butterfly Lamberson, a sophomore from Kokomo, saw turned out to be an orange sulfur (Colias eurytheme) rather than a monarch (Danaus plexippus).

"It's a lot more peaceful, and I like seeing all the butterflies," she said. "I'm appreciating all the life and plants we have on campus. This is keeping all of us in the loop on what might be going on with our living creatures out here."

Elisabeth Pennington is participating as part of her senior research project, with Rifai as her mentor. She previously completed a research project about migration of ungulates, or hoofed mammals, between national parks.

"They need the space to migrate, and are being blocked by human intervention," she said. "Here, our pollinators face problems with lack of habitat to feed. It will be cool to see if we can get more people involved in protecting them."

She feels like students are making a difference by catching, tagging, and releasing the butterflies.

"There's just really great value in citizen science," she said. "Being able to analyze the data puts into perspective that there is an issue. At the end of the day if we have the data, we can show more people and help them understand that this is something we should be concerned about."

Education is KEY at Indiana University Kokomo.