Popular plants for Monarch butterflies in Northern Arizona

**Updated 11/16/2022 

As of November, 2022, there were 260 observations on iNaturalist of monarch butterflies in the northern half of Arizona - basically everything north of Phoenix.  I analyzed these observations to try to identify which plants are most important nectar food sources.

iNat link.

I filled in the Life Stage annotation for all larva and pupa.  There are 62 observations of larva (caterpillars), 1 observation of a pupa, and 197 observations of adult butterflies.

The number of monarchs photographed each year has declined from a high of 75 observations in 2015 to an average of 55 a year in 2021 and 2022.  Since the number of iNat users and observations has increased more than 100x since 2014, it seems that the last 2 years represent more effort with less observations, indicating a possible decline in abundance.

For the adults, I annotated the observations using the Observation Field "Nectar / Pollen delivering plant" when I could ID the flower the monarch was observed on.  In some cases, the adult could be observed drinking nectar; in many other cases I assumed that a monarch adult resting on a flower was obtaining nectar.

In total, 71 adult monarchs appear to be drinking nectar from flowers that are identifiable to species or genus.  I documented 27 different plant species being used as nectar resources by monarchs.  This is a large diversity of plant species, considering that this data set included only 71 total observations of monarchs on flowers.

iNat link.

By far the most common plant species was Asclepias subverticillata, the common weedy milkweed species of northern AZ, and also a great plant for monarch caterpillars.  It is possible that some adults were just resting on the milkweed flowers in the process of depositing eggs on the plants, rather than drinking nectar.  Either way, clearly milkweed are important to monarchs.  This species is also popular with a diverse group of other pollinating insects.

Several aster species were also common nectaring plants, as well as butterfly bush (Buddleja), a planted ornamental that apparently lives up to its name!

Monarch presence in Northern Arizona is strongly seasonal, with most adults observed in late summer (August-September), so it is not surprising that some of the late summer Asteraceae such as Ericameria, Helianthus, Bidens and Heliomeris are popular nectar sources.  Since monarchs are generalist pollinators, this data could be consistent with opportunistic (no preference) nectaring.

However, there are many other common plant species flowering during September (such as Gutierrezia sarothrae, Dieteria canescens, Datura wrightii, Purshia stansburyana, Verbascum thapsus, Geranium caespitosum, Achillea millefolium), and no monarchs in this data set were observed nectaring on them. This suggests that monarchs do prefer certain species over others.

Also, there is the question whether the adults observed on flowers during August--October are migrating adults, mating adults, or newly metamorphosed adults.  Given that we do see caterpillars in September, and it takes about 30 days for a monarch egg to grow into an adult, it is likely that all three types of adults are making use of nectar resources in Northern Arizona.  

Caveats and Conclusions

Any mistakes or omissions are my own. I may have misidentified some flower species, but I don't think that would change the overall conclusions.

The small sample size limits the conclusions that can be drawn; more observations are urgently needed to better establish monarch plant preferences.  

Also, this data is subject to the biases of  the "citizen scientists" who use iNaturalist to document biodiversity.  They may be more likely to photograph monarchs on showy flowers, in areas near their homes (landscaped yards and ruderal/disturbed natural environments), and at convenient times of day.

Therefore, this study might be best used to help guide planting decisions to support monarchs in areas near where people live.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to iNaturalist user jdmore who created an excellent wiki explaining how to use the iNat search URLs to filter results, which was a crucial step to analyze this data.

Also, thanks to all of the iNaturalist community, including the 107 people who observed monarchs in the study area, and the 123 people who helped identify them.