“The Monarch Conservation Science Partnership [(MCSP)] is a USGS led group of scientists, managers, and conservation organizations who perform science related to the conservation of monarch butterflies. We come from federal agencies, non profits, and academia and from the three countries where monarchs range (Mexico, Canada, and the United States).

To date meetings of the MCSP have been hosted by the USGS John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis in Ft. Collins, CO. PIs include Darius Semmens and Jay Diffendorfer (GECSC) and Wayne Thogmartin (UMESC) […] The Partnership is engaged in considerable research to address information gaps associated with the ecology and conservation of monarch butterflies.

Among these efforts include analyses of extinction risk, continental-scale full-annual-cycle demography, threats assessment, overwinter density estimation, milkweed target estimation, and storylines for conservation recovery. Strategies for sampling monarchs and the milkweed that sustains them are being developed. In addition, geospatial tools, both desktop and online, for aiding in conservation planning have been completed” (USGS MCSP 2016).

• Monarch Conservation Science Partnership (MCSP). 2016. USGS Monarch Conservation Science Partnership. umesc.usgs.gov/management/dss/monarch.html.

Keywords: geospatial, research