The Grand Saga of the Monarch Butterfly

Special Partnership Presentation

2014 Whitney R. Harris Conservation Lecture

Featured Speaker: Lincoln P. Brower, Ph.D. Research Professor, Sweetbriar College

For more than half a century Professor Lincoln Brower has been investigating the biology of the monarch butterfly. Many of the widely known facts about monarchs presented in biology classes and nature documentaries are the result of his research on the monarch butterflies’ chemical defense against predators and the ecological chemistry of the butterflies’ interactions with their milkweed host plants. Realizing during his first expedition that the butterflies phenomenal migration and overwintering biology was threatened by logging in winter roost areas, he began conservation work that continues to this day with WWF-Mexico, government agencies in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, and numerous other colleagues.

Don’t miss this fascinating first-person account, illustrated with electron micrograph and satellite images, of Dr. Brower’s field expeditions and lab explorations to uncover the conservation issues that threaten the butterflies’ unique migration and wintering biology.