Monarchs, Tropical Milkweed & Florida

Tropical Milkweed and Florida
An article by: Tiffany Moore – Conservation and Research Specialist, Zoo Miami

During a study Brower et al. (2018) used cardenolide fingerprinting on monarch butterflies located in north-central Florida to originate where individuals migrated from. The authors’ study took place during the winter migration, and they noted that some monarchs fingerprinted showed that the larvae consumed Asclepias curassavicaor tropical milkweed. At the time of the study the authors theorized that these individuals originated from South Florida since local commercial nurseries around the study site did not have widely available tropical milkweed for sale. Based on the findings made by Brower et al. (2018), this would indicate that some monarch butterflies from South Florida do in fact migrate northward.

Concerns regarding tropical milkweed are not driven by any single researcher, but rather by convergent findings across multiple independent studies examining parasite transmission, reproductive physiology, host preference, and migration energetics.

Click HERE to read the in depth article, spanning nearly a decade of research.