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Section 3e: Rearing, Survival, and Parasitism

Green Chrysalis

This is the ninth video of the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project video training series, reviewing rearing techniques and monarch survival and parasitism studies.

Next Video in Training Series > A Day in Your Site


Related Activities

  1. Activity #3 Estimating Monarch Survival

Related Content

  1. Rearing How-To’s for Activity #3

Glossary of Terms

  • conservation
    protection and preservation through careful management.
  • data
    singular, datum: factual information that can be used as a basis for understanding something.
  • ecosystem
    a system of interactions between a community of living organisms and their environment.
  • frass
    the waste product of larvae, called caterpillar poop by most. Monarch larvae produce a lot of this, especially in their later instars.
  • Oe (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha)
    a protozoan that infects monarchs and is known to decrease health, fecundity, and life span. It is passed by infected females to offspring when protozoan spores are rubbed onto milkweed (eaten by developing caterpillars) as they are laying their eggs.
  • parasitoids
    nsects that lay their eggs on or inside another insect species (called their host). The eggs hatch and feed on the host from the inside, eventually killing the host.
  • sample size
    the number of replicates in an experiment. Larger sample sizes reduce the effects of random chance.
  • tachinid flies
    (tah-KIN-id): a fly family with about 1300 species in North America. Parasitic tachinids usually attach eggs to the outside of the host’s body. The eggs hatch, then the tachinid larvae burrow into the host and begin feeding inside. The host is almost always killed. The species that live in monarchs are gray and smaller than houseflies.
  • transect
    a sample strip of land used to monitor plant or animal populations and distribution within a given area.

Photo Credits (in order of appearance)

1. Dead larva infected by tachinid fly: Charles J. Gatchell
2. Achinids emerging from monarch pupae: Sonia Altizer
3. Caterpillar with emerged tachinid larvae: Jaap de Roode
4. Tachinid fly pupa: Sonia Altizer
5. Adult tachinid fly: Sonia Altizer
6. Wasp parasitizing pupa: Wendy Caldwell
7. Diseased and deceased 5th instar: Diane Rock