Monarch Health engages ~150 citizen scientists and 5 research investigators per year. We receive about 3,000 samples annually from across the U.S. and southern Canada. Since the project was established by Dr. Sonia Altizer in 2006, volunteers have contributed over 20,000 samples.

Through Monarch Health, citizen scientists advance ecological knowledge about how animal migrations influence infectious diseases. Monarch Health volunteers have helped to reveal important patterns. As reported by Sonia Altizer and her colleagues in the journal Ecology (Bartel et al. 2011), Monarch Health data showed that the long-distance journey to Mexico reduces infection prevalence among monarchs by weeding out butterflies infected with the protozoan parasite. Recently, volunteer data indicated that monarchs that skip migration to breed year-round in coastal areas experience signficantly higher risk of infection compared to migratory monarchs (Satterfield et al. 2015). These publications contribute to the rich legacy of volunteer participation in monarch research. Much of what the scientific community knows about monarch ecology and conservation is because of citizen scientists, who have collected data on monarchs for over 60 years through multiple programs.