by Mia Brann, Lani DuFresne, and Emily Rees, January 2025
After a second year of fieldwork, the River for Monarchs (R4M) project has shown early results of success. In 2024, 11,500 plugs and over one hundred pounds of seed of important pollinator resource plants were planted on nine sites along the Rio Grande corridor. R4M aims to increase the availability of habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators in a stepping stone pattern along 200 miles of the Rio Grande corridor of New Mexico – a goal achieved through collaboration with many partners. After two seasons of seed collection and a strong first year of habitat monitoring and restoration planting, the project will continue over the next year with additional restoration plantings, continued pollinator monitoring, and expansion of target pollinator species.
River for Monarchs partnered with the New Mexico Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) program in 2024 for support with seed collections and outplantings. YCC crew members scouted for wild populations of native milkweed and other pollinator friendly species across northern New Mexico in late summer and early fall. With their help, R4M collected seeds from fifteen populations of eleven different species, including showy milkweed—Asclepias speciosa. These seeds will be cleaned at IAE over the winter and distributed to nurseries for plug production or used in seed mixes for site seeding in 2025. To learn more about their experience working on this project, read their blog post here!
Nine sites along the Rio Grande corridor from Abiquiu to Socorro were selected for habitat restoration in 2024. Sites were assessed with baseline monitoring and received a seeding treatment, plug planting, or both. Pollinator resources, overall habitat quality, and native bee populations are measured pre- and post- restoration work to capture the success of the project and shifts in pollinator communities across the length of the project. An assortment of IAE staff members, project partners, the YCC crew, New Mexico Forest Service seed collection crews, and volunteers planted a total of 11,500 seedlings across these sites. Teams powered through compacted soils, equipment malfunctions, and long days in the heat to ensure that all the plants made it into the ground. Plugs received supplemental watering up until the first frost to increase establishment rates, and we’ll be able to measure their success when sites are re-assessed in the spring.
Moving forward, post-planting habitat monitoring will be conducted at the nine sites restored in 2024 to determine the effectiveness of restoration methods, species, and seeding timing. Another eight sites will be seeded and planted in 2025, with baseline monitoring already completed. Native bee populations were measured through surveys of “bee houses” installed at four sites in 2024, with an additional four to be added in 2025. R4M is also expanding into a wider project encompassing vertebrate pollinators, with a new seed crew to collect from plant species that support hummingbirds and bats, additional pollinator monitoring, and more site restoration in 2026.
We would like to thank our River for Monarchs partners, especially Ranchos de Las Golondrinas, Pueblo of Santa Ana, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish at the Bernardo Wildlife Management Area, US Fish and Wildlife Service at Valle de Oro and Bosque del Apache, Friends of Bosque del Apache, Bureau of Land Management Taos Field Office, New Mexico Department of Transportation, Albuquerque Open Space, and Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District; as well as the Carroll Petrie Foundation, Youth Conservation Corp, US Forest Service, Sandia High School, and Santa Ana Native Plants for their help in this project.
