It's not looking like fall yet in the Valley, but it does mean that Arizona will begin to welcome back monarch butterflies as they make their yearly cross-country migration for an all-important plant to them: Milkweed.
Alexa Lopezlira, Roadside Resources and Special Projects biologist for the Arizona Department of Transportation, is working to seed these plants. But, she’s not doing it just anywhere.
She’s working with monarch conservationists to ensure a supply of milkweed along Arizona’s miles and miles of state highways, and she joined The Show to talk more about what their work looks like.
Full conversation
ALEXA LOPEZLIRA: Well, our work has just started, entered into the monarch conservation agreement just this past April, but we've mostly been doing a lot of pollinator-friendly practices to help native vegetation along the roadsides thrive. We do that pretty much all year round.
So right now, we are currently monitoring some areas to see what areas have best milkweed and nectar plants available. That way we can make note of those to keep them healthy throughout the year. Also just revising our vegetation mowing schedules and any other sort of roadside maintenance just to be aware of the monarch coming up. That way, we can make it a safe journey for them.
LAUREN GILGER: So, that's really interesting. So there are areas along the highways where there is milkweed already or, you know, pollinator kind of plants, right. But you're also kind of want to plant more of those and want to preserve the ones that are there, it sounds like.
LOPEZLIRA: Yeah, definitely. You know, one of the things that we've started doing a few spots post-construction is trying to get milkweed seeds in that native seed mix that we typically use. So far,I believe we've hit around 10 post-construction with milkweed seeds. They are pretty hard to come by. So that is one challenge that we do face.
GILGER: I mean, this is like, this is so much roadside, that's what strikes me about this. Like, first of all that I had no idea this existed or that someone's job was out there to do this, right. But, but I mean, how do you even begin to survey all the roadside in the state to find out what's planted next to it?
LOPEZLIRA: Yeah. One chunk at a time. That's how we do it. So yeah, so with, with ADOT in particular, we have seven districts. So we're doing it in chunks. But so far it seems to be working, there's a team of us that are going out. It has to start around the monsoon season, right, because milkweed perks up when the rains start. You know, we're kind of at the mercy of nature here.
So we try to divide it up into sections of areas that would have high suitability for milkweed and other nectarine plants. To keep everybody safe, we're not going on like major interstates. So we're going to state routes and U.S. highways and stuff that are easier to pull off on the side of the road.
GILGER: Let's back up for a moment, Alexa, and just talk about why milkweed is so important for monarchs and, and like the kind of role it plays in their, you know, miraculous migration that they do every year.
LOPEZLIRA: Milkweed is super important for monarchs. They're one of the only butterfly species that actually use the plant in its entirety. So the monarchs will lay eggs on it and then once the caterpillars hatch, they start to eat the milkweed as they grow. And it also makes them unpalatable to predators because milkweed produces a toxin that most animals can't tolerate.
And it helps them produce that bright orange and black coloring that says don't eat me, I'm poisonous, you know. So it's honestly a really cool evolutionary trait that these critters have developed. But that's why it's super important for milkweed to be in areas because they need it to actually survive.
GILGER: Yeah. Yeah. And this is an important moment to do this, right? Because monarchs are, are threatened right now. Like we're seeing their numbers dramatically decline.
LOPEZLIRA: Absolutely. Yeah, this is best time as any, especially with Arizona. Arizona is pretty unique because, you know, we actually have quite a wide range of habitat and elevation ranges. So we actually have about 10 species of milkweed that we find along roadsides, that we can definitely kind of capitalize for the monarch and just kind of beef up our vegetation management practices to help them out.
GILGER: Give us a broader picture before I let you go here, Alexa, of, of sort of the efforts that are involved in this. Like, it's surprising, I think to, to me and probably to other people as well that, that ADOT has biologists on staff and cares about what's planted next to the roadways, right? Like what other kinds of things are you doing in this role? Are you looking at other invasive species? Are you looking at preventing the spread of brush for wildfires? Like how does this crop up?
LOPEZLIRA: Yeah. Yeah. So that's primarily my job. I kind of zone in on vegetation management and that does include monitoring and, and managing invasive plants that might be causing some of these wildfires that you see on the news and developing practices to minimize any sort of damage that it have on our roadways because it causes things like soil erosion. And also just trying to implement practices that will make our native vegetation thrive.
It is a challenge, especially right now, we are seeing an influx of some non-native species that are kind of taking over where native species used to thrive. So there's a lot of trying to work as a team here for our beautiful desert to continue thriving.
GILGER: Yeah, and a little help for the monarch butterfly along the way.
