Wherefore and Whither the Modeler: Understanding the Population Dynamics of Monarchs Will Require Integrative and Quantitative Techniques

Abstract

The editor (LAD) of the recent special feature on Eastern North American monarch butterflies ( Danaus plexippus , Nymphalidae) and reviewers of these papers (including MLF and colleagues) enjoyed assessing new results, ideas, and hypotheses about this fascinating species. The feature included papers based on carefully collected citizen science data, and generated new ideas and hypotheses that have scientific merit and should not be summarily disregarded unless it is via the standard methods of refuting hypotheses and results in science. Of course, the first step in such a process is a critique that proposes alternative interpretations and a plan for future research. Pleasants et al. (2016) present such a critique, and they raise some very good points, some of which were alluded to by reviewers of the original special feature. The critique by Pleasants et al. (hereafter “feature critique”) is a carefully crafted part of a healthy debate, which we would like to further by pointing out some aspects of their position that include too-hasty dismissals of hypotheses and inferences by several of the feature papers. Here, we present a brief criticism of this rebuttal to the monarch special feature summary, and suggest avenues by which we feel monarch studies could profitably move forward. Before addressing each of the issues presented by the summary critique, it is useful to point out some attributes of the special feature summary by Davis and Dyer (2015; hereafter “feature summary”). The feature summary did not focus only on the three papers examined by the feature critique, rather it pointed to the strengths of all included papers, which combined citizen science data with new hypotheses about the complexities of population dynamics of migratory species. One of the main points of the feature summary was that more modeling and experiments are necessary and that “studies on immature stages, …