Editorial: North American Monarch Butterfly Ecology and Conservation

North American Monarch Butterfly Ecology and ConservationSpanning Canada, the United States, and Mexico, North America contains two populations of the migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus).The smaller "western" population overwinters in groves along the California coast and breeds west of the Rocky Mountains, while the much larger "eastern" population breeds east of the Rocky Mountains and overwinters in Oyamel fir forests in central Mexico.Both populations have declined in the last 20 to 30 years, leading to a formal petition in 2014 to list the species as threatened or endangered under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) and a recommendation in 2016 for listing as endangered under the Canadian Species at Risk act.The response to monarch declines in North America includes trinational (CAN, MEX, and USA) conservation agreements, federal and state management actions, non-governmental organizations programs, and concerted effort by individual citizens.The concomitant rise in science devoted to monarch ecology and conservation was the motivation for this Research Topic.The editors participated in the Monarch Conservation Science Partnership (MCSP) from 2014 to present and attended trinational monarch meetings sponsored by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.The MCSP convened meetings including leading academic and government scientists from all three countries, managers from federal and state agencies, and representatives of conservation organizations to identify, prioritize, design, and apply science needed to conserve and recover the eastern and western migratory monarch populations.These scientific endeavors were a holistic approach, encompassing all elements of strategic habitat conservation (biological planning, conservation design, habitat delivery, monitoring, and assumption-driven research, National Ecological Assessment Team, 2006), and collectively serve to strengthen the scientific foundation for the impending threatened or endangered listing decisions.This Research Topic expands on some of the work stemming from the MCSP as well as contributions from a much larger international scientific community.We purposely cast a broad net, inviting scientists and practitioners working on all aspects of monarch ecology and conservation, with the intent of illuminating the front lines of monarch conservation science prior to the listing decision.We sent out an open invitation and personally invited 67 scientists who had published research on monarchs or monarch habitat.Ultimately 34 articles were published by >150 authors.This is a subset of monarch-related research, reflecting widespread efforts to equip decision makers with the best available science to inform the listing process.Based on a Web of Science search for either "monarch butterfly" OR "Danaus plexippus" from 2017 to 2019, scientists published over 200 papers on topics related to monarch biology and conservation (55 in 2017, 64 in

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