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Investigating the Drivers of Western Monarch Decline Using Partial Least Squares Regression

Author(s): Jackie Luu

Virginia Commonwealth University

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Summary:
In this lesson, students will explore the drivers of the western monarch butterfly decline. Students will compare the effects of climate factors and land use factors on the western monarch butterfly population. Students will also be introduced to…

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In this lesson, students will explore the drivers of the western monarch butterfly decline. Students will compare the effects of climate factors and land use factors on the western monarch butterfly population. Students will also be introduced to partial least squares regression (PLSR), and then apply PLSR to address the monarch population decline question.

Licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International according to these terms

Version 2.0 - published on 16 May 2023 doi:10.25334/2HP8-M880 - cite this

Keywords

  1. RStudio
  2. multivariate analysis
  3. Monarch butterflies
  4. Partial Least Squares Regression

Alignments

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  2. Audience Level
  3. Activity Length
  4. Open Science and Education Practices Ontology
Contents:
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Description

Students will learn about the differences between the western and eastern monarch butterfly populations. Students will also explore drivers of the monarch decline and contemplate why it is important to understand the factors driving a species’ population decline. Using data from a prior study, students will investigate the relationship between climate and land use factors and the western monarch butterfly population. Students will create a PLSR model and biplot and explore the strengths and weaknesses of PLSR.

The resources included in this lesson will provide students with the essential background information and the materials needed to complete the lesson:

  1. Crone_et_al_2019: This document is the focal paper that the lesson is based on and will be referenced throughout the lesson.
  2. MonarchPitch: This video provides a brief overview of the lesson objectives.  
  3. Lesson_StudentVersion and Lesson_TeacherVersion: These pdf documents provide background information relevant to the western monarch butterfly decline. These documents will also engage the students with a PLSR example.
  4. MonarchData: This csv file is the data that will be used in the R markdown analysis.
  5. Analysis_StudentVersion and Analysis_TeacherVersion: These R markdown documents provide the code for students to tackle the monarch population decline question using PLSR.  

Notes

Version 2.0 included changes to the Analysis_TeacherVersion markdown file and the Lesson_TeacherVersion pdf. Additional information was added to the question answers. 

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