Flight behaviour diverges more between seasonal forms than between species in butterflies.

In flying animals, wing morphology is typically assumed to influence flight behaviours. Whether seasonal polymorphism in butterfly morphology is linked to adaptive flight behaviour remains unresolved. Here, we compare the flight behaviours and wing morphologies of the spring and summer forms of two closely related butterfly species, and .

Tropical butterflies use thermal buffering and thermal tolerance as alternative strategies to cope with temperature increase.

Climate change poses a severe threat to many taxa, with increased mean temperatures and frequency of extreme weather events predicted. Insects can respond to high temperatures using behaviour, such as angling their wings away from the sun or seeking cool local microclimates to thermoregulate or through physiological tolerance. In a butterfly community in Panama, we compared the ability of adult butterflies from 54 species to control their body temperature across a range of air temperatures (thermal buffering ability), as well as assessing the critical thermal maxima for a subset of 24 species.

Thermoregulatory ability and mechanism do not differ consistently between neotropical and temperate butterflies.

Climate change is a major threat to species worldwide, yet it remains uncertain whether tropical or temperate species are more vulnerable to changing temperatures. To further our understanding of this, we used a standardised field protocol to (1) study the buffering ability (ability to regulate body temperature relative to surrounding air temperature) of neotropical (Panama) and temperate (the United Kingdom, Czech Republic and Austria) butterflies at the assemblage and family level, (2) determine if any differences in buffering ability were driven by morphological characteristics and (3) used ecologically relevant temperature measurements to investigate how butterflies use microclimates and behaviour to thermoregulate. We hypothesised that temperate butterflies would be better at buffering than neotropical butterflies as temperate species naturally experience a wider range of temperatures than their tropical counterparts.

Indirect maternal effects via nest microbiome composition drive gut colonization in altricial chicks.

Gut microbial communities are complex and heterogeneous and play critical roles for animal hosts. Early-life disruptions to microbiome establishment can negatively impact host fitness and development. However, the consequences of such early-life disruptions remain unknown in wild birds.

Body size, not species identity, drives body heating in alpine Erebia butterflies.

Efficient thermoregulation is crucial for animals living under fluctuating climatic and weather conditions. We studied the body heating of six butterfly species of the genus Erebia (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) that co-occur in the European Alps. We tested whether butterfly physical characteristics (body size, wing loading) are responsible for the inter-specific differences in body temperatures recorded previously under natural conditions.

Specific gut bacterial responses to natural diets of tropical birds.

The composition of gut bacterial communities is strongly influenced by the host diet in many animal taxa. For birds, the effect of diet on the microbiomes has been documented through diet manipulation studies. However, for wild birds, most studies have drawn on literature-based information to decipher the dietary effects, thereby, overlooking individual variation in dietary intake.

Conserved ancestral tropical niche but different continental histories explain the latitudinal diversity gradient in brush-footed butterflies.

The global increase in species richness toward the tropics across continents and taxonomic groups, referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient, stimulated the formulation of many hypotheses to explain the underlying mechanisms of this pattern. We evaluate several of these hypotheses to explain spatial diversity patterns in a butterfly family, the Nymphalidae, by assessing the contributions of speciation, extinction, and dispersal, and also the extent to which these processes differ among regions at the same latitude. We generate a time-calibrated phylogeny containing 2,866 nymphalid species (~45% of extant diversity).

Low winter precipitation, but not warm autumns and springs, threatens mountain butterflies in middle-high mountains.

Low-elevation mountains represent unique model systems to study species endangered by climate warming, such as subalpine and alpine species of butterflies. We aimed to test the effect of climate variables experienced by butterflies during their development on adult abundances and phenology, targeting the key climate factors determining the population dynamics of mountain insects. We analysed data from a long-term monitoring of adults of two subalpine and alpine butterfly species, and (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) in the Jeseník Mts and Krkonoše Mts (Czech Republic).

Climatic niche evolution is faster in sympatric than allopatric lineages of the butterfly genus .

Understanding how speciation relates to ecological divergence has long fascinated biologists. It is assumed that ecological divergence is essential to sympatric speciation, as a mechanism to avoid competition and eventually lead to reproductive isolation, while divergence in allopatry is not necessarily associated with niche differentiation. The impact of the spatial context of divergence on the evolutionary rates of abiotic dimensions of the ecological niche has rarely been explored for an entire clade.

Facing the Heat: Thermoregulation and Behaviour of Lowland Species of a Cold-Dwelling Butterfly Genus, Erebia.

Understanding the potential of animals to immediately respond to changing temperatures is imperative for predicting the effects of climate change on biodiversity. Ectothermic animals, such as insects, use behavioural thermoregulation to keep their body temperature within suitable limits. It may be particularly important at warm margins of species occurrence, where populations are sensitive to increasing air temperatures.

Thermoregulation and microhabitat use in mountain butterflies of the genus Erebia: importance of fine-scale habitat heterogeneity.

Mountain butterflies have evolved efficient thermoregulation strategies enabling their survival in marginal conditions with short flight season and unstable weather. Understanding the importance of their behavioural thermoregulation by habitat use can provide novel information for predicting the fate of alpine Lepidoptera and other insects under ongoing climate change. We studied the link between microhabitat use and thermoregulation in adults of seven species of a butterfly genus Erebia co-occurring in the Austrian Alps.