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Vancouver is awesome, Sept 21, 2022 - Climate change threatening butterflies’ pollen-collecting powers, find B.C. researchers
VancouverSun, Sep 16, 2022 - UBC study finds climate change could cause butterflies to shrink, raising pollination concerns
UBC News, Sept 15, 2022 - Warmer Earth could see smaller butterflies that struggle to fly, affecting food systems (see video below)
Originally posted June 23, 2022
Abstract
Most of our understanding of the effects of climate warming on insect body size comes from laboratory experiments. Whether these studies predict patterns in nature is largely unknown.
Here we examine the relevance of laboratory warming experiments for wild populations of the butterfly Pieris rapae. We tested two predictions: (i) butterflies reared at warmer temperatures in the laboratory should attain smaller adult sizes and have reduced flight ability, and (ii) in nature, this trait combination should lead to smaller butterflies visiting fewer flowers and accumulating less pollen.
Overall, we found that warm-reared butterflies were indeed smaller and flew more slowly compared to colder-reared conspecifics. Additionally, wild-caught small butterflies carried fewer, and a lower diversity of pollen grains compared to larger butterflies.
Our warming experiments thus largely predicted pollen collection patterns in wild P. rapae.
This study demonstrates that increased temperatures will likely have important consequences for butterfly-plant interactions in nature.