Cool as a caterpillar: Understanding the responses of butterflies to temperature across the life cycle
type: CreativeWork
description: Anthropogenic effects, including land-use and climate change, have had dramatic and wide-ranging impacts on the natural world. The impacts of these changes have already been detected in many systems, with global biodiversity and abundance of many taxa declining across spatial scales. The loss of biodiversity has knock on impacts to human society, which are only just beginning to be understood. Only with a detailed understanding of how species will respond to environmental changes, and with effective dissemination of this knowledge, can we hope to slow and halt biodiversity loss. In this thesis, I use butterflies as a model taxon to understand the responses of insects to changing habitat and microclimatic conditions. Insects are a diverse and globally distributed group of organisms that play fundamental roles in ecosystem processes, many of which are critical to human societies. Despite this, there is growing evidence that insects are declining at rapid rates around the world, and many of these declines have been attributed to anthropogenic change. Butterflies show detectable responses to environmental change, including spatial responses, such as range shifts, and temporal responses, such as changes to timing of life cycle events. They are diverse, wide-spread, and ecologically sensitive, with complex life cycles that differ in morphology, behaviour, and ecology, and therefore differ in their sensitivities and requirements. In my first data chapter, I use a systematic mapping method to screen, quantify and discuss current knowledge on butterfly responses to temperature. I found that Nymphalidae were the most studied family, likely owing to their high number of species, including large, charismatic and common species of cultural importance. In contrast, Riodinidae were rarely studied, likely due to their elusive nature and being concentrated in the tropics. The tropics were less studied than temperate regions, and more studies reported the responses of butterflies at …
abstract: Anthropogenic effects, including land-use and climate change, have had dramatic and wide-ranging impacts on the natural world. The impacts of these changes have already been detected in many systems, with global biodiversity and abundance of many taxa declining across spatial scales. The loss of biodiversity has knock on impacts to human society, which are only just beginning to be understood. Only with a detailed understanding of how species will respond to environmental changes, and with effective dissemination of this knowledge, can we hope to slow and halt biodiversity loss. In this thesis, I use butterflies as a model taxon to understand the responses of insects to changing habitat and microclimatic conditions. Insects are a diverse and globally distributed group of organisms that play fundamental roles in ecosystem processes, many of which are critical to human societies. Despite this, there is growing evidence that insects are declining at rapid rates around the world, and many of these declines have been attributed to anthropogenic change. Butterflies show detectable responses to environmental change, including spatial responses, such as range shifts, and temporal responses, such as changes to timing of life cycle events. They are diverse, wide-spread, and ecologically sensitive, with complex life cycles that differ in morphology, behaviour, and ecology, and therefore differ in their sensitivities and requirements. In my first data chapter, I use a systematic mapping method to screen, quantify and discuss current knowledge on butterfly responses to temperature. I found that Nymphalidae were the most studied family, likely owing to their high number of species, including large, charismatic and common species of cultural importance. In contrast, Riodinidae were rarely studied, likely due to their elusive nature and being concentrated in the tropics. The tropics were less studied than temperate regions, and more studies reported the responses of butterflies at …
author: Ashe-Jepson, Esme
language: eng
keywords: Climate change, Habitat association, Larva, Lepidoptera, Thermal ecology, Thermal tolerance, Thermoregulation
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/03a7062d-fc75-4533-b709-782cefc9fc42/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2023-11-24
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:56Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.104672