Butterflies That Are Picky Eaters In Greater Danger Of Extinction

Butterflies that are picky about their flower diets are more prone to extinction, researchers have found.

AsianScientist (Aug. 23, 2016) – Researchers in Singapore have revealed that tropical butterflies that are ‘picky’ about their flower diets are most adversely affected by changes in vegetation due to urbanization. Results of the study were published in Biological Conservation.

Studying the flowers that butterflies feed on is critical in understanding the reproduction and dispersal of different types of plants. Previous studies on the flower-feeding patterns of butterflies have been concentrated in temperate countries such as the United Kingdom and Spain, and few studies have focused on tropical butterflies.

“Changes in vegetation structure due to urbanization could alter butterfly behavior, and in turn, result in changes in native plant pollination and reproduction,” explained Mr. Anuj Jain, who conducted the study as part of his doctoral research at the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of Singapore.

To address this research gap, the research team and butterfly experts from the Nature Society (Singapore) decided to look deeper into the flower-feeding patterns of tropical butterflies. They surveyed 62 sites in Singapore which included both forested areas and urban parks, and recorded 3,092 flower visits by 190 butterfly species feeding on 149 plant species.

The researchers found that 30 of the observed species were flower specialists who are ‘picky’ about their diets, feeding only on certain flower species, while the rest feed from a wide array of flowers.

In particular, a few forest butterflies were found to be critically dependent on single native flower species. The Lycaenidae family of butterflies, which is the most extinction-prone and most habitat-specialized butterfly family in Singapore, is the most flower-specialized.


The article can be found at: Jain et al. (2016) Flower Specialization of Butterflies and Impacts of Non-native Flower Use in a Transformed Tropical Landscape.

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Source: National University of Singapore; Photo: dasWebweib/Flickr/CC.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

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