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The impact of climatic change on butterfly geography: does climatic change produce coincident trends in populations, distributions and ranges?

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Abstract

With climatic warming is the expectation of coincident changes in distributions and range limits driven by population changes. An outstanding question is whether such coincident changes (positive or negative) occur, especially in smaller regions in which management for change tends to be conducted. Using atlas and survey monitoring data (BMS) we studied population and distribution changes in 31 butterfly species in North West England over three recording periods (1940–1994, 1995–2001, 2001–2007). We found that since the first recording period many more species have shifted their centres of gravity significantly northwards and uphill than have increased in population abundance (density) and distribution cover. At the same time, far fewer species have effectively shifted southwards and downhill than have decreased in density and distribution cover. A significant association between change in distribution cover and density is divorced from the weaker association between shifts in altitude and northing; whereas many species are gaining northwards and at higher altitude, they are doing so from a failing base at lower altitude and at the core of their distributions. Usually losses at lower altitudes are ascribed to loss of biotopes. But, declines in some species, such as Lasiommata megera, are occurring at a much faster rate than physical changes to the landscape and in land uses. The findings of this study indicate that changes in populations, distributions and ranges are a great deal more complex than hitherto considered. Currently, the basis for such rapid changes is not being supported by detailed autecology on species.

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Acknowledgments

We thank three referees for their suggestions and the Associate Editor Peter White for his helpful direction in revising the paper. THS acknowledges the support of the Technische Universität München—Institute for Advanced Study, funded by the German Excellence Initiative. We thank Barry T. Shaw and Laura Sivell (regional recorders for the BNM atlas) for provision of atlas data for Cheshire and Lancashire and the many participants who have kindly sent in records to the these regional databases and for Greater Manchester as part of BNM atlas records; our thanks, too, to Phillip M. Kinder for independently checking tabulations of the data and to Leonardo Dapporto for providing an inset map of the UK.

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  1. Roger L. H. Dennis

    Present address: , 4 Fairfax Drive, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 6EY, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 28 Hyde Grove, Sale, Trafford, M33 7TE, UK

    Peter B. Hardy

  2. Fachgebiet für Ökoklimatologie, Technische Universität München, Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz-Platz 2, 85354, Freising, Germany

    Tim H. Sparks

  3. Institute for Advanced Study, Technische Universität München, Lichtenbergstrasse 2a, 85748, Garching, Germany

    Tim H. Sparks

  4. Institute of Zoology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 71C, 60-625, Poznań, Poland

    Tim H. Sparks

  5. Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK

    Tim H. Sparks

  6. Sigma, Coventry University, Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK

    Tim H. Sparks

  7. Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK

    Roger L. H. Dennis

  8. Institute for Environment, Sustainability and Regeneration, Staffordshire University, Mellor Building, College Road, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 2DE, UK

    Roger L. H. Dennis

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  1. Peter B. Hardy
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Correspondence to Roger L. H. Dennis.

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Communicated by Peter J. T. White.

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Hardy, P.B., Sparks, T.H. & Dennis, R.L.H. The impact of climatic change on butterfly geography: does climatic change produce coincident trends in populations, distributions and ranges?. Biodivers Conserv 23, 855–876 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0637-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0637-2

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