A Yale-led study reveals alarming data on how climate change could devastate butterfly populations by transforming their mountain habitats from refuges into traps, highlighting an urgent need for targeted conservation efforts.
Global climate change could have a catastrophic impact on butterflies, potentially turning their species-rich mountain habitats into death traps, warns a Yale-led study recently published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The concept echoes the “butterfly effect” but in a dire reversal, illustrating how climate change could lead to localized extinctions on a massive scale.
The study, conducted by a team co-led by Yale ecologist Walter Jetz and University of Marburg entomologist Stefan Pinkert, assessed phylogenetic and geographic range data for over 12,000 butterfly species worldwide.
The findings are staggering: two-thirds of butterfly species are primarily found in tropical and subtropical mountainous regions, which boast 3.5 times more butterfly hotspots than lowlands. However, these mountainous ecosystems are increasingly threatened by climate change.
The study predicts that 64% of the temperature niches that butterflies in these areas depend on could vanish by 2070, severely shrinking their viable habitats.
“The diversity, elegance and sheer beauty of butterflies impassion people worldwide,” Jetz, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale and director of the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change (BCG Center), said in a news release. “Co-evolved with host plants, butterflies form an integral part of an ecologically functioning web of life. Unfortunately, our first global assessment of butterfly diversity and threats finds that butterflies’ fascinating diversification into higher-elevation environments might now spell their demise, with potentially thousands of species committed to extinction from global warming this century.”
Pinkert, a former postdoctoral researcher at the BGC Center, shared the urgency of addressing this crisis.
“As an entomologist, I am committed to informing the public about the distribution of insect diversity and targeted ways to protect it,” he said in the news release. “Our results are insightful from an ecological point of view but unfortunately also very alarming.”
This groundbreaking research highlights a significant gap in current biodiversity preservation efforts, which tend to focus more on animals and plants rather than insects. Existing conservation priorities, shaped by studies on birds, mammals and amphibians, may not be adequate for protecting butterflies.
“This research was made possible by many years of mobilizing various global data and newly developed integrative approaches, all aimed at filling this critical information gap for at least one insect taxon,” Pinkert added.
Jetz hopes that the study — supported by extensive data from the Map of Life, a global database tracking species distribution, directed by Jetz — will guide conservation managers to include insects in their biodiversity preservation strategies.
“A reduction of carbon emissions, combined with proactive identification and preservation of key butterfly habitats and migratory corridors, will be key to ensuring that much of butterfly diversity survives to benefit future generations,” Jetz added.
The study was co-authored by Nina Farwig of the University of Marburg and Akito Kawahara of the University of Florida.
Source: Yale University