Climate change poses a significant challenge to all natural systems on Earth. Especially increases in extreme weather events such as heat waves have the potential to strongly affect biodiversity, though their effects are poorly understood because of a lack of empirical data. Therefore, we here explore the sensitivity of a tropical ectotherm, which are in general believed to have a low warming tolerance, to experimentally simulated climate change using ecologically realistic diurnal temperature cycles. Increasing the mean temperature permanently by 3°C had mostly minor effects on developmental traits in the butterfly Bicyclus anynana. Simulated heat waves (strongly elevated temperatures for some time though retaining the same overall temperature mean), in contrast, caused strong negative effects by prolonging development time (by up to 10%) and reducing body mass (−21%), especially when combined with reduced relative humidity. Detrimental effects were carried over into the adult stage, diminishing subsequent performance. Most strikingly, higher temperatures suppressed adult immune function (haemocytes: −54%, lysozyme activity: −32%), which may potentially change the way species interact with antagonists. Heat waves thus reduced fitness parameters by 10-25% for development time and body mass and by up to 54% for immune parameters even in this plastic and widespread butterfly, exemplifying the potentially dramatic impact of extreme weather events on biodiversity.

Oxidative stress has been proposed to mediate one of the most important aspects of life-history evolution: the trade-off between reproduction and self-maintenance. However, empirical studies have cast doubt on the generality of this intriguing notion. Here, we hypothesize that reproduction alters oxidative status only when a trade-off between reproduction and self-maintenance occurs. Accordingly, in female Bicyclus anynana butterflies, we found that reproduction affected oxidative markers only under challenging thermal conditions that made the trade-off between reproduction and longevity emerge. Interestingly, under such conditions, butterflies favored longevity over reproduction, suggesting that self-maintenance mechanisms were activated. Accordingly, butterflies reproducing under challenging thermal conditions exhibited enhanced antioxidant defenses and stable oxidative damage. Altogether, our results indicate that a trade-off between reproduction and self-maintenance is indeed a necessary condition for reproduction to alter oxidative status, and that the effects of such a trade-off on oxidative status depend on whether priority is given to self-maintenance or reproduction. Assessing the existence of the trade-off between self-maintenance and reproduction, and whether self-maintenance is prioritized relative to reproduction is therefore crucial for understanding variation in oxidative status in reproducing animals, which may clarify the general implication of oxidative stress in the resolution of life-history trade-offs.

Anthropogenic interference forces species to respond to changing environmental conditions. One possible response is dispersal and concomitant range shifts, allowing individuals to escape unfavourable conditions or to track the shifting climate niche. Range expansions depend on both dispersal capacity and the ability to establish populations beyond the former range. We here compare well-established core populations with recently established edge populations in the currently northward expanding butterfly Lycaena tityrus. Edge populations were characterized by shorter development times and smaller size, a higher sensitivity to high temperature and an enhanced exploratory behaviour. The differences between core and edge populations found suggest adaptation to local climates and an enhanced dispersal ability in edge populations. In particular, enhanced exploratory behaviour may be advantageous in all steps of the dispersal process and may have facilitated the current range expansion. This study describes differences associated with a current range expansion, knowledge which might be useful for a better understanding of species responses to environmental change. We further report on variation between males and females in morphology and flight behaviour, with males showing a longer flight endurance and more pronounced exploratory behaviour than females.

Anthropogenic global change, including agricultural intensification and climate change, poses a substantial challenge to many herbivores due to a reduced availability of feeding resources. The concomitant food stress is expected to detrimentally affect performance, amongst others in dispersal-related traits. Thus, while dispersal is of utmost importance to escape from deteriorating habitat conditions, such conditions may negatively feedback on the ability to do so. Therefore, we here investigate the impact of larval and adult food stress on traits related to dispersal ability, including morphology, physiology, flight performance, and exploratory behavior, in a butterfly. We show that inadequate nutrition during development and in the adult stage diminishes flight performance, despite some re-allocation of somatic resources. Detrimental effects of food stress on flight performance were mainly caused by reductions in body mass and storage reserves. Similar results were found for exploratory behavior. Furthermore, exploratory behavior was found to be (moderately) repeatable at the individual level, which might indicate the existence of a personality trait. This notion is further supported by the fact that flight performance and exploratory behavior were positively correlated, potentially suggesting the existence of a dispersal syndrome. In summary, our findings may have important implications for dispersal in natural environments, as the conditions requiring dispersal the most impair flight ability and thereby likely dispersal rates.

Dispersal, defined as any movements potentially leading to gene flow, is a major process driving a species’ capacity to cope with human‐induced environmental modifications. However, the dispersal process is multi‐causal, which currently hinders predictions regarding a species’ resilience to global change. We used a multifaceted approach to disentangle the relative importance of a suite of dispersal‐related factors in the butterfly Lycaena tityrus, including condition‐ (morphology and behavior) and context‐ (environmental) dependent factors. Experiments were conducted at an experimental platform dedicated to study dispersal, the Metatron, to record emigration propensity in two‐patch experimental metapopulations under different environmental conditions. The butterflies’ individual condition was subsequently assessed in the laboratory. Individual condition did not generally influence emigration propensity. We detected a significant sex bias in emigration propensity, being generally higher in females than in males, but in a context‐dependent manner. The environmental context affected emigration propensity, which was higher when habitat quality was poor. Our results show that emigration is not random in L. tityrus, but is rather an active process triggered by sex and habitat quality. Our main finding was that individual condition, and particularly flight ability measured by a performance test, was not related to emigration propensity in experimental metapopulations. Our results may have important implications for forecasting future species distributions, as deteriorating environmental contexts are likely to increase emigration whatever the individual condition is.