A trans-oceanic flight of over 4,200 km by painted lady butterflies

Suchan, Tomasz; Bataille, Clément P.; Reich, Megan S.; Toro-Delgado, Eric; Vila, Roger; Pierce, Naomi E.; Talavera, Gerard

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-49079-2

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 86 publications

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“…In butterflies, migration often occur over several generations, with successive generations following different flight azimuths to achieve a round-trip annual travel that can cover thousands of kilometers in some Nymphalidae species (e.g. monarch Danaus Plexippus: Brower 1995; painted lady Vanessa cardui: Stefanescu et al 2013, Suchan et al 2024.…”

Section: P Brassicae and P Rapae Migratory Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recording butterfly movements from a UAV

de Margerie,

Monmasson

2024

Preprint

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Tracking and understanding the movements of animals in the wild is a fast-growing area of research, known as movement ecology. However, tracking small animals such as flying insects, which cannot easily carry an electronic tag, remains challenging as existing field methods are costly either in terms of equipment or tracking effort (e.g. VHF radio-tracking, scanning harmonic radar). Here we attempted to record the movements of free-flying butterflies from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), maintaining a static position in the sky and recording video vertically downwards. With an appropriate flight height and image filtering algorithm, we recorded 166 flight tracks of Pieris butterflies (P. brassicae and P. rapae), with a median tracking length of 40 m (median flight duration 13 s), and a high temporal resolution of 30 positions per second. Average flight direction varied significantly over the course of the flying season, from a northern azimuth in June and early July, to a southern azimuth in September, a trans-generational migratory behaviour that had previously been documented by field observations or experiments in flight cages. In addition, UAV imagery unlocks the possibility to measure high-resolution flight movement patterns (e.g. path tortuosity and transverse oscillations), which will possibly help understand perceptual and locomotor mechanisms underlying spatial behaviour. We explore the technical details associated with UAV tracking methodology, and discuss its limitations, in particular the biases associated with a 2D projection of 3D flight movements, and the difficulty to distinguish between visually similar species, such as P. brassicae and P. rapae.

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Section: P Brassicae and P Rapae Migratory Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recording butterfly movements from a UAV

de Margerie,

Monmasson

2024

Preprint

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Effects of temperature experienced across life stages on morphology and flight behavior of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui)

Mesler,

Mabry

2024

Preprint

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Background: With ongoing anthropogenic climate change, there is increasing interest in how organisms are affected by higher temperatures, including how animals respond behaviorally to increasing temperatures. Movement behavior is especially relevant here, as the ability of a species to shift its range is implicitly dependent upon movement capacity and motivation. Temperature may influence movement behavior of ectotherms both directly, through an increase in body temperature, and indirectly, through temperature-dependent effects on physiological and morphological traits that can influence movement. Methods: Here, we investigate the influence of ambient temperature during two life stages, larval and adult, on body size and movement behavior of the painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui). We reared painted ladies to emergence at either a “low” (24 °C) or “high” (28 °C) temperature. At eclosion, we assessed flight behavior in an arena test, with half of the adults emerging from each rearing treatment tested at either the “low” or “high” temperature. We had a total of four treatment groups: the control (reared and tested at 24 °C), a consistently high temperature (reared and tested at 28 °C), and two treatments in which butterflies experienced flight tests at a temperature either higher or lower than the one at which they were reared. We measured adult body size, including wingspan, and determined flight speed, distance, and duration from video recordings. Results: Adult butterflies that experienced the higher temperature during development were larger. We documented an interaction effect of rearing x testing temperature on flight behavior: unexpectedly, the fastest butterflies were those who experienced a change in temperature, whether an increase or decrease, between rearing and testing. Conclusions: Individuals that experienced matching thermal environments flew more slowly, but for more time and covering more distance. Overall, the influence of body size per se on flight was minimal. We conclude that the potential role of “matching” thermal environments across life stages has been underinvestigated with regard to how organisms may respond to warming conditions.

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A trans-oceanic flight of over 4,200 km by painted lady butterflies

Cited by 2 publications

References 86 publications

Recording butterfly movements from a UAV

Recording butterfly movements from a UAV

Effects of temperature experienced across life stages on morphology and flight behavior of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui)

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