Good Things Come in Larger Packages: Size Matters for Adult Fruit-Feeding Butterfly Dispersal and Larval Diet Breadth

Abstract

Introduction: In animals, body size is correlated with many aspects of natural history, such as life span, abundance, dispersal capacity and diet breadth. However, contrasting trends have been reported for the relationship between body size and these ecological traits. Methods: Fruit-feeding butterflies were used to investigate whether body size is correlated with species abundance, dispersal, permanence, and larval diet breadth in a Neotropical savanna in Brazil (Cerrado). We used Blomberg’s K and Phylogenetic Generalized Least Squares models (PGLS) to measure phylogenetic signal strength in species traits and to estimate size–dispersal–diet breadth associations, while also taking shared ancestry into account. Results: 539 individuals from 27 species were captured, and 190 individuals were recaptured, representing a 35% recapture rate. We found body size to be negatively associated with butterfly abundance, and positively associated with dispersal level, distance traveled, number of traps visited, individual permanence, and diet breadth. These results indicate that larger butterflies are more likely to disperse over longer distances. Moreover, larger butterflies have more generalized larval diets, based on the number of host plant families, genera, and phylogenetic diversity of the host plants they consume as larvae. Smaller butterflies rely on fewer resources, which is reflected in their higher survival in small patches and may explain their lower dispersal ability and higher diet specialization. Nevertheless, lower dispersal ability may, if not compensated by large population sizes, threaten small-bodied species inhabiting environments, such as the Cerrado, which have intense deforestation rates. Conclusions: Body size is positively associated with dispersal and diet breadth for the fruit-feeding butterflies collected in this study.

Livestock density affects species richness and community composition of butterflies: A nationwide study

“…The mean wing index of butterfly communities was quantified by calculating the arithmetic mean of species-specific wing indices over all observed species on a given transect in a given year. Wing size has been shown to highly correlate with mobility, with larger species being more mobile than smaller ones ( Freire et al, 2021 ). The final list of species and their characteristics are shown in Table A1 .…”

“… Carvalheiro et al, 2019 ). Large butterflies are more mobile than smaller ones ( Freire et al, 2021 ) and thus have the ability to make use of habitat patches dispersed over large distances. Compared to smaller species, they are less prone to extinction by isolation ( Börschig et al, 2013 , Luppi et al, 2018 , Perović et al, 2015 ).…”

CanFlyet: Habitat Zone and Diet Trait Dataset for Diptera Species of Canada and Greenland

“…The dataset can be used to investigate the relationship between traits and population genetic structure or phylogenetic community structure. The dataset could also be used to find relationships between traits, such as in studies like Freire et al (2021). A visualization is provided in Figure 3 of the phylogenetic relationships between species possessing different traits.…”

Living on the edge: The use of fruit‐feeding butterflies to evaluate edge effect on subtropical assemblages

“…Butterflies are an excellent group for the study of patterns of community structure along environmental gradients since they are indicators of small‐scale disturbance (Uehara‐Prado et al, 2009) and respond quickly to habitat perturbations due to their close association with microclimatic variation (Freitas et al, 2014). Fruit‐feeding butterflies of the family Nymphalidae are used as subjects in many studies in the Neotropical region because they offer some practical advantages during sampling, such as (a) easy capture in traps containing fermented fruit, which allows sampling effort to be standardized in space and time, (b) simultaneous sampling at various sites and (c) their dispersal capacities (Freire Jr et al, 2021; Freitas et al, 2014; Marini‐Filho & Parentoni, 2010). The few studies with fruit‐feeding butterflies have presented differing results for evaluating edge habitats in tropical Brazil.…”