Butterfly database, USA

Community and Forum → Other questions. Insects topics → Butterfly database, USA

Dmitrii Musolin, 08.03.2007 17:03

DAVIS,CALIFORNIA – One of the two largest
butterfly databases in the world , with important
implications for the study of global change, will “go public” on March 1.

Since 1972, Dr. Arthur Shapiro of the Center
for Population Biology and Section of Evolution
and Ecology, College of Biological Sciences,
University of California – Davis, has maintained
a butterfly-monitoring transect across northern
California parallel to Interstate Highway 80. The
transect grew from four sites in 1972-74 to 10 in
1988. The sites range from sea level to tree-line
in the Sierra Nevada (above 9000’) and embrace
both the west- and east-slope Sierran climates.
At each site data are collected every two weeks
during butterfly season, which ranges from all
year at sea level to about three months at the
highest site. As of the end of 2006, Dr. Shapiro
has logged 5476 site visits with approximately
83,000 individual records of 159 species and
subspecies. This is believed to be the world’s
largest dataset of intensive site-specific data
on butterfly distribution and seasonality
collected by a single individual under a strict protocol.
The other large butterfly database, the United
Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, is quite
differently organized, employing many volunteer
observers throughout the country who
monitor their local faunas at 1228 sites. The
British fauna is much smaller, with fewer than 60
species in total, and with less topographic
relief and climatic diversity in the entire
country than occurs on the California
transect. Butterflies have become very prominent
indicator organisms in conservation and
global-change biology. Both projects present
unique opportunities to observe and quantify the
responses of these animals to changing climatic
conditions. Many species in Britain are near
their northern range limits, making the British
data good indicators of climatic sensitivity.
Because California’s Mediterranean climate is so
variable, Shapiro believes his data may be
particularly useful in identifying the relative
contributions of different climatic factors to
butterfly seasonality and distribution.

With support from the U.S. National Science
Foundation, we have created a Web site,
<http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/>http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu,
which incorporates all of the California transect
data as well as climatological data for nearby
weather stations (from the Western Regional
Climate Center), capsule ecological, geological
and climatic descriptions (with maps) of all of
the sites, biological summaries for all the
species recorded in the study, and numerous
photographs of the sites and the
butterflies. For each species, its year-by-year
seasonal history is presented for each site,
along with a smoothed graph representing the
probability of seeing it each week of the year.

The site provides links to numerous related
butterfly resources, profiles of the members of
the project, a partial bibliography and a
glossary of terms. All of this material is
directly accessible to the public. Researchers
interested in obtaining access to the complete
data set, as well as anyone with butterfly
questions, is invited to email us using the Web
site’s “Contact us” function. The site should be
of interest to the general public and to both
professional and amateur butterfly enthusiasts,
as well as ecologists, evolutionary biologists,
conservation biologists and global-change specialists.

Although the site provides life-history
information for all the species, this information
is specifically focused on the study sites and
their vicinity and should not be used as a
substitute for more comprehensive sites or field guides.

In addition , we provide a series of
exercises (some still in development) to allow
high-school teachers to use the database to teach
and illustrate concepts in quantitative biology,
statistics, field biology and natural history.

The Shapiro lab group is currently engaged in
a variety of projects employing these data. More
information is available on request.
CONTACT INFORMATION: Arthur M. Shapiro, Center
for Population Biology, UC Davis:
<mailto:amshapiro@ucdavis.edu>amshapiro@ucdavis.edu,
(530)752-2176, FAX (530)752-1449.