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The distribution of V. atalanta records in Britain and Ireland during the period December 2006-February 2007. Dots represent the presence of at least one individual of V. atalanta in each 10 km × 10 km grid square of the British or Irish Ordnance Survey. Map produced using DMAP software.
Source publication
For much of the twentieth century, Vanessa atalanta (Linnaeus, 1758) was considered incapable of overwintering regularly in Britain and Ireland and was thus regarded as an immigrant, as opposed to resident, species. Using records from the Butterflies for the New Millennium recording scheme, we demonstrate that the number of V. atalanta present in B...
Citations
... Therefore, if short migratory flights become adaptive because overwintering in situ in temperate areas becomes favorable due to warming conditions, short fliers could swiftly replace longdistance migrants in the population. Changes in the frequency of morphs indicates that there must be strong selection for longdistance insect migration to be maintained in the face of the higher mortality rates, physiological costs, and delays to breeding associated with migration (Roff and Fairbairn, 1991;Zera and Denno, 1997;Fox and Dennis, 2010;Bonte et al., 2012;Chapman et al., 2015). ...
... Luder et al. (2018) demonstrated that migratory hoverflies appeared earlier in the season in urban areas compared to agricultural areas, indicating that cities may provide favorable conditions for overwintering. Warming temperatures have also led to an increase in overwintering of migratory species in the UK, such as the red admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta), although much of the population still immigrates to the UK each spring (Sparks et al., 2005;Fox and Dennis, 2010). Fairly simple laboratory experiments could be used to shed light on whether warming or constant temperatures, or increased food constancy, influences the migratory propensity in wingmonomorphic insects. ...
Partial migration, where a proportion of a population migrates, while other individuals remain resident, is widespread across most migratory lineages. However, the mechanisms driving individual differences in migratory tendency are still relatively poorly understood in most taxa, but may be influenced by morphological, physiological, and behavioral traits, controlled by phenotypic plasticity and the underlying genetic complex. Insects differ from vertebrates in that partial migration is often associated with pronounced morphological differences between migratory and resident phenotypes, such as wing presence or length. In contrast, the mechanisms influencing migratory tendency in wing-monomorphic insects is less clear. Insects are the most abundant and diverse group of terrestrial migrants, with trillions of animals moving across the globe annually, and understanding the drivers and extent of partial migration across populations will have considerable implications for ecosystem services, such as the management of pests and the conservation of threatened or beneficial species. Here, we present an overview of our current but incomplete knowledge of partial migration in insects. We discuss the factors that lead to the maintenance of partial migration within populations, and the conditions that may influence individual decision making, particularly in the context of individual fitness and reproductive tradeoffs. Finally, we highlight current gaps in knowledge and areas of future research that should prove fruitful in understanding the ecological and evolutionary drivers, and consequences of partial migration in insects.
... Fifty-six species of habitual current resident UK butterflies were selected for analysis. Following Fitzsimmons (2013), rare migrants and species described as 'migrant' were excluded; these latter comprise Vanessa atalanta (but see: Fox & Dennis, 2010), Vanessa cardui and Colias species. ...
Functional traits that define the ecological role of an organism are increasingly being used to determine and predict responses to environmental change. Functional trait analyses of butterflies remain underexplored compared with other taxa, such as plants. Previous works using butterfly functional traits have not comprehensively addressed issues about the quality of trait datasets used and the relative predictive power of different trait types.
We compare the consistency of trait descriptions between six widely used trait sources for the British butterfly fauna. We analysed consistency of trait sources using Fleiss's kappa and intraclass correlation coefficient. Principal component analysis was used to produce species ordinations, comparing outputs to examine which trait sets were better at explaining recent species range and abundance changes within the UK .
There was a large range in congruence values for specific traits between sources. No single source can be relied upon to produce accurate trait information for British butterflies. Most trait sets are poor predictors of abundance and occurrence changes but are better at predicting current occurrence. An extensive trait set, supplementing biotope‐related traits with explicit resource‐based information recovers more informative ecological classifications and models than those primarily based on life‐history traits or biotope descriptors. Smaller trait sets do, however, recover the specialist–generalist continuum.
We conclude that analyses of distribution and abundance changes that rely on traits are highly dependent on trait source and trait type. For butterflies, traits that are based on measures of biotope occupancy should be avoided in explaining changes of abundance and distribution. Including trait information that describes their resource requirements is essential for such analyses.
A plain language summary is available for this article.
... In addition we have the total number of visits to that square in that period. We have studied all species for which numbers meet minimum criteria for analysis, including a few regarded as non residents (Vanessa atalanta, Vanessa cardui and Colias croceus; but see Fox and Dennis 2010) since records for these should parallel changes in breeding success with changes in climate and biotopes. Some species were only sparsely recorded. ...
With climatic warming is the expectation of coincident changes in distributions and range limits driven by population changes. An outstanding question is whether such coincident changes (positive or negative) occur, especially in smaller regions in which management for change tends to be conducted. Using atlas and survey monitoring data (BMS) we studied population and distribution changes in 31 butterfly species in North West England over three recording periods (1940–1994, 1995–2001, 2001–2007). We found that since the first recording period many more species have shifted their centres of gravity significantly northwards and uphill than have increased in population abundance (density) and distribution cover. At the same time, far fewer species have effectively shifted southwards and downhill than have decreased in density and distribution cover. A significant association between change in distribution cover and density is divorced from the weaker association between shifts in altitude and northing; whereas many species are gaining northwards and at higher altitude, they are doing so from a failing base at lower altitude and at the core of their distributions. Usually losses at lower altitudes are ascribed to loss of biotopes. But, declines in some species, such as Lasiommata megera, are occurring at a much faster rate than physical changes to the landscape and in land uses. The findings of this study indicate that changes in populations, distributions and ranges are a great deal more complex than hitherto considered. Currently, the basis for such rapid changes is not being supported by detailed autecology on species.
... In addition we have the total number of visits to that square in that period. We have studied all species for which numbers meet minimum criteria for analysis, including a few regarded as non residents (Vanessa atalanta, Vanessa cardui and Colias croceus; but see Fox and Dennis 2010) since records for these should parallel changes in breeding success with changes in climate and biotopes. Some species were only sparsely recorded. ...
... atalanta). In autumn adults either enter winter hibernation (Fox & Dennis, 2010) or emigrate southward to breed (Stefanescu, 2001; Brattstr€ om et al., 2010). The comma butterfly (P. ...
Ivy ( Hedera helix and H. hibernica ) is a common autumn‐flowering plant found in Europe, North Africa, Macaronesia and Asia. Here, we use five complementary approaches (pollen trapping, nectar refractometry, local and regional surveys of insects foraging on ivy flowers, local survey of ivy abundance) to evaluate its importance to the honey bee ( Apis mellifera ) and other flower‐visiting insects in Sussex, England.
Pollen trapping at six hives in two locations showed that an average 89% of pollen pellets collected by honey bees in the autumn were from ivy.
Observations of foraging honey bees on ivy showed that ivy nectar is an even greater target than pollen, as 80% were collecting only nectar. Refractometry of samples from ivy flowers and from honey bees foraging on ivy showed that ivy nectar is rich in sugar, 49% w/w.
Surveys showed that the main insect taxa foraging on ivy were honey bees (21%), bumble bees ( Bombus spp., 3%), ivy bees ( Colletes hederae , 3%), common wasps ( Vespula vulgaris , 13%), hover flies (Syrphidae, 27%), other flies (29%) and butterflies (4%). The surveys also showed significant temporal and spatial variation in taxon abundance and proportion.
A survey showed that ivy was very abundant on a small scale in both rural and urban areas, being present in 10/10 and 6/10 0.2 × 0.2 km samples within two 4 × 4 km areas respectively.
The results show that ivy should probably be considered a keystone species with a high value in the conservation of flower‐visiting insects in autumn.
We present a genome assembly from an individual female Vanessa atalanta (the red admiral; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Nymphalidae). The genome sequence is 370 megabases in span. The majority of the assembly (99.44%) is scaffolded into 32 chromosomal pseudomolecules, with the W and Z sex chromosome assembled. Gene annotation of this assembly on Ensembl has identified 12,493 protein coding genes.
Much recent scientific, media and public attention has focussed on the evidence for and consequences of declines in insect biodiversity. Reliable, complete inventories can be used to estimate insect trends accurately, but incomplete data may distort assessments of biodiversity change. Thus, it is essential to understand the completeness of insect inventories. Assessing the database of Great Britain butterfly occurrences, likely the most complete database for any group of insects in the world (with 10,046,366 records for 58 butterfly species), we found that only 62% of the cells have complete inventories at the finest scale evaluated. The dynamic nature of butterfly distributions in response to climate change could explain this result, as the distribution of completeness values is related to the increasing occurrence of some species at higher latitudes as a consequence of recent range expansions. The exceptional quantity of information collected in Great Britain about this appealing group of insects is insufficient to provide a complete picture. Consequently, we cannot expect to build complete inventories for less popular taxa, especially in less comprehensively sampled countries, and will require other techniques to understand the full extent of global biodiversity loss.
1. Over the last century butterflies have undergone substantial changes in abundance and range in Great Britain and monitoring has improved markedly. These changes, together with a major revision of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria, render previous Red List assessments outdated.
2. A new Red List assessment of all 62 resident and regularly breeding butterfly species in Britain was undertaken. The current IUCN criteria were applied for the first time to British butterflies using data from the Butterflies for the New Millennium recording scheme and the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme.
3. The state of knowledge and nature of the data available from these two schemes enabled assessment to be based upon two quantitative IUCN criteria: A2 (rate of population decline) and B2 (area of occupancy).
4. Twenty-three species (37% of the total) qualified as Regionally Extinct (RE) or threatened: 4 species were listed as RE and 19 as threatened (two Critically Endangered, eight Endangered and nine Vulnerable). A further 11 species were classified as Near Threatened. The remaining 28 species (45% of the total) were classified as Least Concern.
5. In comparison with previous assessments, we show that the number of species classified as threatened has increased. This is likely to be due to a combination of refined assessment criteria, improved data, and a real increase in the extinction threat as a result of human impacts.
6. The results confirm butterflies as a highly threatened group of insects in Great Britain and the Red List provides an important foundation to define conservation priorities.
