Macroecological patterns in European butterflies unveil strong interrelations between larval diet breadth, latitudinal range size, and voltinism
Data files
Oct 04, 2023 version files 42.69 KB
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Europe_Butt_Data.xlsx
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README.md
Abstract
Diet breadth is one of the fundamental species traits of an herbivorous insect, as it strongly determines its ecological niche and, at the same time, its ability to cope with changing environmental conditions. To what extent this trait is associated with other characteristics that may influence a species’ ability to respond to environmental changes, however, is yet poorly understood. Using European butterflies as a model group of holometabolous insect herbivores, we here tested whether larval diet breadth is positively related with latitudinal range size (i.e., north-south extent of global distribution), voltinism, and adult body size. We further investigated whether range size, voltinism, and body size are associated with each other. In order to test for these relationships, we based our analyses on a solid, time-calibrated butterfly phylogeny as well as on an updated host plant database that reflects interactions between butterfly larvae and their food plants in a yet unparalleled breadth and depth. We further calculated two measures to reflect the fundamental dietary niche of a species: taxonomic diet breadth and phylogenetic diet breadth. Irrespective of diet breadth measure, we found that diet breadth increases with latitudinal range size. We further found an overall higher diet breadth for species that are capable of realising multiple broods per year (i.e., multivoltine species) compared to obligatorily univoltine species. Contrary to expectation, our results indicated a negative relationship between larval diet breadth and adult body size. Regarding our explorative analyses, we observed a positive link between voltinism and latitudinal range size, while neither one of these variables was associated with body size. Taken together, our study shows that larval diet breadth, latitudinal range size, and voltinism are positively linked in European butterflies, and we argue that these interrelationships are important in determining a species’ overall potential to cope with changing environmental conditions.
README
Dataset “Europe_Butt_Data.xlsx”
Column names & Definitions
Family name
Subfamily name
Genus name
Species name
Tax_diet Taxonomic diet breadth (i.e., number of utilised host plant genera)
Phyl_diet Phylogenetic diet breadth (i.e., mean pairwise phylogenetic distance
among utilised host plant genera)
Vol_kat Voltinism (i.e., univoltine vs. multivoltine)
Body_size Average adult wingspan (mm); for species with sexual size dimorphism only for males
Range Latitudinal range size (i.e., north-south extent of a species range expressed in count of latitudinal degrees)
Methods
- Literature search
- available Trait dabases for European butterflies