Adult longevity and its relationship with conservation status in European butterflies

Abstract

Many European butterfly species are currently experiencing serious declines, and may be threatened with extinction. Nevertheless, due to limited knowledge on the species biology and ecology, detailed assessments of endangerment level are not possible, and instead identifying species of conservation concern has to rely on proxies. Earlier studies suggested several characteristics, including host plant specificity, overwintering stage, patch size requirements or mobility, as potentially useful indicators of butterfly species vulnerability, but the usefulness of adult longevity in this respect has not been considered so far. Based on the information gathered through an extensive literature search we investigated the relationship between adult life span, flight period length or the temporal fragmentation index calculated as the ratio of the two parameters, and conservation status of European butterflies. We found that the species classified in one of the IUCN conservation concern categories (i.e. Endangered, Near Threatened, or Vulnerable) lived shorter as adults and were characterised by higher values of the temporal fragmentation index, while there was no particular pattern concerning flight period length. We believe that the apparent effects detected reflect the fact that shorter adult life span, and thus increased temporal fragmentation, in combination with protandry, i.e. earlier emergence of males, decrease individual chances of finding mating partners. Such a situation leads to lower effective population size and reduced viability, especially in the case of small populations. All concerned, the investigated parameters reflecting adult longevity may serve as ‘early warning’ indicators, helping to flag-up butterfly species possibly at risk.