D3539: Disentangling the direct and indirect effects of climate change on 70 years of butterfly communities across the U.S. Rocky Mountains

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM MST

Location: Phoenix Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 6, PCC

Presenting Author(s)

Vaughn Michael Shirey (any/all/none)

David H. Smith Postdoctoral Conservation Research Fellow
University of California
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Co-Author(s)

RG

Robert Guralnick

University of Florida Research Foundation Professor
Florida Museum of Natural History
Gainesville, Florida
MG

Melissa Guzman

University of California
Los Angeles, California

High-elevation mountain ecosystems are threatened by global climate change. Rapid changes to average temperatures and associated downstream shifts in precipitation regimes and vegetation structure may place species on the so-called “elevator to extinction,” forcing them to move upslope to track their climatic and ecological niches. Despite these changes, we still do not fully understand how climate impacts mountain-associated insects due to historical gaps in sampling efforts and difficulties inferring causal effects from sparse opportunistic data. Here, we use state-of-the-art occupancy-detection models, alongside modeling practices from econometrics, to infer the direct and indirect impact of rising temperatures on Rocky Mountain butterfly communities since the 1950s. While most butterflies directly benefit from increasing temperatures, high-elevation species are most negatively impacted by the loss of winter snow cover. Our results demonstrate the importance of understanding the causal pathways that create scenarios of climate change “winners and losers” in order to mitigate declines.