Academic Staff
Publication details for Dr Stephen G Willis
Hill, JK, Thomas, CD, Fox, R, Telfer, MG, Willis, SG, Asher, J & Huntley, B (2002). Responses of butterflies to twentieth century climate warming:implications for future ranges. Proceedings Of The Royal Society Of London Series B-biological Sciences 269(1505): 2163-2171.- Publication type: Journal papers: academic
- ISSN/ISBN: 0962-8452
- Keywords: climate change; range expansion; habitat fragmentation; colonizationPLANTS; CONSEQUENCES; SURFACES; MOUNTAIN
Author(s) from Durham
Abstract
We analyse distribution records for 51 British butterfly species to
investigate altitudinal and latitudinal responses to twentieth century
climate warming. Species with northern and/or montane distributions
have disappeared from low elevation sites and colonized sites at higher
elevations during the twentieth century, consistent with a climate
explanation. We found no evidence for a systematic shift northwards
across all species, even though 11 out of 46 southerly distributed
species have expanded in the northern part of their distributions. For
a subset of 35 species, we model the role of climate in limiting
current European distributions and predict potential future
distributions for the period 2070-2099. Most northerly distributed
species will have little opportunity to expand northwards and will
disappear from areas in the south, resulting in reduced range sizes.
Southerly distributed species will have the potential to shift
northwards, resulting in similar or increased range sizes. However, 30
out of 35 study species have failed to track recent climate changes
because of lack of suitable habitat, so we revised our estimates
accordingly for these species and predicted 65% and 24% declines in
range sizes for northern and southern species, respectively. These
revised estimates are likely to be more realistic predictions of future
butterfly range sizes.