{"id":12691,"date":"2023-05-24T13:25:14","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T13:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/?p=12691"},"modified":"2023-05-24T20:04:50","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T20:04:50","slug":"butterflies-plant-preferences-may-be-changing-and-in-an-unexpected-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/en\/butterflies-plant-preferences-may-be-changing-and-in-an-unexpected-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"Butterflies Plant Preferences May Be Changing \u2014 And in an Unexpected Direction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Climate change is a serious and, unfortunately, always present concern for our planet.<\/h2>\n

Its impacts are far reaching and may also affect the \u2018seasonal routine\u2019 of many organisms, including the relationship between plants and pollinators.<\/p>\n

Professor Heather Kharouba\u2019s lab at the University of Ottawa is studying how these changes are affecting the “phenological synchrony” \u2014 different \u2018seasonal routines\u2019 that occur at the same time \u2014 between flowering plants and their visitors.<\/p>\n

Recent Study Shows Trends Are Changing<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Propertius Duskywing (Erynnis propertius<\/span><\/em>) <\/span> <\/span>@Rich Hoyer<\/a> | iNaturalist.ca<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In one of their recent publications<\/a>, her team S.A. Rivest and collaborators found interesting results related to butterfly flower-visiting patterns in an Oak savannah in Victoria, British Columbia. While comparing the contribution of native versus non-native flowering plants to the butterflies\u2019 diet, they noticed three trends:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Later in the season, native butterflies visited more non-native flowers (when native flowers weren’t available), such as Himalayan Blackberry and Hairy Cat\u2019s Ear.<\/li>\n
  2. Most visits throughout the year were to non-native flowers (83 per cent) and most native butterfly species (64 per cent) visited more non-native flowers than native flowers, such as Common Camas and Ocean Spray.<\/li>\n
  3. Native butterflies, such as Propertius Duskywing and Vancouver Ringlet, visited non-native flowers more often than we expected based on their availability.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In this study, non-native refers to not naturally local or introduced by human activities.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Flowering phenology influences butterfly visitation to non-native plants for nectar in an oak savanna \u00a9 Artwork – E. Eberhardt; Text \u2013 G. F. G. Miranda, CWF<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    The non-native flowers were available later in the summer than the native ones, so the butterflies survived longer while food was available. It seems their community didn\u2019t necessarily show a preference for native flowers.<\/p>\n

    The authors note that the presence of non-native plants might be something to take into consideration when planning conservation efforts targeting native butterfly communities since these flowers seem to be a preferred choice by these delicate flyers.<\/p>\n

    Come check on what we are doing to help restore native pollinator habitat<\/a> and our efforts to support the beautiful Monarch Butterfly ><\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    Climate change is a serious and, unfortunately, always present concern for our planet. Its impacts are far reaching and may also affect the \u2018seasonal routine\u2019 of many organisms, including the…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":12695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[631],"tags":[431,178,532,9612],"class_list":["post-12691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-connect-with-nature","tag-butterfly","tag-invasive-species","tag-native-plants","tag-native-seed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12703,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12691\/revisions\/12703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}