Publisher's Synopsis
Butterflies are particularly sensitive to climate and are important "bio-indicators" of climatic change. This book not only explores how butterflies adapt to climatic gradients and weather patterns, but also shows how their biogeography and evolution have responded to climate change in the past, and how they are likely to respond in the future as the enhanced greenhouse effect increasingly alters the world's climate.;Roger Dennis begins by explaining the atmospheric systems in which butterflies live and which impose constraints upon their activity, development and function. He examines how butterflies thermoregulate, despite having very little capacity for generating their own heat. He then covers butterflies' life history strategies, their adaptations to seasonality and their tolerance of extreme conditions. The discussion takes him into the controversial areas of population dynamics and species diversity. He presents a new model to explain how gradients in adult butterfly morphology and colour patterns relate to gradients in climate.;Finally, Dennis explores further adaptive responses to climatic change, using models to explain past events and to predict the impact on butterfly populations of global warming.;"Butterflies and Climate Change" aims to contribute not only to insect ecology, but also to our understanding of how anthropogenic climate change affects natural populations and ecosystems. The book is designed to be readable and accessible to the non-specialist, but fully referenced and with a detailed bibliography.
