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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 22:53:52
-0500<br>
To: pollinator@coevolutionlorg<br>
From: David Inouye <inouye@umd.edu><br>
Subject: Fwd: Butterfly database news release<br><br>
Attached file has a map and table. <br><br>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 27 February, 2007<br>
<br>
DAVIS,CALIFORNIA – One of the two largest butterfly databases in the
world , with important implications for the study of global change,
will “go public” on March 1.<br>
Since 1972, Dr. Arthur Shapiro of the Center for
Population Biology and Section of Evolution and Ecology, College of
Biological Sciences, University of California – Davis, has maintained a
butterfly-monitoring transect across northern California parallel to
Interstate Highway 80. The transect grew from four sites in 1972-74 to 10
in 1988. The sites range from sea level to tree-line in the Sierra Nevada
(above 9000’) and embrace both the west- and east-slope Sierran climates.
At each site data are collected every two weeks during butterfly season,
which ranges from all year at sea level to about three months at the
highest site. As of the end of 2006, Dr. Shapiro has logged 5476 site
visits with approximately 83,000 individual records of 159 species and
subspecies. This is believed to be the world’s largest dataset of
intensive site-specific data on butterfly distribution and seasonality
collected by a single individual under a strict protocol.<br>
The other large butterfly database, the United Kingdom Butterfly
Monitoring Scheme, is quite differently organized, employing many
volunteer observers throughout the country who monitor their local
faunas at 1228 sites. The British fauna is much smaller, with fewer than
60 species in total, and with less topographic relief and climatic
diversity in the entire country than occurs on the California
transect. Butterflies have become very prominent indicator
organisms in conservation and global-change biology. Both projects
present unique opportunities to observe and quantify the responses of
these animals to changing climatic conditions. Many species in Britain
are near their northern range limits, making the British data good
indicators of climatic sensitivity. Because California’s Mediterranean
climate is so variable, Shapiro believes his data may be particularly
useful in identifying the relative contributions of different climatic
factors to butterfly seasonality and distribution.<br>
With support from the U.S. National Science
Foundation, we have created a Web site,
<a href="http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/">http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu</a>,
which incorporates all of the California transect data as well as
climatological data for nearby weather stations (from the Western
Regional Climate Center), capsule ecological, geological and climatic
descriptions (with maps) of all of the sites, biological summaries for
all the species recorded in the study, and numerous photographs of the
sites and the butterflies. For each species, its year-by-year
seasonal history is presented for each site, along with a smoothed graph
representing the probability of seeing it each week of the year.<br>
The site provides links to numerous related butterfly resources, profiles
of the members of the project, a partial bibliography and a glossary of
terms. All of this material is directly accessible to the public.
Researchers interested in obtaining access to the complete data set, as
well as anyone with butterfly questions, is invited to email us using the
Web site’s “Contact us” function. The site should be of interest to the
general public and to both professional and amateur butterfly
enthusiasts, as well as ecologists, evolutionary biologists, conservation
biologists and global-change specialists.<br>
Although the site provides life-history information for all
the species, this information is specifically focused on the study sites
and their vicinity and should not be used as a substitute for more
comprehensive sites or field guides.<br>
In addition , we provide a series of exercises (some still
in development) to allow high-school teachers to use the database to
teach and illustrate concepts in quantitative biology, statistics, field
biology and natural history.<br>
The Shapiro lab group is currently engaged in a variety of
projects employing these data. More information is available on
request.<br>
CONTACT INFORMATION: Arthur M. Shapiro, Center for Population Biology, UC
Davis: <a href="mailto:amshapiro@ucdavis.edu">amshapiro@ucdavis.edu</a>,
(530)752-2176, FAX (530)752-1449.</blockquote></body>
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