The Effect of Climate Change on Butterfly Phenology (Abstract)

Strymon melinus (Media retrieved from: https://api.idigbio.org/v2/media/c4ca533b9aff812438198337589626bf)

AUTHOR

Debra Linton ¹, Anna Monfils ¹, Molly Phillips ², and Elizabeth R. Ellwood ³

¹Central Michigan University

²Florida Museum of Natural History

³La Brea Tar Pits & Museum

Corresponding author: Elizabeth R. Ellwood (ellwoodlibby@gmail.com)

THE ECOLOGICAL QUESTION

What are the effects of climate change on butterfly phenology and how do phenological changes of one species compare to that of an associated species?

ECOLOGICAL CONTENT

Butterfly, climate change, interspecific interactions, natural history collections, phenology

WHAT STUDENTS DO

Plot and analyze natural history specimen data to identify trends in butterfly phenology, plot temperature data and test for relationships between temperature and phenology, relate their findings to published research

SKILLS

using spread sheets, plotting data, analyzing data, interpreting data to address an ecological question, using data to predict interspecific interactions

STUDENT-ACTIVE APPROACHES

Students work in cooperative groups to make predictions, visualize and analyze data, and evaluate primary literature.

ASSESSABLE OUTCOMES

completed scatterplots, written interpretation of a variety of data sources

SOURCE

iDigBio portal of natural history collections records for butterfly specimen data (www.idigbio.org/portal/search)
Environment and Climate Change – Canada for surface air temperature data of British Columbia (www.ec.gc.ca/dcchaahccd/default.asp?lang=en&n=1EEECD01-1)

DOWNLOADS

Full Article Text [docx], [pdf]

Description of Resource Files:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Our sincere thanks to the AIM-UP! project for leading the way in integrating natural history collections in undergraduate education, to QUBES and the DIG Faculty Mentoring Network for providing the infrastructure and constructive discussions about this lesson, to the Biodiversity Literacy in Undergraduate Education (BLUE) network for ongoing dialogue on the topic, and to Central Michigan University for their support of this effort in their biology curriculum.

CITATION

Debra Linton, Anna Monfils, Molly Phillips, and Elizabeth R. Ellwood. March 2018, posting date. The Effect of Climate Change on Butterfly Phenology. Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, Vol. 13: Practice #7 [online]. https://tiee.esa.org/vol/v13/issues/data_sets/ellwood/abstract.html

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