Aim To assess whether altitude changes in the distribution of butterflies during the second half of the 20th century are consistent with climate warming scenarios. Location The Czech Republic. Methods Distributional data were taken from a recent butterfly distribution atlas, which maps all Czech butterflies using a grid of 10′ longitude to 6′ latitude, equivalent to about 11.1 × 12 km. Cell altitude was used as an independent variable, and altitudinal ranges of individual species (less migrants, extinct species, recent arrivals and extremely rare species) in 1950–80 vs. 1995–2001 and in 1950–80, 1981–94, 1995–2001 were compared using U‐tests and linear regressions. Results Of 117 (U‐tests) and 119 (regressions) species, we found significant uphill increases in 15 and 12 species, respectively. The two groups were nested; none (U‐test) and one (regression) species showed a significant altitudinal decrease. Binomial tests of frequencies of signs of the U‐tests and regression coefficients, including nonsignificant ones, also showed that the increases prevailed. The mean and median of the significant shifts were 60 and 90 m, respectively, and the maximum shift per species was 148 m. The recording effort in individual time periods was not biased with respect to altitude. Main conclusion Altitude shifts in the distribution of Czech butterflies are already detectable on the coarse scales of standard distribution maps. The increasing species do not show any consistent pattern in habitat affiliations, conservation status and mountain vs. nonmountain distribution, which renders climatic explanation as the most likely cause of the distributional shifts.

This paper presents an updated checklist of the butterflies of Europe, together with their original name combinations, and their occurrence status in each European country. According to this checklist, 496 species of the superfamily Papilionoidea occur in Europe. Changes in comparison with the last version (2.6.2) of Fauna Europaea are discussed. Compared to that version, 16 species are new additions, either due to cryptic species most of which have been discovered by molecular methods (13 cases) or due to discoveries of Asian species on the eastern border of the European territory in the Ural mountains (three cases). On the other hand, nine species had to be removed from the list, because they either do not occur in Europe or lost their species status due to new evidence. In addition, three species names had to be changed and 30 species changed their combination due to new evidence on phylogenetic relationships. Furthermore, minor corrections were applied to some authors’ names and years of publication. Finally, the name Polyommatusottomanus Lefèbvre, 1831, which is threatened by its senior synonym Lycaenalegeri Freyer, 1830, is declared a nomen protectum, thereby conserving its name in the current combination Lycaenaottomana.

We studied the speciose butterfly genus Erebia by reconstructing its phylogenetic relationships using parsimony and Bayesian approaches. We estimated times and rates of diversification for its lineages and employed a biogeographical analysis in order to reconstruct its evolutionary history. DNA sequence data from one mitochondrial gene and three nuclear genes were analyzed for a total of 74 species in Erebia. The estimated dates of origin and diversification for clades, in combination with a biogeographical analysis, suggest that the genus originated in Asian Russia and started its diversification process around 23 Myr. An important event was the dispersal of a lineage from Asia to Western Europe between 23 and 17 Myr, which allowed the radiation of most of species in the genus. The diversification pattern is consistent with a model of diversity limited by clade richness, which implies an early rapid diversification followed by deceleration due to a decrease in speciation. We argue that these characteristics of the evolutionary history of Erebia are consistent with a density-dependent scenario, with species radiation limited by filling of niche space and reduced resources. We found that the Boeberia parmenio appears strongly supported in the genus Erebia and therefore we place Boeberia Prout, 1901 as a junior synonym of Erebia Dalman, 1816 (syn. nov.).