Abundant Citizen Science Data Reveal That the Peacock Butterfly Aglais io Recently Became Bivoltine in Belgium

Abstract

The peacock butterfly is abundant and widespread in Europe. It is generally believed to be univoltine (one generation per year): adults born in summer overwinter and reappear again in spring to reproduce. However, recent flight patterns in western Europe mostly show three peaks during the year: a first one in spring (overwintering butterflies), a second one in early summer (offspring of the spring generation), and a third one in autumn. It was thus far unclear whether this autumn flight peak was a second new generation or consisted of butterflies flying again in autumn after a summer rest (aestivation). The life cycle of one of Europe’s most common butterflies is therefore still surprisingly inadequately understood. We used hundreds of thousands of observations and thousands of pictures submitted by naturalists from the public to the online portal observation.orgin Belgium and analyzed relations between flight patterns, condition (wear), reproductive cycles, peak abundances, and phenology to clarify the current life history. We demonstrate that peacocks have shifted towards two new generations per year in recent decades. Mass citizen science data in online portals has become increasingly important in tracking the response of biodiversity to rapid environmental changes such as climate change.

Opposing global change drivers counterbalance trends in breeding North American monarch butterflies

“…Our data were collected by citizen-scientists, a method that requires careful use (Burgess et al, 2017), but that nonetheless enables inquiry at spatiotemporal scales otherwise unachievable by individual research groups (e.g., Herremans et al, 2021). The number of party hours spent monitoring butterflies in the North American Butterfly Association dataset increased on average by 1.2% (±0.3%) per year between 1993 and 2017 (Figure S3).…”

Species profiles support recommendations for quality filtering of opportunistic citizen science data

“…While the highly fragmented (Antrop, 2004) and easily accessible landscape in our study region, Flanders, has many benefits for studying species distributions, it was also one of the limitations. The largest benefit was the consequent high spatial and temporal density of records in the waarnemingen.be database (Herremans et al, 2018). On the other hand, because of the high density, the low importance of detectability in our study could be an underestimation when studying regions with less fragmented and larger conservation areas.…”

Ingestional Toxicity of Radiation-Dependent Metabolites of the Host Plant for the Pale Grass Blue Butterfly: A Mechanism of Field Effects of Radioactive Pollution in Fukushima

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