Climate Change Causes Butterflies to Shrink in Greenland

Butterflies may be shrinking in the high Arctic. Scientists have found that butterflies in Greenland have become smaller in response to increasing temperatures associated with climate change.

It's apparent that ongoing rapid climate change in the Arctic region is causing substantial change to Arctic ecosystems. Now, though, scientists have shown that a warmer Greenland could be bad for its butterflies, which become smaller under warmer summers.

In this latest study, the researchers measured the wing length of nearly 4,500 individual butterflies that were collected between 1996 and 2013 from Zackenberg Research Station in Northeast Greenland. They found that the wing length has decreased significantly in response to warmer temperatures and at the same rate for both species investigated.

"Our studies show that males and females follow the same pattern and it is similar in two different species, which suggests that climate plays an important role in determining the body size of butterflies in Northeast Greenland," said Toke T. Hoye, one of the researchers, in a news release.

With that said, not all species become smaller. For some animal species, a longer feeding period results in increased body size, and for others the changes in metabolism causes a net loss of energy which reduces the body size.

"We humans use more energy when it is cold, because we must maintain a constant body temperature," said Hoye. "But for butterfly larvae and other cold-blooded animals whose body temperature depends on the environment, the metabolism increases at higher temperatures because the biochemical processes are simply faster. Therefore, the larvae use more energy than they are able to gain by feeding. Our results indicate that this change is so significant that larval growth rate decreases. And when the larvae are smaller, the adult butterflies will also be smaller."

The findings are published in the journal Biology Letters.

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