DOI: 10.5061/dryad.9zw3r22mp
title: Macroecological patterns in European butterflies unveil strong interrelations between larval diet breadth, latitudinal range size, and voltinism

description: Diet breadth is one of the fundamental species traits of an herbivorous
 insect, as it strongly determines its ecological niche and, at the same
 time, its ability to cope with changing environmental conditions. To what
 extent this trait is associated with other characteristics that may
 influence a species’ ability to respond to environmental changes, however,
 is yet poorly understood. Using European butterflies as a model group of
 holometabolous insect herbivores, we here tested whether larval diet
 breadth is positively related with latitudinal range size (i.e.,
 north-south extent of global distribution), voltinism, and adult body
 size. We further investigated whether range size, voltinism, and body size
 are associated with each other. In order to test for these relationships,
 we based our analyses on a solid, time-calibrated butterfly phylogeny as
 well as on an updated host plant database that reflects interactions
 between butterfly larvae and their food plants in a yet unparalleled
 breadth and depth. We further calculated two measures to reflect the
 fundamental dietary niche of a species: taxonomic diet breadth and
 phylogenetic diet breadth. Irrespective of diet breadth measure, we found
 that diet breadth increases with latitudinal range size. We further found
 an overall higher diet breadth for species that are capable of realising
 multiple broods per year (i.e., multivoltine species) compared to
 obligatorily univoltine species. Contrary to expectation, our results
 indicated a negative relationship between larval diet breadth and adult
 body size. Regarding our explorative analyses, we observed a positive link
 between voltinism and latitudinal range size, while neither one of these
 variables was associated with body size. Taken together, our study shows
 that larval diet breadth, latitudinal range size, and voltinism are
 positively linked in European butterflies, and we argue that these
 interrelationships are important in determining a species’ overall
 potential to cope with changing environmental conditions.
description: Literature search available
 Trait dabases for European butterflies
description: Dataset “Europe\_Butt\_Data.xlsx”   Column names            
 &            Definitions **Family name** **Subfamily name**
 **Genus name** **Species name**
 **Tax\_diet**                                            Taxonomic diet
 breadth (i.e., number of utilised host plant genera)
 **Phyl\_diet**                                          Phylogenetic diet
 breadth (i.e., mean pairwise phylogenetic distance          among utilised
 host plant genera) **Vol\_kat**
                                              Voltinism (i.e., univoltine
 vs. multivoltine) **Body\_size**                                       
 Average adult wingspan (mm); for species with sexual size dimorphism only
 for males **Range**                                              
 Latitudinal range size (i.e., north-south extent of a species range
 expressed in count of latitudinal degrees)