DOI: 10.5061/dryad.rbnzs7hjk
title: Regional differences in thermoregulation between two European butterfly communities

description: Understanding how different organisms cope with changing temperatures is
 vital for predicting future species’ distributions and highlighting those
 at risk from climate change. As ectotherms, butterflies are sensitive to
 temperature changes, but the factors affecting butterfly thermoregulation
 are not fully understood. We investigated which factors influence
 thermoregulatory ability in a subset of a Mediterranean butterfly
 community. We measured adult thoracic temperature and environmental
 temperature (787 butterflies; 23 species) and compared buffering ability
 (defined as the ability to maintain a consistent body temperature across a
 range of air temperatures) and buffering mechanisms to previously
 published results from Great Britain. Finally, we tested whether
 thermoregulatory ability could explain species’ demographic trends in
 Catalonia. The sampled sites in each region differ climatically, with
 higher temperatures and solar radiation but lower wind speeds in the
 Catalan sites. Both butterfly communities show nonlinear responses to
 temperature, suggesting a change in behaviour, from heat-seeking to heat
 avoidance, at approximately 22 °C. However, the communities differ in the
 use of buffering mechanisms, with British populations depending more on
 microclimates for thermoregulation compared to Catalan populations.
 Contrary to the results from British populations, we did not find a
 relationship between region-wide demographic trends and butterfly
 thermoregulation, which may be due to the interplay between
 thermoregulation and the habitat changes occurring in each region. Thus,
 although Catalan butterfly populations seem to be able to thermoregulate
 successfully at present, evidence of heat avoidance suggests this
 situation may change in the future.
description: # Regional differences in thermoregulation between two European butterfly
 communities This dataset
 contains the data and scripts required to reproduce the analyses in
 Toro-Delgado et al. (J. Anim. Ecol.). It contains the temperature
 measurements from Catalonia, the R scripts to conduct the statistical
 analyses, and Python scripts to download the solar radiation data from the
 Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS). The temperature data
 from Great Britain was released in Bladon et al. (2020). ## Description of
 the data and file structure The "Data" folder contains the file
 "Butterfly_Thermoregulation_Data.txt", a tab-separated file
 containing the data gathered from the field in Catalonia. The column
 meanings are as follows: * Order: a numbered column, to be able to recover
 the original order of the rows. * Time: Hour of the measurement (in CEST,
 24-hour format). * Species: the species of butterfly being measured
 (scientific name). * Code: field code used to identify the specimen. *
 GPS_Y (): the latitude, in decimal format. * GPS_X(): the longitude, in
 decimal format. * Slope: categorical variable classifying the slope of the
 terrain in ranges. * Aspect: the orientation of the slope on a compass
 (direction of ascent). Cells containing N/A are those for which slope is
 of 0 degrees, i.e. flat areas, and so no aspect can be applied to these
 (there is no direction of ascent if the ground is flat). * Veg.Type:
 categorical variable describing the vegetation type. * Manage: variable
 indicating if there are signs of some type of human management. Empty
 cells correspond to missing data, as this variable was not recorded for
 that particular observation. They are purposefully left blank in order not
 to interfere with the scripts. * Shelter: variable indicating if the spot
 in which the butterfly was detected was fully exposed to the wind (1) or
 fully sheltered (5), measured at chest height and 5m from the point. *
 Sunny: variable indicating how sunny it was; either fully sunny (S),
 mostly sunny (SSN), half sunny (SN), mostly cloudy (SNN) or fully cloudy
 (N). * Tair: temperature of the air, at waist height and in the shade, at
 the moment of capture of the butterfly. In degrees Celsius. Empty cells
 correspond to missing data, as this variable was not recorded for that
 particular observation. They are purposefully left blank in order not to
 interfere with the scripts. * Tbody1: first measurement of butterfly
 thoracic temperature at the time of capture; in degrees Celsius. Empty
 cells correspond to missing data, as this variable was not recorded for
 that particular observation. They are purposefully left blank in order not
 to interfere with the scripts. * Pbody1: position from which the thoracic
 temperature was measured; on the side of the thorax (L) or on the dorsal
 part (D). * Tperch: temperature of the substrate the butterfly was on
 (measured only when it was not flying). Empty cells correspond to
 observations of butterflies that were flying, so this variable did not
 apply to these observations and hence it could not be recorded. *
 Tair_perch: temperature of the air surrounding the substrate on which the
 butterfly was place (approximately 2cm above it). Empty cells correspond
 to observations of butterflies that were flying, so this variable did not
 apply to these observations and hence it could not be recorded. *
 Activity: categorical variable indicating what the butterfly was doing
 when first sighted. * Height(cm): the height at which the butterfly was. *
 Plant: species of plant OR type of substrate on which the butterfly was
 found. Empty cells correspond to observations of butterflies that were
 flying, so this variable did not apply to these observations and hence it
 could not be recorded. * Sp.Chase: if the butterfly was chasing/being
 chased by another, the species of the second butterfly. Empty cells
 correspond to observations of butterflies that were not chasing nor being
 chased by another, so this variable did not apply to these observations
 and hence it could not be recorded. As most butterflies were not not in a
 chase, this column consist mostly of empty cells. * Sex: sex of the
 specimen being measured (if known). Empty cells correspond to specimens
 for which sex could not be determined. * Wing_length: length of the
 forewing, measured from the base (“shoulder”) to the tip. In millimetres.
 Empty cells correspond to missing data, as this variable was not recorded
 for that particular observation. * Location: whether the locality is in
 the lowland or in the mountains (Pyrenees). * Country: the country in
 which the butterfly was captured and measured. * Locality: the locality in
 which the butterfly was captured and measured. * Captured: whether the
 butterfly was captured and taken to the lab for other studies or released
 after measuring the temperature measure. Empty cells are left deliberately
 this way, instead of being filled with N/A, to ensure proper functioning
 with the provided scripts. ## Sharing/Access information * Temperature
 data for the British butterflies is available at:
 *
 The data provided here (temperature measurements of Spanish butterfly
 populations) was collected by the authors ## Code/Software The “Scripts”
 folder contains: * The “Analysis” folder, with several R scripts with the
 required code to reproduce all statistical analyses. This was originally
 done with R 4.1.3. The "worldclim_analysis.R" script can be used
 to reproduce the analysis of WorldClim data to characterise the climate of
 both Catalonia and Great Britain; the
 "GAM_models_buffering_mechanisms" can be used to reproduce the
 GAM models; the "Master_script.R" script contains the rest of
 analyses. * The “CAMS_solar_radiation_data_download” folder, with multiple
 Python scripts used to automate the download of the solar radiation data
 from CAMS. Note that, to be able to use these, the reader will have to
 register on the CAMS website and obtain access credentials, and then
 replace the “credentials_file” variable at the beginning of each Python
 script with the path to the file containing the credentials. More details
 are available at: 
 Please note these files do NOT contain any actual data, but a means to
 download it from the original sources and/or to analyze it.