DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17358385
title: Data and code of the study "Three decades of butterfly–plant interaction turnover explained by climate and species loss"

description: This repository contains the datasets and R scripts used in the analyses for the manuscript:



Colom, P., Stefanescu, C., Corbera, J. & Lázaro, A. (2025).Three decades of butterfly–plant interaction turnover explained by climate and species loss.


The study uses long-term (13–29 years) standardized data on butterfly–plant interactions from seven Mediterranean communities to investigate how inter-annual climate variability and species loss shape temporal interaction turnover and its components — species turnover and rewiring.

📁 Repository contents

Data files (CSV format)








File
Description




annual_climate_data.csv
Mean annual temperature and precipitation per site and year.


butterfly_season_climate_data.csv
Climate data corresponding to the butterfly flight season.


butterfly_trait_data.csv
Species-level ecological and morphological traits.


interaction_turnover_novotny.csv
Interaction turnover and its components calculated following Fründ (2021) and Novotny (2009).


persistence.csv
Species persistence in interaction networks across years by sites.


phenology_abundance_change.csv
Interannual changes in butterfly abundance and phenology


phenology_abundance_variables.csv
Phenological  and abundance descriptors derived from GAMs (peak day, flight length, total abundance).


rewiring_binomial.csv
Dataset for the binomial GLMM testing rewiring probability.


rewiring_frequency.csv
Dataset for the GLMM testing species-level rewiring frequency.






R scripts






Script
Description




abundance_phenology_change.R
Computes interannual changes in abundance and phenology.


abundance_phenology_variables.R
Fits GAMs to derive phenological metrics for each species–site–year combination.


butterfly_richness_trends.R
Fits GLMMs and site-level models of butterfly species richness over time.


interaction_turnover_components_novotny.R
Partitions interaction turnover into species turnover and rewiring.


interaction_turnover_models.R
GLMMs testing temporal and climatic effects on turnover components.


persistence.R
Calculates species persistence across years.


persistence_rewiring_freq_models.R
GLMMs linking persistence and rewiring frequency to species traits.


rewiring_freq_binomial.R
Prepares data for binomial models of rewiring.


rewiring_probability_model.R
Binomial GLMM testing effects of abundance and phenology variation on rewiring probability.


RLQ_fourth_corner.R
Performs RLQ and fourth-corner analyses linking traits to temporal and climatic gradients.




 

*Raw data on butterfly abundance and butterfly–plant interactions are not publicly available due to data volume and data-sharing restrictions from the Catalan Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. These data can be obtained from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

 

📊 Data provenance and acknowledgements





Butterfly and interaction data: Collected by the authors in the frame of the Catalan Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (www.catalanbms.org).




Climate data: downscaled using ClimateDT (Marchi et al. 2024) and CHELSA v2.1 (Karger et al. 2017).




Trait data: compiled from Vila et al. (2018), García-Barros et al. (2013), and own measurements.



 

García-Barros, E., Munguira, M.L., Stefanescu, C. & Vives-Moreno, A. (2013). Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales-CSIC, Madrid.

Karger, D.N., Conrad, O., Böhner, J., Kawohl, T., Kreft, H., Soria-Auza, R.W., et al. (2017). Climatologies at high resolution for the earth’s land surface areas. Scientific data, 4(1), 1-20.

Marchi, M., Bucci, G., Iovieno, P. & Ray, D. (2024). ClimateDT: A Global Scale-Free Dynamic Downscaling Portal for Historic and Future Climate Data. Environments, 11(4), 82.

Vila, R., Stefanescu, C. & Sesma, J.M. (2018). Guia de les papallones diürnes de Catalunya. Lynx Edici. Barcelona.

 

📬 Contact

Pau ColomDepartment of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of BarcelonaBiodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), Spain📧 pcolom@ub.edu ; pau.colom.montojo@gmail.com