Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Insects are dominant in terrestrial ecosystems and their short generation times and diverse lifestyles make them sensitive to changes in the environments. The changes in species composition and diversity are reported to be closely linked to changes in climate. Among insects, butterflies serve as the best candidates for analyzing the extent of the impact of environmental and climate changes. They play important roles and contribute to major ecosystem services such as pollination, food source for higher organisms like reptiles and birds, all of which get altered by climate changes. Hence they are useful in studies of community ecology as indicators of ecosystem health. They are dependent on specific host plants and since the availability and phonology of host plants change due to climate change, the diversity and distribution of butterflies also change and hence they are considered as the potential bio indicators of environmental and climate change. Studies on butterfly diversity conducted in diverse ecoclimatic regions of Karnataka, India helped to shed light on the impact of climate variability and changes on the diversity and distribution of butterflies.