What is it about?
Insects are declining worldwide. We found that no butterfly species increased in abundance from 1992-2023 in the Midwestern United States. Fifty-nine out of 136 species declined. The overall butterfly community changed as common species had more severe losses in abundance than rare species. Conservation efforts should focus on entire communities to reduce butterfly biodiversity loss.
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Why is it important?
We simultaneously investigate species and community trends over the course of 32 years. Our study integrates five volunteer-based datasets, including 90,000 hours of surveys and 4.3 million butterfly observations. We show how some traits are associated with declines, such as species that overwinter as eggs tending to decline more because they have fewer resources while overwintering. While we are not able to directly investigate why declines are occurring, the timing and lack of any species with increasing trends implicates insecticides as a potential driver.
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This page is a summary of: Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2501340122.
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