Long-distance autumn migration across the Sahara by painted lady butterflies: exploiting resource pulses in the tropical savannah.

ABSTRACT: The painted lady, Vanessa cardui, is a migratory butterfly that performs an annual multi-generational migration between Europe and North Africa. Its seasonal appearance south of the Sahara in autumn is well known and has led to the suggestion that it results from extremely long migratory flights by European butterflies to seasonally exploit the Sahel and the tropical savannah. However, this possibility has remained unproven. Here, we analyse the isotopic composition of butterflies from seven European and seven African countries to provide new support for this hypothesis. Each individual was assigned a geographical natal origin, based on its wing stable hydrogen isotope (δ2Hw) value and a predicted δ2Hw basemap for Europe and northern Africa. Natal assignments of autumn migrants collected s

SUBMITTER: Stefanescu C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5095192 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature