ABSTRACT
Butter‚ies are highly responsive to atmospheric conditions at all stages of their life cycle. Over short periods of time, butter‚ies are affected strongly by weather. Over years, butter‚ies respond to climatic variability, such as El Niño events. Over decades or longer, population dynamics of butter‚ies respond to climate change. Paradoxically, the responsiveness of butter‚y populations to short-term weather patterns may confound interpretation of their responses to climate over the long term. As a result, it can be remarkably dif¡cult to de¡nitively attribute variability in occurrences or population dynamics of butter‚ies that may be caused by temperature, precipitation, and other meteorological variables (McLaughlin et al. 2002; Fleishman and Mac Nally 2003).
