Butterflies are rather like Goldilocks, preferring conditions to be neither too hot nor too cold, but “just right.” Under climate change, the temperature at any given time of summer is, on average, getting warmer, leaving butterflies (and their nocturnal cousins, the moths) with the challenge of how to remain in their optimal temperature window. One of the main ways in which species are achieving this is by changing the time of year at which they are active. Scientists refer to the timing of such lifecycle events as “phenology,” so when an animal or plant starts to do things earlier in…
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