Competition and habitat filtering shape Neotropical canopy butterfly communities across a rainfall seasonality gradient
Abstract
The stability hypothesis posits that stable environments provide species with predictable resources, where mechanisms that limit similarity, such as competition, are able to drive niche specialization and shape community composition. By contrast, variable and unpredictable environments are expected to allow only those species with appropriate adaptive traits to persist, the process of habitat filtering. To date, only a limited number of studies have tested these hypotheses, especially for tropical insects, which dominate terrestrial biodiversity, and whose spatial patterns of diversity, and the mechanisms driving them, remain poorly explored. Here, we used a combined approach of phylogeneticand functional trait-based analyses to test these hypotheses across a rainfall seasonality gradient, examining whether tropical butterfly communities are structured more by competition in less seasonal rain forests, and conversely more by habitat filtering in seasonal dry forests. A 3-year survey was carried out at three sites across a climatic gradient in western Ecuador. Canopy butterflies were sampled using traps baited with rotting banana and shrimp every 2 months from November 2010 to September 2013, and forewing length and aspect ratio were measured from adults as potential functional traits. A total of 4075 specimens representing 126 species of the families Nymphalidae and Hesperiidae were included in the analyses. We found strong evidence that both assembly mechanisms, namely habitat filtering and competition, shape butterfly communities in both seasonal and aseasonal forests. In general, significant levels of habitat filtering were inferred from phylogeny-based analyses. Trait-based analyses, however, showed that competition shapes the distribution of traits within communities. Our interpretation is that while canopy butterfly lineages are broadly adapted to differing rainfall seasonality regimes, leading to phylogenetic clustering, within each environment, there can be competition among relatively closely related species for available resources, leading to an over-dispersion of traits.
Related
- Particle association and monsoon seasonality influence microbial communities in marine coastal waters of Singapore
- Exploring diversity of cultivable fungal communities in coastal sands and waters in south of France: impact of seasonality, and human activities.
- Local hydrology and seasonality outweigh the influence of Phragmites australis on coastal bacterial communities across two Baltic Sea bays
- Elephant Presence Shapes Butterfly Communities in an East African Coastal Forest
- Heterogeneity among and competition between life stages together extend the stability boundary of complex ecological communities
BibTeX
@article{checa2026competition,
title = {{Competition and habitat filtering shape Neotropical canopy butterfly communities across a rainfall seasonality gradient}},
author = {María F Checa and David A Donoso and Elisa Levy and Jaqueline Rodriguez and Sebastián Mena and Violaine Ossola and Marianne Elias and Keith R Willmott},
journal = {Ecosphere},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1002/ecs2.70725},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05849641v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Competition and habitat filtering shape Neotropical canopy butterfly communities across a rainfall seasonality gradient
AU - María F Checa
AU - David A Donoso
AU - Elisa Levy
AU - Jaqueline Rodriguez
AU - Sebastián Mena
AU - Violaine Ossola
AU - Marianne Elias
AU - Keith R Willmott
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
JO - Ecosphere
DO - 10.1002/ecs2.70725
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05849641v1
AB - The stability hypothesis posits that stable environments provide species with predictable resources, where mechanisms that limit similarity, such as competition, are able to drive niche specialization and shape community composition. By contrast, variable and unpredictable environments are expected to allow only those species with appropriate adaptive traits to persist, the process of habitat filtering. To date, only a limited number of studies have tested these hypotheses, especially for tropical insects, which dominate terrestrial biodiversity, and whose spatial patterns of diversity, and the mechanisms driving them, remain poorly explored. Here, we used a combined approach of phylogeneticand functional trait-based analyses to test these hypotheses across a rainfall seasonality gradient, examining whether tropical butterfly communities are structured more by competition in less seasonal rain forests, and conversely more by habitat filtering in seasonal dry forests. A 3-year survey was carried out at three sites across a climatic gradient in western Ecuador. Canopy butterflies were sampled using traps baited with rotting banana and shrimp every 2 months from November 2010 to September 2013, and forewing length and aspect ratio were measured from adults as potential functional traits. A total of 4075 specimens representing 126 species of the families Nymphalidae and Hesperiidae were included in the analyses. We found strong evidence that both assembly mechanisms, namely habitat filtering and competition, shape butterfly communities in both seasonal and aseasonal forests. In general, significant levels of habitat filtering were inferred from phylogeny-based analyses. Trait-based analyses, however, showed that competition shapes the distribution of traits within communities. Our interpretation is that while canopy butterfly lineages are broadly adapted to differing rainfall seasonality regimes, leading to phylogenetic clustering, within each environment, there can be competition among relatively closely related species for available resources, leading to an over-dispersion of traits.
SN - 2150-8925
ER -