AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.More than 1,700 butterfly species across 105 countries are not living where they once did, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. That translates to nearly one in 10 butterfly species with a new range.These sensitive sentinels have little tolerance for changes to their environment, so when temperatures rise or meadows are mowed to make way for construction, butterflies must take flight in search of more hospitable habitats.“Butterfly species are shifting their ranges on every continent where they occur,” said Shawan Chowdhury, head of the Global Change Ecology Lab at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and lead author of the study. This trend, Dr. Chowdhury and his colleagues say, can be attributed to a combination of factors, but in most cases to climate change, extreme weather and industrial agriculture.Although the study covered only around 10 percent of known butterfly species, the authors say it’s the largest such study ever conducted.When Dr. Chowdhury first began studying butterflies near his childhood home in Bangladesh, it didn’t take long for him to notice that they were leaving the area. “When I started doing fieldwork, it was quite easy to find 60 to 70 species of butterflies in a small urban green space,” he said. A few years later, however, “it became very difficult to find just 15 species.”After earning his Ph.D. and moving to Monash University, Dr. Chowdhury decided to see if what he had witnessed in Bangladesh was happening elsewhere. He compiled research and noticed something perturbing: Previous studies on the shifting ranges of butterflies worldwide were focused largely on Europe, which is home to less than 3 percent of the world’s butterfly species. Roughly 90 percent of butterfly species live in the tropics, yet few studies had included data from this region.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT