Altitudinal gradients in the body sizes of Costa Rican butterflies

摘要

As an extension of the search for latitudinal gradients in the body sizes of insects, we tested for altitudinal gradients in the body sizes of the Papilionidae, Nymphalidae, Pieridae and Riodinidae of Costa Rica. We analyzed all four butterfly families pooled and each family and nymphalid subfamily separately. Body sizes across all families are greatest at mid-altitudes. However, patterns within individual families are highly variable; the papilionids are larger at higher altitudes, the pierids are marginally smaller at higher altitudes, the nymphalids are largest at mid-altitudes, and the riodinids show no relationship with altitude. The pattern for the nymphalids is driven solely by the nymphalines, and the body sizes of species within 11 other subfamilies are independent of altitude. Comparing these results to those previously obtained for latitudinal variation in the body sizes of butterflies and other insects, we conclude that there are no general trends in butterfly body sizes across environmental gradients either within the tropics or between the tropics and extra-tropics.