The migrations of the Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui): movement ecology and population dynamics by Dr. Gerard Talavera

About the speaker:

Gerard Talavera is an evolutionary biologist and entomologist. He is a tenured scientist at the Spanish Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) currently developing his research at the Botanical Institute of Barcelona (IBB), where he leads the Insect Migration and Phylodiversity Lab. Gerard has a background in phylogenetics, ecology, and the evolution of butterflies and he has a particular interest in the evolution of migratory behavior, which is one of the main research lines in his lab. His research combines interdisciplinary tools to investigate questions related to movement ecology, population genetics, and genome evolution. As a National Geographic Explorer, he has been leading a challenging project since 2013: unraveling the worldwide migratory patterns of Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) butterflies. He has long experience in the laboratory as well as in exploration and has led numerous scientific expeditions in more than 30 countries on five continents. On a more personal side, he spends his free time climbing mountains and caving, a passion for exploration shared with the study of biodiversity.

About the talk: 

Migration in butterflies is suspected to be an overlooked phenomenon, even its major ecological relevance. The real extent of the diversity, geographical ranges, and abundances of butterflies on the move is not well known, partly because of the lack of field data and the technical limitations associated with tracking small, short-lived, organisms. In this talk, he will take us on a journey about how it is studying migratory butterflies, from the field to the lab. He will show how a multidisciplinary approach can help in tracking migratory movements, including tools on genetics, isotope ecology, ecological niche modeling, pollen metabarcoding, field ecology, and citizen science. In particular, he will show the example of the Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui), the most cosmopolitan of all butterflies and the one exhibiting the widest distributional range of any insect performing large-scale migratory movements. With a particular focus on the Palearctic-African migratory range, he will describe the latest discoveries showing regular trans-Saharan migrations, that entail astonishing distances of >4000 km, similar to those of some birds. Overall, it will discuss about the scale and potential implications that insect migratory movements represent for ecosystems and nature conservation worldwide.