checkerspot butterfly

…long-term study of the Bay checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha bayensis) in the grasslands above Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. In 1960 scientists began following the fate of several local populations of the butterfly at a time when grasslands around San Francisco Bay were being lost to housing developments. The…

For example, populations of the checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha) in California have a metapopulation structure consisting of a number of small satellite populations that surround a large source population on which they rely for new recruits. The satellite populations are too small and fluctuate too much to maintain themselves indefinitely.…