The Nature Pages

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~at Outrider

	Butterflies Ecology and Evolution Taking Flight edited by Carol L. Boggs, et al  The University of Chicago Press, 2003.
	Like the proverbial miner's canary, butterflies are a "bioindicator" of the effects of climate change, environmental degradation and conservation efforts. A keenly sensitive and complex insect, butterflies exhibit a wide range of behaviors similar to our own and depend on habitats and resources that we share. Slight changes in their populations or physiologies can be a powerful signal of impending modulations in a place's ecology.		Despite our growing awareness of biodiversity as a whole, conservation action for a group such as the butterflies is largely driven by the desire to avoid global, or even national, extinction of species.  Richard I Vane-Wright Evidence and Identity in Butterfly Systematics
	This volume of 26 research papers by some four dozen contributors was drawn from the Third International Symposium on Butterfly Ecology and Evolution in Crested Butte, Colorado, in 1998. Topics range from behavior and ecology to genetics, species diversification, conservation and biodiversity.
	As co-editor Paul Ehrlich points out in the introduction to the collection, the approximately 15,000 species of butterflies are an important tool for understanding how to preserve biological diversity across the planet. "There is no longer a cubic centimeter of the biosphere that has not been altered by human activities," he tells his colleagues. "We all must put much more effort into understanding how to make disturbed areas more hospitable to the working parts of humanity's life support systems, which is the main mission of countryside biogeography. In practical terms, butterflies are one of the few tools available to do that job, but much more work is needed to discover exactly how the diversity of butterflies relates to biodiversity in general."		The study of ecology and evolution is indeed taking flight, as it must if wer are to preserve our planet and ourselves. Butterflies will be our beautiful companions, as well as critical test systems for our work, as we navigate through that flight to what we all hope will be its successful conclusion.  Ward Watt and Carol Boggs Butterflies as Model Systems in Ecology and Evolution -- Present and Future
	The contributions in this volume, the first of its kind in decades, advance the understanding of butterfly biology and their relationship to the ecology of the world we share.		The Life Cycles of Butterflies From Egg to Maturity, a Visual Guide to 23 Common Garden Butterflies by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards
			Ethics For A Small Planet  A Communication Handbook On The Ethical And Theological Reasons For Protecting Biodiversity  by the Biodiversity Project