Discolouring the Amazon Rainforest: how deforestation is affecting butterfly coloration

Butterflies are among the most colourful organisms in the world and colour plays a central role in many of their life-history strategies. However, the efficacy of coloration strategies in these and other animals could be affected by sudden environmental changes, including anthropogenic disturbances such as habitat loss and fragmentation. Here we investigate the effect of forest disturbance gradients on the colours of fruit-feeding butterflies in the Amazon Rainforest. The disturbance gradients tested represented habitat-size (continuous primary forests versus forest fragments of 1, 10 and 100 ha) and succession gradients (continuous primary forests, 30 year old secondary forests, and three year old early successional forests). Using digital image analysis, we obtained intrinsic measures of butterfly colour patches corresponding to hue, saturation, brightness, in addition to measures of the contrast among patches and of the overall wing-colour diversity corresponding to 220 individuals, belonging to 60 species. Our results showed that butterflies in the secondary forest and continuous primary forest are more colourful than those found in early succession and fragments of forests. Individuals occurring in forests of early succession showed higher average values of hue and saturation, but lower brightness. Accompanying changes in colour composition, wing-colour diversity among species was lower in human-disturbed habitats, such as those of early forest succession and secondary forest. Forest fragments have smaller effects on butterfly colour composition, indicating that well-structured forest habitats can house butterfly assemblages with more diverse phenotypic features and colours. We show how high deforestation rates in recent years is linked with negative changes in functional coloration strategies (e.g. camouflage, warning colours), something that has to date been poorly explored or demonstrated for butterflies. Specifically, human interference has apparently placed butterflies under strong selection for lower diversity in their colours and range of defensive strategies. Those species that are most colourful are the first to be locally extinguished, likely due to removal of native vegetation and increased exposure to predators, and more broadly owing to inhospitable environmental conditions. This illustrates an accelerated loss of local fauna and a “discolouration” of the Amazonian butterflies due to anthropogenic impacts.