The caterpillars of many Lepidoptera are neither attacked nor tended by ants but
nevertheless appear to be obligately ant-associated and benefit from the enemy-free space …

Harsh environments (eg, hypoxia and cold temperatures) of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau
have a substantial influence on adaptive evolution in various species. Some species in …

Host-plant phenology can directly and indirectly mediate the abundance of insect
herbivores. Our objective was to determine how host-plant flowering phenology shapes a …

The hops azure (Celastrina humulus) is a locally-abundant, rare butterfly in Colorado and
Montana, that uses wild hops (Humulus lupulus) as a host plant. Because of the patchy …

Recent studies have revealed that many insect populations are in decline. Many of these
studies indicate that butterflies are one of the insect groups under threat. This decline is of …

We observed ants tending only about half of the caterpillars in our sample. We measured a
variety of factors that might explain this pattern. This included site-level abiotic factors such …

Conservation of rare species relies on understanding how biotic and abiotic factors shape
abundance [1]. The hops azure butterfly (Celastrina humulus, Family Lycaenidae) is ranked …