Pau Colom

This February I’ve been sharing results from our new study on temporal interaction turnover and its links to climate change and species loss.

Presented at @ecoflor.bsky.social 🌼 and the CBMS meeting 🦋

And the month ends with great news: the paper has been accepted in Ecology Letters! 🎉

Effects of flower patch additions and urbanisation on cavity‐nesting bees and wasps Urbanisation can negatively affect cavity-nesting bees and wasps, yet common conservation interventions such as flower patches and artificial nests lack strong empirical support. In a 2-year experime...

New paper out today (my final PhD chapter)! Increasing impervious surfaces strongly reduces cavity-nesting bee and wasp communities, and flower patches alone showed no detectable impact. @aer-ese-bes.bsky.social #openaccess
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

We just released the latest update of the European Grassland Butterfly Indicator.
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
With nearly 50% decline since 1991 and the decline not reversing, this is again an urgent call for actions for bending the curve, restore habitat and protect biodiversity

Evolution, genomics and conservation of butterflies and moths - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Butterflies and moths are key indicators of functioning and healthy ecosystems around the world. This Review describes the evolutionary history of the order Lepidoptera and tracks shifts in researcher...

Now online! In this review, we cover four major topics on butterflies and moths: their evolutionary history and diversification dynamics, genomics, global diversity patterns, and conservation 🦋🌏 (1/8) @natrevbiodiv.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Com l'ombra d'un arbre pot canviar-li la vida a un insecte (i als humans) Davant l’augment de les temperatures, conservar microclimes favorables pot marcar la diferència entre l’extinció local i la persistència d’una espècie. Hi ha grans solucions als mons petits que també ...

Davant l’augment de les temperatures, conservar microclimes favorables pot marcar la diferència entre l’extinció local i la persistència d’una espècie. Hi ha grans solucions als mons petits que també ens beneficien els humans.

✍️ @jdiazcalafat.bsky.social, @uib.cat @culturacientifica.uib.cat

New paper on global change impacts on insects, out in GEB🦋🌍

Climate change and urbanisation act synergistically: butterfly declines are stronger under warming in urban environments.

Species traits help explain heterogeneous responses.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@ylndmc.bsky.social

🚨PhD offer 👩‍🎓:
Fascinated by island biodiversity, palaeoecology & human impacts on ecosystems? 🌴🦜🌍 Join @creaf.cat to explore how island life changed over the last 11,700 years.
Deadline: 27 Oct 2025
Selection: ~November
Starting: ~January 2026
Supervision: @sandranogue.bsky.social & me
More info👇

🤓👌

Five 3-year Postdoc positions open at @ebdonana.bsky.social. I am happy to sponsor and mentor good candidates working in my field, but note that these are quite independent positions aimed at helping stabilize new researchers in the system. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4nqkq...

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS Insects are declining worldwide. These declines have been documented across taxonomic groups and are worrisome given ecosystem services provided by...

More bad news for butterflies. Our new paper led by Wendy Leuenberger shows common species are declining even more rapidly than rare ones. @ZipkinLab

Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501340122

A full report of our latest European Grassland Index has just been published. It gives individual species trends as well as the overall decline of 50% since 1991-2023. Another update will be coming soon to include 2024 (which was not a good year for many butterflies) doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

🌆 Urban Ecology goes beyond the themed sessions!
All week, check out additional presentations in:
📍 Seminarios 1 & 7, Auditorio, Balconada, and Cova dos Libros

Hear @paucolom.bsky.social or @pauguzman.bsky.social ‪talking about butterflies 🦋 and @hernandezaguero.com on nature-based solutions 🌿🔧

Temperate forest plants are associated with heterogeneous semi-open canopy conditions shaped by large herbivores - Nature Plants Temperate forest plants favour heterogeneous semi-open woodlands associated with high herbivore densities, rather than uniform closed-canopy forests. Herbivore loss is therefore a probable driver of e...

🌿 Our new study in @natplants.nature.com: Most European temperate forest plants are associated with semi-open, herbivore-shaped habitats—not closed-canopy #forests 🐎🌳🔆🌸 Highlights the need for trophic #rewilding in #conservation & need to avoid uniform dense #reforestation🌿
📄 doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Constantí Stefanescu summarises the results of 30 years of the Catalunya Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. Nearly 60% of species are declining significantly and only 10% increasing #FutureofButterflies

Voltinism Shifts in Response to Climate Warming Generally Benefit Populations of Multivoltine Butterflies Insects may respond to climate warming by advancing phenology and increasing the number of generations each year (voltinism). However, one concern is that earlier phenology changes cue-response relat...

New paper with Erica Henry & @nickhaddad.bsky.social
Q: What happens when butterflies, responding to climate warming, attempt an extra generation as summers get longer?
A: Long-term monitoring shows overwinter population growth increases! 🧪🦋🐛https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.70018

Fostering Biodiversity in Neotropical Savannahs: Fire as a Diversity Driver for Fruit‐Feeding Butterfly Assemblages in the Cerrado The more frequently burnt areas with shorter time intervals since the last burn episode exhibited higher levels of biodiversity compared to sites where fires were less frequent and under longer inter...

"In conclusion, our results underscore the adverse impact of a zero-fire policy on insect communities, including fruit-feeding butterflies, within this unique ecosystem." Freire-Jr et al.

🧪🌍🌿🔥🌳 wildfire 🦋
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Von der Leyen calls for collective arms purchases by 2030 Europe has to rely more on its own resources, the Commission chief said.

IMHO, given the international political havoc and the attacks on the US science system, the EU had a chance to be smart—investing in an ambitious plan to attract international talent to our R&D system. Instead, we fell into the trap and chose to buy more weapons.

www.politico.eu/article/ursu...

Evolutionary implications of a deep-time perspective on insect pollination – a new review just published When we think of pollination, we often picture bees buzzing around flowers or butterflies flitting from bloom to bloom. This relationship between plants and pollinators is one of the most well-know…

In a review led by Spanish researchers David Peris and Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente, we explored why a deep time perspective on insect pollination is relevant to our current understanding of plant-pollinator relationships. Read more here:
jeffollerton.co.uk/2025/03/12/e...
#pollinators #biodiversity

Our latest Activity Report is now available on our website. It shows the amazing growth of the European Butterfly Monitoring Scheme and some exciting projects now underway to help slow the decline of butterflies, moths and other pollinators assets.vlinderstichting.nl/docs/28d3ebc...

Congrats Collin! What an incredible effort, and the way these important results are presented is fantastic! Well done!

I'm so excited to share my new Science publication documenting the decline of butterflies across the USA!! The bottom line is that we saw widespread, concerning declines between 2000 and 2020: 22% reduction in total numbers of butterflies, 33% of species declined while less than 3% increased.

Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century Numerous declines have been documented across insect groups, and the potential consequences of insect losses are dire. Butterflies are the most surveyed insect taxa, yet analyses have been limited in ...

Cada vez más evidencias apuntan al declive global de las mariposas. Esta semana, un nuevo trabajo revela un declive generalizado en EEUU en las últimas dos décadas: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/.... Comentarios de colegas y míos sobre la situación en España y Europa: elpais.com/ciencia/2025...

That feeling when you achieve excellence but still fall short. Sometimes the ball hits the net and falls on the wrong side. I guess that's part of the game. Let's keep pushing! #MCSA2024

EuPPollNet: A European Database of Plant‐Pollinator Networks Motivation Pollinators play a crucial role in maintaining Earth's terrestrial biodiversity. However, rapid human-induced environmental changes are compromising the long-term persistence of plant-pol...

[new paper] EuPPollNet: A European Database of Plant-Pollinator Networks
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Another wonderful paper of @joseblanuza.bsky.social making open more than >1500 networks and looking at their properties. Come for the data, stay for the cool figures!

How does local climate influence ecological communities? Answer: #Thermophilisation caused by #colonisation and local #extinction. Check out the new paper by
@guim091.bsky.social on #mountain #butterflies in Central Spain. #ClimateChange #Refugia
doi.org/10.1111/ddi....

The 31st Annual Meeting of the Scandinavian Association for Pollination Ecology (SCAPE 2017) – registration closes 15th September SCAPE is my favourite annual conference by a long margin: small, friendly, welcoming (especially for Master’s and PhD students, and postdocs), and packed full of great science.  It’s th…

This post by @jeffollerton.bsky.social shows we had online plant-pollinator databases since 1995!! jeffollerton.co.uk/2025/01/07/w... The next big one is coming soon, lead by @joseblanuza.bsky.social within the #safeguard pollinators project with more than 1000 networks

Arrived!! @callejas.bsky.social @paucolom.bsky.social