Butterflies Are Losing Their Vibrant Colors as Humans Replace Forests with Monochrome Buildings, Researchers Find

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NEED TO KNOW

  • Butterflies are losing their vibrant colors as deforestation creates more monochrome surroundings
  • Researcher and photographer Roberto García-Roa is documenting how the colors of butterflies and other species are diminishing in Brazil
  • “Even planet Earth itself is losing brightness as seen from space,” Ricardo Spaniol from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul explained

Deforestation is sucking the color from the Earth’s wildlife. 

According to researcher and photographer Roberto García-Roa, the vibrant pigments that butterflies once relied on to attract mates and hide from prey are now fading away as colorful tropical forests are replaced with monochrome infrastructure. 

“The colours on a butterfly’s wings are not trivial – they have been designed over millions of years,” García-Roa, who is working to document how habitat loss is draining the natural world of color in Brazil, told The Guardian. “You feel alive in the tropical forest, everything is wild – you never know what you are going to find.”

As humans strip ecosystems of diversity for their own expansion, the balance of the natural world is shifting, García-Roa noted.

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“When you arrive at a eucalyptus plantation, it’s very frustrating — you can feel that things are not happening as they should be in a natural ecosystem,” García-Roa said as an example of how things are changing in Brazil. “Animals are not around, and sounds are not as they should be.”

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When it comes to the butterfly, Ricardo Spaniol from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul told the outlet that as humans replace rich tropical forests with concrete and brick, butterflies have had to adapt rapidly, affecting their appearance and ability to survive.

“The most colourful species are often the first to disappear locally after deforestation, probably because of the loss of native vegetation and their increased exposure to predators. This represents an accelerated process of discoloration in Amazonian butterfly communities,” says Spaniol.

Stock photo of an Asian swallowtail butterfly.

Getty


“Even planet Earth itself is losing brightness as seen from space. It is truly remarkable and concerning how interconnected these processes are, and how every impact cascades into further consequences,” he continued. “The most colourful species are often the first to disappear locally after deforestation, probably because of the loss of native vegetation and their increased exposure to predators.”

The loss of color diversity in butterflies, Spaniol added, could also indicate the ecological health of other organisms and a “loss of complexity in ecosystems.” The researchers worry that these changes are signaling more negative, cascading effects for different species and ecosystems.

As he put it, “It felt like we were uncovering a hidden dimension of how species respond to environmental change, a dimension that had remained invisible until then, but is incredibly rich.”

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