This book contains 36 chapters divided into 4 sections exploring the complexity in wing patterns and forms, of life history traits and variety of behaviours of butterflies. The various structures among suites of butterfly life history and behavioural traits, the associations among them and links...

This chapter provides information on life history and behaviour of butterflies. It focus on nature of systems theory, the basic feature of systems model (feedbacks and regulation) and the practical development of systems model.

In biological systems, there are no perfect relationships. The existence of such variety in butterflies, the distinctiveness of higher taxa, in itself suggests that different strategies are used to solve many of the same problems. However satisfying a set of relationships in life history, behaviour ...

This chapter focuses on the distinctive nature of trade-offs (regulation, switches) in Lepidoptera. Information is provided on the effects of different factors (environment and hosts) on the life history and behaviour of butterflies.

This chapter focuses on the ecology, life history and host plant relationships of butterflies. Associations including mutualism, commensalism, herbivory, predation, parasitism, ammensalism, neutralism, and competition are discussed.

In this chapter on mimicry, attention is given to the life history aspects of signalling in butterflies, both honest signalling of defences (i.e. nauseous flavours, unpalatability, poisons, stings) and deception (i.e. Batesian mimicry and automimicry). The subject is a vast one; attention here is...

This chapter presents a brief history of population dynamics and evolution, classical theories on the control of animal numbers and empirical time-series data on insect population dynamics. The importance, construction, analysis and limitations of insect life tables are discussed and the value and...

Insects are often a major obstacle to the successful production of cucurbits. They can severely reduce yield, injure or kill plants, spread disease and adversely affect fruit quality. Spider mites can also be a problem, particularly with glasshouse cucumbers. Integrated pest management requires an...

The phenotypic plasticity hypothesis - or, in short, plasticity hypothesis - posits that invasive species are more phenotypically plastic than non-invasive or native ones. On the basis of a systematic review, we identified 115 relevant empirical tests of the plasticity hypothesis. Most of these...

This chapter provides an introduction to modern concepts in island biogeography, factors that affect the presence of butterflies, and other organisms, on British and Irish islands. Colonization ability and migration capacity correlate with one another - to be good (bad) at one is often to be good...