Borboletas como indicadores de mudanças climáticas: variação de forma e tamanho das asas de Heliconius erato phyllis em um gradiente latitudinal

Abstract

With about 200 years of studies, the genus Heliconius represents one of the best studied tropical insects due to its abundance and occurence in several biomes from southern Mexico to southern South America. Bearing in mind the importance of bioindicators for research that seeks to understand climate change and its consequences for one health, this work evaluates variations in the size and shape of the wings of Heliconius erato phyllis through morphometric analyses, contextualizing it with the geographic variation of the specimens and the level of anthropization of the region where they were collected over time. The plotting of the data of the selected individuals, within the Procrustes analysis and the use of linear regression models, allows the observation of the variation in the shape and size of the wings of the individuals as a result of the latitude; this variation may indicate that environmental variables correlated to climate change (such as humidity and temperature) may interfere with the morphology of individuals inserted in such environments.