Protocols

Twice weekly censuses recording plant vital status, reproductive phenology, and fitness components including flower and fruit production. Weekly assessments of herbivore damage quantify leaf area remo...

Comprehensive measurement of forewing length, wing melanism, and setal length from pinned butterfly specimens using digital micrometry, photography, and microscopy. Wing melanism quantified using stan...

Standard protocol for measuring leaf traits by scanning fresh leaves, counting trichomes using ImageJ, then drying and weighing leaves to calculate specific leaf area. Uses ImageJ software for digital...

Daily monitoring of individual female butterflies including artificial feeding with sucrose solution and daily egg collection. Measures lifetime reproductive output and adult lifespan under controlled...

Plant biomass consumption by herbivores is quantified using before-and-after digital photographs with standardized reference objects. Image analysis software calculates the difference in plant materia...

Photography of butterfly landing sites using polarizing lens to measure landscape contrast between landing spots and surrounding areas. Photos analyzed using ImageJ to calculate gray scale contrast va...

CO2 emission measurement using flow-through respirometry to quantify resting metabolic rate and flight metabolic capacity in individual butterflies. Includes forced flight trials with chamber agitatio...

Acrylic imprints of leaf surfaces are made on glass slides and analyzed under compound microscope to count stomata and measure their diameters.

Canopy cover measurement using densitometer to classify habitats as sun (5% shade), deep shade (95% shade), or ecotonal (5-95% shade) environments.

Comprehensive measurement of multiple fitness components including survival, reproductive success, fecundity, and growth rates to assess life history trade-offs under resource stress.