Flowering phenology influences butterfly nectar foraging on non-native plants in an oak savanna

Abstract

The negative impacts of non-native species have been well documented, but some non-natives can play a positive role in native ecosystems. One way that non-native plants can positively interact with native butterflies is by provisioning nectar. Relatively little is known about the role of phenology in determining native butterfly visitation to non-native plants for nectar, yet flowering time directly controls nectar availability. Here we investigate the phenological patterns of flowering by native and non-native plants and nectar foraging by native butterflies in an oak savanna on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. We also test whether native butterflies select nectar sources in proportion to their availability. We found that non-native plants were well integrated into butterfly nectar diets (83% of foraging observations) and that visitation to non-natives increased later in the season when native plants were no longer flowering. We also found that butterflies selected non-native flowers more often than expected based on their availability, suggesting that these plants represent a potentially valuable resource. Our study shows that non-native species have the potential to drive key species interactions in seasonal ecosystems. Management regimes focused on eradicating non-native species may need to reconsider their aims and evaluate resources that non-natives provide.

Keywords: butterfly; flower availability; invasion ecology; nectar foraging; non-native plants; oak savanna; phenology; resource selection; seasonal; temporal ecology.