COS 34-5 - Identifying research needs to guide conservation of Atrytonopsis loammi, a rare, understudied butterfly

Abstract: Habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, and pollution are among the fundamental challenges for biodiversity conservation. Habitat specialists are particularly vulnerable given the narrow niche required for their survival. These challenges within the context of high species diversity, endemism, and concentration of imperiled taxa uniquely position Florida ecosystems for conservation studies. As an example, the Loammi skipper (Atrytonopsis loammi), is a rare butterfly whose range has declined about 90% over the past century. Effective conservation depends upon understanding species-specific needs, so it is critical to evaluate what research has been developed and what knowledge gaps remain. Thus, our goals are: 1) describe scientific trends for studies published for the Loammi skipper and closely related taxa (scientometric review), and 2) perform a systematic review to identify knowledge gaps and research opportunities for the taxa. For this we performed an exhaustive search in the Web of Science Thomson Reuters database (WOS) using terms Atrytonopsis, loammi, hianna, quinteri, Hesperiini, Hesperiinae, and Hesperiidae combined with ecology, genetics, and taxonomic terms. To address our first goal, the R package bibliometrix and the networking software VOSviewer were used to highlight the importance of authors, journals, countries, and keywords in the retrieved studies. For the systematic review, two questions were established: “What are the main subjects addressed in research studies for the taxa?” and “How does the growth of studies for the taxa compare to the growth of studies of other imperiled butterflies?”. Our preliminary analysis shows that only 254 research items were published for the taxa within the time frame from 1966 to 2022, where most papers were published after 2012. A total of 683 authors published on the subject and most authors were affiliated with U.S. entities (i.e., Texas and Florida universities). Most papers were published in journals with a taxonomy-related scope (i.e., Zootaxa and Zookeys) and the main subjects studied were taxonomy, phylogenetics, and evolution. Analysis for the second part of the study is still in development. Nonetheless, trends indicate a relatively low number of studies published for the taxa of interest compared with other examples of imperiled butterfly taxa, indicating that the Loammi skipper and its close relatives are understudied. Large gaps exist for the taxa involving population genetics and ecology, life history, and habitat characterization, showing that increased research efforts in this area could directly aid the development of successful management and conservation strategies, contributing to larger efforts to conserve biodiversity.