A checklist of European butterfly larval foodplants

Butterflies are charismatic insects, and have been well studied,
particularly in Europe. They are disproportionately used in generating and
testing hypotheses; on everything from general evolutionary processes,
such as speciation, or host association dynamics; to conservation-related
studies, such as climate change or habitat loss. Accurate lists of the
larval foodplants for European butterflies are not readily available.
Mistakes are propagated and information can’t be checked for accuracy. The
level of evidence is unknown, and how usage varies between countries
poorly understood. The study consulted 1,119 references to produce 19,488
records of larval foodplants for European butterflies. This resulted in
5,589 larval host plant records for 464 European butterfly species, with
multiple references, enabling  information to be checked.
Information was unavailable for 59 species. The level of evidence for each
relationship show the current state of knowledge. Significant issue were
identified for 3.9% of records extracted from references due to mistakes,
ambiguous or unknown plant names, distribution issues, resulting in
information being lost. Plants with a questionable distributions suggest
either misidentification, or species that have been split. Little is known
about plant usage in eastern Europe. The larval foodplants of many
monophagous and Satyrinae butterflies are poorly studied. Only 64% of
threatened 2010 Red Listed butterflies have reliable host plant records.
The study has provided ecologists with a valuable resource, of a more
accurate checklist of the larval foodplants for each European country. Why
plant usage varies over a butterfly’s distribution, opens up some
interesting research questions.