Data from: Local climate change velocities and evolutionary history explain multidirectional range shifts in a North American butterfly assemblage

Species are often expected to shift their distributions either poleward or
upslope to evade warming climates and colonize new suitable climatic
niches. However, from 18 years of fixed transect monitoring data on 88
species of butterfly in the midwestern United States, we show that
butterflies are shifting their centroids in all directions, except towards
the region that is warming the fastest (southeast). Butterflies shifted
their centroids at a mean rate of 4.87 km yr-1. The rate of centroid shift
was significantly associated with local climate change velocity
(temperature by precipitation interaction), but not with mean climate
change velocity throughout the species’ ranges. Species tended to
shift their centroids at a faster rate towards regions that are warming at
slower velocities but increasing in precipitation
velocity. Surprisingly, species’ thermal niche breadth (range of
climates butterflies experience throughout their distribution) and
wingspan (often used as a metric for dispersal capability) were not
correlated with the rate at which species shifted their ranges. We
observed a high phylogenetic signal in the direction species shifted their
centroids. However, we found no phylogenetic signal in the rate species
shifted their centroids, suggesting less conserved processes determine the
rate of range shift than the direction species shift their
ranges. This research shows important signatures of
multidirectional range shifts (latitudinal and longitudinal) and uniquely
shows that local climate change velocities are more important in driving
range shifts than the mean climate change velocity throughout a species’
entire range.