Conservation Icons: Dr. Arthur M. Shapiro, butterflies

Delve into the fascinating world of California butterflies on April 14 at 6 p.m., with Dr. Arthur Shapiro, professor of Evolution and Ecology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Shapiro will share his more than 34 years of research on butterflies, in his presentation: “Gardening for Butterflies in the Anthropocene.”

Dr. Shapiro has regularly monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California. Ranging from the Sacramento River delta, through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains, to the high desert of the western Great Basin, he has monitored fixed routes at ten sites since 1972.

Dr. Shapiro has logged more than 5,476 site-visits and tallied approximately 83,000 individual records of 159 butterfly species and subspecies, representing the world’s largest data-set. Read his 2003 co-authored research paper, “Exotics as Host Plants of the California Butterfly Fauna” (Biological Conservation, 110:413-433).

Shapiro is one of nine awe-inspiring speakers that are part of the 2017-18 Conservation Icons series that aims to educate, entertain and inspire change!