RESEARCH ARTICLE The Butterflies of Barro Colorado Island, Panama: Local Extinction since the 1930s Yves Basset1,2,3*, Héctor Barrios3, Simon Segar2, Robert B. Srygley1,4, Annette Aiello1, Andrew D. Warren5, Francisco Delgado6, James Coronado1, Jorge Lezcano1, Stephany Arizala1, Marleny Rivera3, Filonila Perez1, Ricardo Bobadilla1, Yacksecari Lopez1, José Alejandro Ramirez1 1 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843–03092, Panama City, Republic of Panama, 2 Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia and Institute of Entomology, Biology Centre of Czech Academy of Sciences, Branišovská 31, 370 05, České Budějovice, Czech Republic, 3 Universidad de Panamá, Maestria de Entomologia, 080814, Panama City, Republic of Panama, 4 Northern Plains Agricultural Lab, USDA-Agricultural Research Service, 1500 N. Central Ave., Sidney, Montana, 59270, United States of America, 5 McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, 3215 Hull Rd., P.O. Box 112710, Gainesville, Florida, 32611–2710, United States of America, 6 Universidad de Panamá, Centro Regional Universitario de Veraguas, Santiago, Republic of Panama *
[email protected] OPEN ACCESS Citation: Basset Y, Barrios H, Segar S, Srygley RB, Aiello A, Warren AD, et al. (2015) The Butterflies of Abstract Barro Colorado Island, Panama: Local Extinction since the 1930s. PLoS ONE 10(8): e0136623. Few data are available about the regional or local extinction of tropical butterfly species. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0136623 When confirmed, local extinction was often due to the loss of host-plant species. We used Editor: Diego Fontaneto, Consiglio Nazionale delle published lists and recent monitoring programs to evaluate changes in butterfly composition Ricerche (CNR), ITALY on Barro Colorado Island (BCI, Panama) between an old (1923–1943) and a recent (1993– Received: May 16, 2015 2013) period.