• DOI:10.1007/s10841-007-9112-7
• Corpus ID: 38878824

The importance of resource databanks for conserving insects: a butterfly biology perspective

@article{Dennis2007TheIO,
  title={The importance of resource databanks for conserving insects: a butterfly biology perspective},
  author={Roger L. H. Dennis and Peter B. Hardy and Tim Shreeve},
  journal={Journal of Insect Conservation},
  year={2007},
  volume={12},
  pages={711-719}
}

• R. Dennis, P. Hardy, T. Shreeve
• Published 1 December 2008
• Biology
• Journal of Insect Conservation

Databases have become critically important in many areas of biological research. For example, searcheable nucleotide and protein sequence databases (e.g. Genbank, http://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/index.htm and Uniprot, http:// www.ebi.uniprot.org/index.shtml) and gene expression data (e.g. ArrayExpress, http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/ #ae-main[0]) hold important information to assist understanding of biological functioning at the cellular and subcellular level, and can be used to interpret evolutionary developments within a taxonomic group. Such databases are essential facilities for understanding complex processes and predicting interactions and systems’ dynamics. At the level of populations and communities, databases are available to predict agricultural pest infestation levels in relation to degree-days (e.g. UC IPM Online, http://www. ipm.ucdavis.edu/) and freshwater community composition in relation to physico-chemical condition (e.g. RIVPACS, http://www.ceh.ac.uk/sections/re/RIVPACS.html). Other databases (e.g. UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, http:// www.ukbms.org/) have been used to identify phenological changes (e.g. Roy and Sparks 2000) and changes of abundance (Roy et al. 2001; Thomas et al. 2004; Thomas 2005). With few exceptions (e.g. Syrph-the-Net, http:// www.iol.ie/*millweb/syrph/syrphid.htm), those databases available for insect conservation mostly comprise species lists, locations and imprecise descriptions of vegetation communites; their use in predicting spatial and temporal occurrences is more limited but in specific circumstances they can be used within metapopulation modelling processes (e.g. Gutierrez et al. 1999; Davies et al. 2005, 2006). Such data are now being used via the ‘focal species’ approach within exercises in landscape design and restoration, though the approach is not guaranteed of success (see Lindenmeyer et al. 2002). If molecular data can be used predictively then there is every chance that correctly designed and inclusive databases can be used to aid insect conservation. Both subcellular and population/community processes are highly complex and there are parallels in hierarchical organisation of data between molecular based systems and whole organism based systems (Fig. 1). It is logical to argue that a correctly designed database can be as useful for conservation as molecular databases are for understanding molecular and cellular processes. Here, we develop our arguments about the applicability of appropriate databases using butterflies as a model taxon. This group is perhaps the best known group of insects in the world; they are heralded as regional indicator taxa for environmental changes (Thomas 2005; Thomas et al. 2004).