Communal Roosting inHeliconiusButterflies (Nymphalidae): Roost Recruitment, Establishment, Fidelity, and Resource Use Trends Based on Age and Sex

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Heliconius passion-vine butterflies form communal roosts on a nightly basis as an anti-predatory defense. Although past studies have evaluated various components of this behavior, much remains unknown about many basic aspects of roost dynamics. To learn more about communal roosting I examined roost establishment, recruitment, roost-mate resource use, roosting participation in a population, and roost arrival, departure, and perch preferences in natural populations of Heliconius erato petiverana in Panama. My observations suggest that 1) younger butterflies are recruited more readily than older butterflies, 2) roosts are first established by a single butterfly roosting consecutively in the same location that later recruits butterflies, 3) males depart roosts earlier than females in the morning, 4) older butterflies tend to roost on the same perch in the same roost every night, 5) roost-mates share the same resource traplines, and 6) most butterflies in a population participate in roosts. These obs...