An Italian museum has recreated a Tanzanian butterfly forest to raise awareness about biodiversity.
The forest is inspired by the Udzungwa Mountains National Park, one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in the world.
In a lush greenhouse in the Alps, butterflies of different species and colors flutter freely and butterfly chrysalises hang from a structure as they transform into adult insects.
Such is the butterfly forest inside the Tropical Mountain Greenhouse in Trento, Italy, a project of the Museo delle Scienze (MUSE), an Italian science museum.
The ecosystem created here is inspired by the Udzungwa Mountains National Park, part of a mountain range and rainforest area in south-central Tanzania and an important biodiversity hotspot .
The Trent Forest is designed to raise awareness of some of the research MUSE is carrying out in the Udzungwa Mountains to study and protect the world’s biodiversity from threats such as deforestation and climate change.
Deforestation leads to habitat loss, which causes fewer nectar sources for butterflies and changes ecosystem functioning.
By fragmenting forests, deforestation limits the movements of insects and reduces their genetic diversity.
These impacts lead to a decrease in biodiversity and the potential extinction of vulnerable butterfly species.
Butterflies’ body temperatures and metabolic rates are influenced by air and soil temperatures.
Climate change is altering insect life cycles and impacting their development rates, mating behaviors and migration patterns.
Butterfly populations are declining in many regions, especially in places subject to intensive land use.
The scientists behind the butterfly forest hope their research will spur the development of conservation strategies aimed at better understanding butterfly communities in specific habitats and monitoring their distribution in space and time.