Climate Change on the Checkerspot Butterflies - Assignment Example

The precipitation variability from San Jose and Woodside was evaluated against the population simulations in two different time periods. Linear regression and ordinary cross-validation were used to minimize errors. Simulations were run with bootstrapped samples drawn from two different periods in which each population went extinct. The variables involved were precipitation, adult abundance, and year. A similar simulation was obtained by using bootstrapped precipitation data from other relevant time intervals. The control was the starting population sizes in two periods. The results demonstrate that increased precipitation variability likely caused extinctions of two butterfly populations.

The variability in the annual precipitation caused a difference in the associable growth cycle of larvae and host plants, which increased the mortality and thus contributed towards extinction. The results indicated the probable reason for population extinction as the severity of weather variance. The result supports the hypothesis as it indicates that habitat loss and climate variability hastened population extinction. The unanswered part of the hypothesis is the effect of temperature and variance homogeneity.