Think of it as the “butterfly effect” — the idea that something as small as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can eventually lead to a major event such as a hurricane — in reverse.

The new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, also suggests that a lack of comprehensive global data about insects may leave conservationists and policymakers ill-prepared to mitigate biodiversity loss from climate change for a wide range of insect species.

For the study, a team co-led by Yale ecologist Walter Jetz analyzed phylogenetic and geographic range data for more than 12,000 butterfly species worldwide. The team was also co-led by Stefan Pinkert, an entomologist at the University of Marburg, in Germany, and former postdoctoral associate at Yale.

They found that butterfly diversity is highly clustered in tropical and subtropical mountain systems: two-thirds of butterfly species live primarily in the mountains, which contain 3 1/2 times more butterfly hotspots than lowlands.

Yet those mountain ecosystems — and surrounding areas — are quickly changing as a result of climate change. According to the study, 64% of the temperature niche space of butterflies in tropical areas will erode by 2070, with the geographically restricted temperature conditions of mountains constantly shrinking.

“The diversity, elegance, and sheer beauty of butterflies impassion people worldwide,” said Jetz, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and director of the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change (BGC Center).

“Co-evolved with host plants, butterflies form an integral part of an ecologically functioning web of life,” he added. “Unfortunately, our first global assessment of butterfly diversity and threats finds that butterflies’ fascinating diversification into higher-elevation environments might now spell their demise, with potentially thousands of species committed to extinction from global warming this century.”

Pinkert, a former postdoctoral researcher at the BGC Center, added: “As an entomologist, I am committed to informing the public about the distribution of insect diversity and targeted ways to protect it. Our results are insightful from an ecological point of view but unfortunately also very alarming.”

Current priorities in biodiversity preservation, the researchers note, are geared to animals and plants, rather than insects. Until now, a global assessment of the geographic coincidence of diversity, rarity, and climate change threats for an insect system did not exist.

The new assessment reveals that patterns in butterfly diversity differ strongly from those of much better studied groups such as birds, mammals, and amphibians — challenging the relevance of existing conservation priorities, the researchers said.

“This research was made possible by many years of mobilizing various global data and newly developed integrative approaches, all aimed at filling this critical information gap for at least one insect taxon,” Pinkert said.

Jetz said he hoped the new study — and future research enabled by the Map of Life, a global database, directed by Jetz, that tracks the distribution of known species worldwide — will support conservation managers to include insects in their plans for biodiversity preservation.

“A reduction of carbon emissions, combined with proactive identification and preservation of key butterfly habitats and migratory corridors, will be key to ensuring that much of butterfly diversity survives to benefit future generations,” Jetz said.

Co-authors of the study are Nina Farwig of the University of Marburg and Akito Kawahara of the University of Florida.

The research was supported, in part, by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation.

This research, led by Dr. Robert D. Meade, former Senior Postdoctoral Fellow and Dr. Glen Kenny, Director of HEPRU and professor of physiology at uOttawa’s Faculty of Health Sciences, highlights the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on human health.

The study found that many regions may soon experience heat and humidity levels that exceed the safe limits for human survival. “Our research provided important data supporting recent suggestions that the conditions under which humans can effectively regulate their body temperature are actually much lower than earlier models suggested,” states Kenny. “This is critical information as we face increasing global temperatures.”

Utilizing a widely used technique known as thermal-step protocols, Meade and his team exposed 12 volunteers to various heat and humidity conditions to identify the point at which thermoregulation becomes impossible. What made this study different, was that participants returned to the laboratory for a daylong exposure to conditions just above their estimated limit for thermoregulation. Participants were subjected to extreme conditions, 42°C with 57% humidity, representing a humidex of approximately 62°C. “The results were clear. The participants’ core temperature streamed upwards unabated, and many participants were unable to finish the 9-hour exposure. These data provide the first direct validation of thermal step protocols, which have been used to estimate upper limits for thermoregulation for nearly 50 years,” says Meade.

“Our findings especially timely, given estimated limits for thermoregulation are being increasingly incorporated into large scale climate modelling” explains Meade. “They also underscore the physiological strain experienced during prolonged exposure to extreme heat, which is becoming more common due to climate change.”

The implications of this research extend beyond academia. As cities prepare for hotter summers, understanding these limits can help guide health policies and public safety measures. “By integrating physiological data with climate models, we hope to better predict and prepare for heat-related health issues,” adds Kenny.

As the world grapples with the realities of climate change, this research aims to spark important conversations about our safety and adaptability in increasingly extreme environments.

“Hypertension is known as the silent killer because people can have blood pressure that’s too high without having any symptoms from it,” said senior author Jason H. Wasfy, MD, MPhil, of the Cardiology Division, Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. Wasfy is also a physician investigator at the Mongan Institute at MGH. “If they’re not getting checked for it enough, then high blood pressure can damage the heart and the vessels over time in a way that would have been preventable had the blood pressure been detected early.”

In the United States, nearly half of individuals with hypertension are unaware of or untreated for the disease.

“There is so much information that’s generated through routine clinical care, such as when you see your doctor or undergo a test. And there are often subtle clues in this information that may indicate a patient has hypertension. But it’s impossible for clinicians to master the entire medical record. The premise of our trial was that the data are likely hiding in plain sight, and we wanted to validate methods of bringing it to light to improve the care of our patients,” said lead author Adam Berman, MD, MPH, who conducted the study while in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. At the time, Berman was the David F. Torchiana Fellow in Health Policy and Management at the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization. Berman is now an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, the Leon H. Charney Division of Cardiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

The research team created and then used natural language processing that could sift through data from echocardiograms (heart ultrasounds) to identify cases of left ventricular hypertrophy, a thickening of the heart muscle often caused by hypertension. The algorithm identified 648 patients at Mass General Brigham who were not previously known to have any heart muscle problems and were not being treated for hypertension. The average patient age was 59 years and 38% were women. They randomized half of the patients to receive the intervention, and, for those patients, a population health coordinator notified the patient’s doctor of the finding. They also provided resources for additional care, including facilitating a 24-hour blood pressure monitoring test or scheduling an evaluation with a cardiologist. The clinicians for patients in the non-intervention control group were not contacted, and their patients were monitored under usual care.

Patients in the intervention group were nearly four times more likely to receive new hypertension diagnoses (15.6% vs 4.0%) and to be prescribed antihypertensive medication (16.3% vs 5.0%) than those in the control group. There was no meaningful difference in the number of follow-up appointments with primary care physicians between the groups. Clinicians mostly viewed the intervention positively — of the 82% who responded to the initial notification, qualitative scoring showed 72% had a positive reaction.

“There was a strong interest from our team in making sure this is something that physicians and patients would value,” Wasfy said. “Clinicians are often overloaded with alerts that can cause fatigue and burnout, so we intentionally designed our outreach to be delivered by a person.”

More work is needed to determine if this notification delivery method could be altered or automated for larger reach and easier implementation in other healthcare settings while maintaining effectiveness.

“The goal is to augment traditional care, using the data that already exist,” said Berman. “These patients have undergone testing, and their data are sitting there in a digital library gathering digital dust. Our trial demonstrates that we can harness these data to improve healthcare delivery and the treatment of our patients.”

Authorship: In addition to Wasfy and Berman, Mass General Brigham authors include Michael K. Hidrue, Curtis Ginder, Linnea Shirkey, Japneet Kwatra, Anna C. O’Kelly, Sean P. Murphy, Jennifer M. Searl Como, Yee-Ping Sun, William T. Curry, Marcela G. del Carmen, Ron Blankstein, David A. Morrow, Benjamin M. Scirica, Niteesh K. Choudhry, and James L. Januzzi. Additional authors include John A. Dodson and Danielle Daly.

Disclosures: A full list of disclosures can be found in the paper published in JAMA Cardiology.

Funding: The study intervention was funded by the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization in support of cardiovascular care delivery innovation.