Every Hue Has Its Fan Club: Diverse Patterns of Color-Dependent Flower Visitation across Lepidoptera

Floral color plays a critical role in shaping plant-pollinator interactions, yet the extent to which lepidopteran flower visitation is color-dependent remains underexplored. Using over 8000 community-science observations from the southwestern Ozarks, central USA, from 2002 to 2024, we assessed whether butterflies and moths visit flowers randomly or according to color preferences, and how these preferences vary across taxa. Our results reveal that flower visitation by Lepidoptera is both flower color-dependent and Lepidoptera taxon-specific. Magenta flowers stood out as the most distinct in terms of their visitors. Although broad color preferences emerged at the family level, species-level analyses uncovered even greater complexity, with unique, non-random combinations of preferred flower colors. Lycaenidae exhibited the narrowest color spans, frequently visiting white and beige flowers. In contrast, monarchs and fritillaries (both from Nymphalidae), swallowtails (Papilionidae), and many skippers (Hesperiidae) visited flowers of nearly all available hues at similar rates. Some observed patterns were consistent with findings from other geographic regions, such as a strong preference for magenta and lavender in diurnal hawkmoths (Sphingidae). However, others were not, as many butterfly lineages associated with yellow flowers in other geographic regions instead showed a pronounced preference for red, crimson, and blush flowers in our study area. Our findings highlight the potential of community-science data for studying pollinator behavior at an unprecedented spatial and temporal scale, while also demonstrating diversity in Lepidoptera floral preferences and the potential for geographic variation in floral preferences within species.