Butterfly biodiversity in the city is driven by the interaction of the urban landscape and the species traits: a call for contextualised management

Abstract

Context Urbanisation is an environmental filter for many species that leads to community homogenisation, with a few species inhabiting isolated patches (gardens) embedded in the urban landscape. Promoting biodiversity in urban areas requires understanding which and how species traits allow species to survive the urban landscape. Objectives The objective of this study was to assess how species traits and landscape factors combine to allow species functional groups live in the city, by means of the use of suitable patches in the urban landscape. Methods We used butterfly count data collected by volunteers in 24 gardens of Barcelona city, for 2018 and 2019. Species were clustered in functional groups according to their traits. We applied a multinomial choice model to test the effect of the landscape on the different functional groups. Results Three functional groups appeared in the city while a fourth, containing most sedentary specialist species, was filtered out. Although the observed groups had similar species richness, abundances varied depending on urban landscape characteristics. Specialist sedentary and medium mobile species were all favoured by patch connectivity; while the presence of mobile generalist species was only enhanced by habitat quality. Our results indicate that butterfly communities are more diverse in highly connected gardens. Conclusions Our study highlights the need of contextualised management with actions accounting for the species functional groups, rather than a management focused on general species richness. It evidences that urban landscape planning must focus on improving connectivity inside the city in order to diversify the community composition.

Seguimiento de artrópodos bioindicadores en áreas urbanas: objetivos, experiencias y perspectivas

“…De esta manera, se fomenta el conocimiento sobre la diversidad de mariposas de las ciudades y sobre cómo estas cambian a lo largo del tiempo, se pueden crear indicadores de calidad y analizar qué factores y gestiones de las administraciones potencian o hacen disminuir esa biodiversidad; así, se pueden proponer recomendaciones a dichos gestores para favorecer un incremento de la diversidad urbana y una mejor calidad del entorno. Los datos obtenidos de estos muestreos han favorecido el desarrollo de publicaciones científicas, como Pla-Narbona et al (2021), sobre la dispersión de las especies en ambientes urbanos respecto a sus características en diferentes zonas verdes.…”