Compounded effects of climate change and habitat alteration shift patterns of butterfly diversity

Abstract

Climate change and habitat destruction have been linked to global declines in vertebrate biodiversity, including mammals, amphibians, birds, and fishes. However, invertebrates make up the vast majority of global species richness, and the combined effects of climate change and land use on invertebrates remain poorly understood. Here we present 35 years of data on 159 species of butterflies from 10 sites along an elevational gradient spanning 0-2,775 m in a biodiversity hotspot, the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California. Species richness has declined at half of the sites, with the most severe reductions at the lowest elevations, where habitat destruction is greatest. At higher elevations, we observed clear upward shifts in the elevational ranges of species, consistent with the influence of global warming. Taken together, these long-term data reveal the interacting negative effects of human-induced changes on both the climate and habitat available to butterfly species in California. Furthermore, the decline of ruderal, disturbance-associated species indicates that the traditional focus of conservation efforts on more specialized and less dispersive species should be broadened to include entire faunas when estimating and predicting the effects of pervasive stressors.biodiversity | elevational gradient | global change | Lepidoptera | phenology

Parnassius apollo nevadensis: identification of recent population structure and source–sink dynamics

“…This process may be slow, as it affects the larval and adult phases differently, as they feed on different plants and have different requirements (Olivares et al 2011;Radchuk et al 2013). Possible factors that have been found to be the cause of the habitat becoming less suitable for the butterflies are the rise in temperatures and habitat loss through human alterations (Wilson et al 2005;Wilson et al 2007;Forister et al 2010;Oliver et al 2015) The minor presence of private alleles and the asymmetric gene flow indicate that this population is almost isolated against the input of migrants, but not for the output of emigrants, which indicates the existence of filters to migration. The South population boundary towards the northeast (where it meets the North population) could be defined by the distance and presence of natural barriers (Fig.…”

“…Butterflies are known for being very sensitive to changes in their environment, and their populations have already been shown to be vulnerable to climatic change (Parmesan et al 1999;Roy and Sparks 2000;Wilson et al 2005;Wilson et al 2007;Forister et al 2010;Wilson and Maclean 2011;Radchuk et al 2013;Descombes et al 2015;Oliver et al 2015). The effect of climate change seems to be even stronger in montane taxa, which could face extreme increases in temperature (NoguŽs-Bravo et al 2007;Wilson et al 2007).…”

Hormonally mediated maternal effects, individual strategy and global change

“…There is evidence of shifts in distribution, both latitudinal and elevational, for invertebrates and vertebrates [20][21][22][23][24] as well as changes in phenology [25]. Finally, local extinctions in lizards have been attributed to climate change [8].…”

Untangling interactions: do temperature and habitat fragmentation gradients simultaneously impact biotic relationships?

“…We selected five field locations spanning seven degrees of latitude from Banks Peninsula on the South Island (43846 0 S) up to Auckland on the North Island (36851 0 S) (figure 1). According to NIWA weather station data, this corresponds to a 4.18C average temperature gradient; this value is within the range of temperature increases projected for each region by 2090 (ranging from 0.7 to 5.18C [5]; figure 2). Three additional locations were selected at intervals between the latitudinal extremes, located in the Waikato district (37854 0 S), Wellington district (41812 0 S), and the Nelson district (41815 0 S).…”

“…Despite this, global environmental change research is a young branch of ecological knowledge [3], and only a few studies have empirically investigated [4,5], conceptually modelled [6] or reviewed [2,7,8] the effects of simultaneous pressures explicitly.…”