Land use and climate change affects butterfly diversity across northern Austria

Abstract

Context Biodiversity is severely decreasing at a global scale since several decades. There are significant changes in species community compositions, reductions of species richness and abundances of arthropods, as well as of arthropod biomass. Land use intensification and climate change are assumed to be main drivers causing biodiversity change and loss. However, proximate effects of land use, landscape configuration, topography and climate on species richness and species community composition were only rarely analysed. Objective We study the effects of current land cover, landscape structures and climate on butterfly and burnet moth species diversity and community composition across northern Austria (i.e. the federal state of Salzburg). Methods We compiled observation data of butterflies and burnet moths for the past 40 years. We divided faunal data, land cover data and data on climate into 5 × 5 km2 grid cells. We classified all lepidopterans assessed into groups according to their distribution, behaviour, ecology and life-history. Results We found higher species richness and temporal community shifts in higher elevations, and where topographic heterogeneity is high. Habitat connectivity has a positive impact on ecologically specialised, sedentary, and endangered species. Mean temperature and precipitation positively influenced species richness. Conclusions Both, land-use and climate strongly shape biodiversity structures. In particular, landscape heterogeneity promotes the diversity of ecological niches, which subsequently accelerates species diversity, including specialist species. Agricultural intensification in higher elevations and at steep slopes is more difficult and therefore less attractive, and thus the level of biodiversity is still high. In addition, climate warming might lead to the accumulation of species in higher elevations. Our study further underlines the relevance of habitat conservation at lower elevations, where not all habitat types are conserved sufficiently.

Floral diversity increases butterfly diversity in a multitrophic metacommunity

“…Butterflies are highly mobile organisms (Burke et al, 2011) and may be less constrained by movement through an inhospitable matrix than expected, allowing small, isolated populations to be maintained by immigration. Because we did not consider traits in our analysis, our results do not indicate how dispersal ability may have varied across the spectrum of site isolation: Dispersal ability of species in isolated versus connected patches could vary, with stronger dispersers able to reach more isolated sites and populations of poorer dispersers benefiting most from higher connectivity (Habel et al, 2021).…”

Rapid assessment of insect diversity (Ext.), Kalabakan, Sabah

“…Changes of land-use are also one of the issues that can affect insect diversity [25]. Altered insect micro-habitats can alter the diversity of certain insects inhabiting those micro-habitats [26]. However, there are also other insects that will inhabit altered land areas such as dung beetles [27].…”

Differences in phenology, daily timing of activity, and associations of temperature utilization with survival in three threatened butterflies

“…To enable the identification of underlying mechanisms, allow for reliable scenarios of future change, and assess the generality and reproducibility of research findings, it is also essential that the responses of species with different characteristics are simultaneously studied and systematically compared 4 , 5 . In response to increasing temperatures, species can move to colder areas 2 , 6 , 7 by shifting distributions northwards (in the northern hemisphere) or to higher altitudes 4 , 8 , 9 . Besides large and small scale changes in species distributions, phenology changes are well-documented responses to elevated temperatures, with many species advancing their activity such that they become active earlier (or later) in the year 10 – 12 .…”