Butterfly community structure in fragmented habitats

By I. Steffan‐Dewenter, T. Tscharntke. 2000

318 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We analysed effects of habitat fragmentation on the diversity, abundance, and life history traits of butterflies on 33 calcareous grasslands. Diversity of butterflies was positively correlated with habitat area (as was plant diversity), but not with habitat isolation. In contrast to expectations, butterfly densities of polyphagous and oligophagous species declined with habitat area whereas densities of monophagous species increased. The z-values, i.e. the slope of species–area relationships, increased with food plant specialization, from 0.07 in polyphagous, 0.11 in oligophagous, 0.16 in strongly oligophagous to 0.22 in monophagous species, and were 0.14 in plant species. Significant z-values were not only found for total species richness, based on a sample size adjusted to fragment area (z = 0.12), but also for the local density of butterfly species richness, based on equal sample size across all habitat fragments (z = 0.06). To our knowledge, this is the first study to show differential responses of monophagous, oligophagous and polyphagous species to area with respect to species richness and population density.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/66a96eae0bb606d0019b457ff7e1ca2aa1b08730

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Citations in the corpus

Plant-insect interactions in fragmented landscapes. (2004, background): “may be simulated in experimental designs (49) or analyzed as independent factors (91, 145, 152, 179).”
Correlates of extinction risk in squamate reptiles: the relative importance of biology, geography, threat and range size (2016, unknown): “440 Habitat specialists were at higher risk of extinction throughout the tropics, a pattern 441 consistent with other studies (e.g., butterflies; Steffan-Dewenter & Tscharntke, 2000) and 442 attributed to the prevalence of anthropogenic habitat loss in tropical regions (Devictor et al., 443 2008).”
Insect communities and biotic interactions on fragmented calcareous grasslands - a mini review (2002, background): “On calcareous grasslands, total densities of butterflies decreased with increasing fragment size, but did not depend on habitat isolation (Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke, 2000a).”
Effects of landscape and habitat quality on butterfly communities in pre-alpine calcareous grasslands (2012, methodology): “Several studies have shown the importance of habitat size on butterfly communities (e.g. Krauss et al., 2003; Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke, 2000), whereas Thomas et al.”
A SYNERGISTIC EFFECT PUTS RARE, SPECIALIZED SPECIES AT GREATER RISK OF EXTINCTION (2004, background): “There is currently a great deal of interest in which traits predict the sensitivity of species to a given threat, such as habitat fragmentation (e.g., Didham et al. 1998, Davies et al. 2000, 2001a, b, Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke 2000, Fagan et al. 2001).”
Food webs in space: On the interplay of dynamic instability and spatial processes (2002, background): “However, Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke (2000) showed that in a guild of herbivorous insects (butterflies of old meadows in central Europe), the strength of the species-area relationship decreased with the degree of trophic generalization.”
The value of primary, secondary and plantation forests for fruit-feeding butterflies in the Brazilian Amazon (2007, background): “For example, the degree of host-plant specificity is one of the key features influencing butterfly response to disturbance and fragmentation ( Steffan-Dewenter & Tscharntke 2000; Koh, Sodhi & Brook 2004), and many studies report an increase in the Satyrinae with increased forest disturbance (Fig. 4”
Food web structure and habitat loss (2002, background): “First, the existence of a correlation between trophic rank and extinction threshold, whereby specialist predators are driven extinct before their prey (Kareiva 1987; Kruess & Tscharntke 1994; Bascompte & SoleÂ 1998a; Gilbert et al. 1998; Holt et al. 1999; Steffan-Dewenter & Tscharntke 2000).”
The influences of landscape structure on butterfly distribution and movement: a review (2009, background): “In a 32-fragment study Krauss et al. (2003), unlike Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke (2000), found that overall butterfly density increased with fragment area, but, like Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke (2000), when divided into habitat specialists and generalists only the specialists increased…”
Long‐term land‐use changes and extinction of specialised butterflies (2008, background): “In general, factors pointing to restricted range and habitat specialisation increase the risk of extinction as found in other studies (Steffan-Dewenter & Tscharntke, 2000; Conrad et al., 2004; Polus et al., 2007).”
Habitats and Resources: The Need for a Resource-based Definition to Conserve Butterflies (2006, background): “Very rarely, additional data mostly of adults have been acquired during broader synecological surveys of distinctive biotopes (e.g., woodland, Peachey, 1980; Shreeve and Mason 1980; grassland, Steffan-Dewenter and Tscharntke 2000, 2002 ), comparative work that is essential if we are to understand h”