Indices of environmental associations such as the Community Temperature Index (CTI) and Community Precipitation Index (CPI) can be derived from occurrence data to extend the geographic scope or time frame of evidence for responses of insect diversity to global change. We tested whether occurrence records from 1901 to 2016 from the Iberian Peninsula could shed light on butterfly community responses to changes over space and time in the climate; and whether local climatic variation caused by topographic heterogeneity could buffer communities against the effects of climate change. CTI and CPI were closely related to variation in temperature and precipitation across 115 well‐sampled 10 km grid squares. However, whereas temperature and precipitation changed systematically from 1901–1979 to 1980–2016, and these changes were positively related to changes in CTI and CPI, community climatic associations did not change significantly over time. Butterfly communities became more associated with closed vegetation, suggesting that land cover changes overshadowed the effects of climate change. Local (1 km) climatic variation generally exceeded change over time at 10 km resolution, and heterogeneity in elevation slowed rates of warming. In turn, spatial variation in climatic conditions dampened butterfly community responses to heating and drying. Occurrence data are limited by their spatial resolution but can inform understanding of insect community responses to global change for regions lacking long‐term monitoring data. Our results suggest that local climatic variation accompanying topographic heterogeneity can shield regional butterfly faunas from the impacts of climate change.
Environmental representativeness and the role of emitter and recipient areas in the future trajectory of a protected area under climate change. We propose a protocol to estimate the effects of climate change on species inhabiting a reserve by assessing the location of areas with similar environmental conditions to a focal protected area, both now and in the future. Following this protocol it is possible to estimate: (i) the level of change that will occur in the current climatic conditions of a reserve; (ii) the present location of the areas with similar conditions to those this reserve will have in the future (emitter areas); and (iii) the location of the areas that in the future will have similar environmental conditions to those existing in the studied protected area (recipient areas). This knowledge can be used to anticipate and adapt the protected area against future changes. In this study, we used an Iberian reserve representative of the Mediterranean conditions, the Cabañeros National Park, as an example to calculate the extension, fragmentation and location of the areas with climatic conditions similar to those of the reserve. We also determined the connectivity between these areas and their degree of anthropic alteration.
1. Global warming may especially affect ectothermic insect species, making it necessary to forecast the capacity of these species to cope with climatic changes.2. In this study, we use circular statistics to examine the seasonal plasticity of 32 dung beetle species in 17 localities of a mountain Iberian assemblage. We assume that the high variability between localities in the seasonal patterns for the same species suggests that seasonal plasticity could minimise the demographic effects of climate change on local populations.3. Our results suggest that the populations of at least one-third of the dung beetle species could partially adapt to the effects of climate change by modifying their phenological occurrence, and that the degree of concentration of the seasonal occurrences is generally maintained independently of the locality. However, we have not detected clear seasonal pattern variations or a clear effect of environmental temperature on seasonal variations in around two-thirds of the studied species.4. The dung beetle assemblages of this mountain region will experience deep changes in the future. Plasticity in seasonal patterns does not seem to be associated with species characteristics such as high-rank taxonomic identity, body weight, or geographical distribution. Only the general functional character of species would have some explanatory power. Endophagic Aphodiidae dung beetle species would be more capable than hypophagic species in mitigating the effects of climate change by modifying their phenological traits, whereas that Scarabaeidae hypophagic species may cope better with these climatic changes without having to change their seasonal activities.
Summary Protected areas (PAs) are intended to preserve natural places, aiming to sustain ecosystem functionality and preserve biodiversity. However, PAs are spatially static, while major threats to biodiversity, such as climate and land-use change, are dynamic. The climatic conditions represented in a PA could vanish in the future and appear in other places more or less far away from the PA; these places could be considered as recipient areas potentially suited to receive propagules from the source PAs, which tend to lose the climatic conditions that motivated their protection. This study estimates the current and future climatic representativeness of mainland Iberian national parks by identifying future areas with a similar climate to those existing now in the parks and taking into account the degree of anthropogenic alteration and protection. We identify a network of ecological corridors connecting Iberian national parks with their recipient areas, as well as discriminating those most conflicting areas that impede network connectivity due to their degree of land-use transformation. Our results identify important areas for maintaining the climatic representativeness of Iberian national parks in the future, showing a substantial reduction in the climatic representativeness of the Iberian national parks. Although most of the recipient areas now have forest and semi-natural land uses and more than half of their whole area has protected status, current land uses in the Iberian Peninsula severely obstruct the corridor network connecting the parks and recipient areas.
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