Landscape functional connectivity for butterflies under different scenarios of land-use, land-cover, and climate change in Australia

Abstract

Pollinating invertebrates are vital to terrestrial ecosystems but are impacted by anthropogenic habitat loss/fragmentation and climate change. Conserving and improving landscape connectivity is important to offset those threats, yet its assessment for invertebrates is lacking. In this study, we evaluated the functional connectivity between protected areas in Australia for 59 butterfly species, under present conditions and different future scenarios (for 2050 and 2090) of land-use, land-cover, and climate change. Using circuit-theory analysis, we found that functional connectivity under present conditions varies widely between species, even when their estimated geographical ranges are similar. Under future scenarios, functional connectivity is predicted to decrease overall, with negative changes worsening from 2050 to 2090, although a few species are positive exceptions. We have made our results available as spatial datasets to allow comparisons with taxa from other studies and can be used to identify priority areas for conservation in terms of establishing ecological corridors or stepping-stone habitat patches. Our study highlights the importance of considering pollinating invertebrates when seeking holistic conservation and restoration of a landscapes functional connectivity, underscoring the need to expand and promote protected areas to facilitate functional connectivity under future scenarios of global change.