Ten years of the resource-based habitat paradigm: the biotope-habitat issue and implications for conserving butterfly diversity

Dennis, Roger L. H.; Dapporto, Leonardo; Dover, John W.

doi:10.12976/jib/2014.2.8

Cited by 22 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…These traits are all indicative of a strong ecological interaction between the butterfly and host plant, with individual butterflies completing their entire life cycle in a restricted area, hence the strength of the statistical relationship linking plant and butterfly abundance. By contrast, individual butterflies in species with the opposite set of traits (polyphagy and mobility) experience only weak interactions with the plant population on which they fed as larvae (Dennis, Dapporto & Dover ). Polyphagy allows adult butterflies to select oviposition sites from a range of host plant species; mobility allows butterflies to travel between habitat patches in order to reproduce.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Butterfly abundance is determined by food availability and is mediated by species traits

Curtis

Brereton

Dennis

et al. 2015

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Summary Understanding the drivers of population abundance across species and sites is crucial for effective conservation management. At present, we lack a framework for predicting which sites are likely to support abundant butterfly communities. We address this problem by exploring the determinants of abundance among 1111 populations of butterflies in the UK, spanning 27 species on 54 sites. Our general hypothesis is that the availability of food resources is a strong predictor of population abundance both within and between species, but that the relationship varies systematically with species’ traits. We found strong positive correlations between butterfly abundance and the availability of food resources. Our indices of host plant and nectar are both significant predictors of butterfly population density, but the relationship is strongest for host plants, which explain up to 36% of the inter‐site variance in abundance for some species. Among species, the host plant–abundance relationship is mediated by butterfly species traits. It is strongest among those species with narrow diet breadths, low mobility and habitat specialists. Abundance for species with generalist diet and habitat associations is uncorrelated with our host plant index. The host plant–abundance relationship is more pronounced on sites with predominantly north‐facing slopes, suggesting a role for microclimate in mediating resource availability. Synthesis and applications. We have shown that simple measures can be used to help understand patterns in abundance at large spatial scales. For some butterfly species, population carrying capacity on occupied sites is predictable from information about the vegetation composition. These results suggest that targeted management to increase host plant availability will translate into higher carrying capacity. Among UK butterflies, the species that would benefit most from such intervention have recently experienced steep declines in both abundance and distribution. The host plant–abundance relationship we have identified is likely to be transferrable to other systems characterized by strong interspecific interactions across trophic levels. This raises the possibility that the quality of habitat patches for specialist species is estimable from rapid assessment of the host plant resource.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Butterfly abundance is determined by food availability and is mediated by species traits

Curtis

Brereton

Dennis

et al. 2015

Journal of Applied Ecology

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121

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“…These studies reveal that some species show open population structure, with individuals roaming widely across diverse habitats, seeking mates, nectar sources and oviposition sites as they fly. For these butterflies the term ''habitat patch'' may not be meaningful (Dennis et al 2003(Dennis et al , 2014. However, most butterflies, including those studied here, occur in discrete populations occupying habitat patches comprising areas of distinct vegetational and physical structure covering hundreds to thousands of square metres.…”

Section: Habitat Preference Host Preference Motivation and Dispersalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive and maladaptive consequences of “matching habitat choice:” lessons from a rapidly-evolving butterfly metapopulation

Singer

2015

Evol Ecol

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Relationships between biased dispersal and local adaptation are currently debated. Here, I show how prior work on wild butterflies casts a novel light on this topic. ''Preference'' is defined as the set of likelihoods of accepting particular resources after encountering them. So defined, butterfly oviposition preferences are heritable habitat adaptations distinct from both habitat preference and biased dispersal, but influencing both processes. When a butterfly emigrates after its oviposition preference begins to reduce realized fecundity, the resulting biased dispersal is analogous to that occurring when a fish emigrates after its morphological habitat adaptations reduce its feeding rate. I illustrate preference-biased dispersal with examples from metapopulations of Melitaea cinxia and Euphydryas editha. E. editha were feeding on a well-defended host, Pedicularis, when humans created patches in which Pedicularis was killed and a less-defended host, Collinsia, was rendered phenologically available. Patch-specific natural selection favoured oviposition on Collinsia in logged (''clearing'') patches and on Pedicularis in undisturbed open forest. Quantitative variation in post-alighting oviposition preference was heritable, and evolved to be consistently different between patch types. This difference was driven more by biased dispersal than by spatial variation of natural selection. Insects developing on Collinsia in clearings retained adaptations to Pedicularis in clutch size, geotaxis and oviposition preference, forcing them to choose between emigrating in search of forest habitats with Pedicularis or staying and failing to find their preferred host. Insects that stayed suffered reduction of realized fecundity after delayed oviposition on Collinsia. Those that emigrated suffered even greater fitness penalty from consistently low offspring survival on Pedicularis. Paradoxically, most emigrants reduced both their own fitness and that of the recipient populations by dispersing from a benign natal habitat to which they Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

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“…Behavioural trait data are only currently being aggregated (e.g. Dennis et al, 2014) with Dennis (2010), giving the most comprehensive set of behavioural information. Highly congruent data types-wingspan, voltinism and overwintering stage-are either traits that have been well documented from the early 20 th century (e.g.…”

Section: Faunamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other traits can be more problematic. “Habitat” is also a commonly used trait in many analyses; despite often lacking a precise definition in many studies (cf., Dennis, Dapporto, & Dover, ; Dennis, Shreeve, & Van Dyck, ); there is a tendency to associate “habitat” with loosely defined biotopes. If defined as a vegetation association, “habitat” is not consistent with resource requirements, which are frequently more precise (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Optimising trait and source selection for explaining occurrence and abundance changes: A case study using British butterflies

et al. 2018

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Functional traits that define the ecological role of an organism are increasingly being used to determine and predict responses to environmental change. Functional trait analyses of butterflies remain underexplored compared with other taxa, such as plants. Previous works using butterfly functional traits have not comprehensively addressed issues about the quality of trait datasets used and the relative predictive power of different trait types. We compare the consistency of trait descriptions between six widely used trait sources for the British butterfly fauna. We analysed consistency of trait sources using Fleiss's kappa and intraclass correlation coefficient. Principal component analysis was used to produce species ordinations, comparing outputs to examine which trait sets were better at explaining recent species range and abundance changes within the UK. There was a large range in congruence values for specific traits between sources. No single source can be relied upon to produce accurate trait information for British butterflies. Most trait sets are poor predictors of abundance and occurrence changes but are better at predicting current occurrence. An extensive trait set, supplementing biotope‐related traits with explicit resource‐based information recovers more informative ecological classifications and models than those primarily based on life‐history traits or biotope descriptors. Smaller trait sets do, however, recover the specialist–generalist continuum. We conclude that analyses of distribution and abundance changes that rely on traits are highly dependent on trait source and trait type. For butterflies, traits that are based on measures of biotope occupancy should be avoided in explaining changes of abundance and distribution. Including trait information that describes their resource requirements is essential for such analyses. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13082/suppinfo is available for this article.

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Ten years of the resource-based habitat paradigm: the biotope-habitat issue and implications for conserving butterfly diversity

Cited by 22 publications

References 102 publications

Butterfly abundance is determined by food availability and is mediated by species traits

Butterfly abundance is determined by food availability and is mediated by species traits

Adaptive and maladaptive consequences of “matching habitat choice:” lessons from a rapidly-evolving butterfly metapopulation

Optimising trait and source selection for explaining occurrence and abundance changes: A case study using British butterflies

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