Use of microhabitats affects butterfly assemblages in a rural landscape

Abstract

Landscapes composed of small rural properties may support highly heterogeneous habitat, because they often cover distinct types of land uses adjacent to surrounding forest fragments. Many butterfly species may benefit from this kind of landscape, as very distinct microhabitats can be found in a very restricted spatial scale. To better understand how different microhabitats are related to fragmentation in rural landscapes the present study collected the butterfly fauna in 18 sampling point sites, representing distinct types of forest edges and forest interiors. Although closely located, these sites showed no spatial autocorrelation. Instead, a major distinction in species richness and composition was found among forest interior and edge habitats while no significant difference was found in species composition among distinct edge types. Therefore, the high segregation of butterfly assemblages found in a very restricted geographic scale suggests the presence of two different groups of butterflies that respond independently to forest fragmentation, the forest interior assemblages and forest edge assemblages. This distinction of butterfly assemblages related to forest interior and forest edges were already reported, but our results highlights that these differences are found mostly due to species turnover between those habitats. In other words, both microhabitat types present a high number of specialized species compared to a smaller fraction of generalist species that may occurs in both microhabitats. In the case of Atlantic Forest, the species of special conservation concern are those true specialized in forest interior habitats and not those specialized in forest edges, thus the present study corroborates the importance of sampling different microhabitats when studying fragmentation processes, both inside and outside of fragments. Although forest edges may present different kinds of habitat types, species present along border tend to be as heterogeneous as species present in different locations inside the forest. This information should be considered in sampling designs of biodiversity essays that focus on a more consistent representation of local diversity.

Diversity and richness of day Butterflies species (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera) in the Chettaba Forest, Constantine, Northeastern Algeria

“…As a result, the butterfly is one of the most researched invertebrate groups (Merckx et al 2013). The abundance and diversity of butterflies in a habitat are heavily influenced by a variety of factors, including the abundance and availability of host and larval food flowering plants (Pe′er et al 2011;Widhiono 2015;Filgueiras et al 2016;Orlandin et al 2019;Koneri et al 2020), the complexity of vegetation structure, and predators (Patil et al 2017). The number and diversity of butterflies will be impacted by habitat changes induced by numerous environmental damages caused by human activities, such as logging (Hill 1999;Serik 2018) and land-use change (Harmonis and Saud 2017).…”

Insect diversity in various distances to forest edge in small nature reserve: A case study of Bantarbolang Nature Reserve, Central Java, Indonesia

“…The variety of flowering plants at forest edges is related to the diversity of pollinating insects, especially from the Hymenoptera (Apoidea) (Widhiono et al 2017), and plays a vital role as a food resource for wild pollinating bees (Widhiono et al 2017). According to Filgueiras et al (2016), Pe′er et al (2011), Widhiono (2015, Orlandin et al (2019), and Koneri et al (2020), the diversity and abundance of butterfly populations are related to the diversity and abundance of flowering plants. In addition, forest edges also influence the diversity of wild bees (Rands and Whitney 2011;Roberts et al 2017).…”