Abstract
Rural landscapes in Europe have suffered considerable land-use change in the last 50 years, with agricultural intensification in western regions and land abandonment in eastern and southern regions. The negative impacts of agricultural intensification on butterflies and other insects in western Europe have been well studied. However, less is known about the impacts of abandonment on mountain and humid areas of eastern and southern Europe, where landscapes have remained more natural. We sampled butterfly communities in the Picos de Europa National Park (Spain), a region which is undergoing a process of rural abandonment. 19 hay meadows with different periods of abandonment were studied (long-term 18 years or mid-term abandoned, 3–7 years) and compared to meadows continuously managed in a traditional way. We examined how local meadow characteristics and landscape variables affected butterfly community response to abandonment. Butterfly communities were affected by abandonment, with an overall increase in the density of individuals in the long term. Community composition appears to undergo major change over time, with a species turnover of around 50% in the first few years of abandonment, rising to around 70% after 18 years of abandonment. There was a tendency for species with higher preference for closed habitats to increase their densities as time since abandonment proceeded. Landscape variables had a major impact on butterfly communities, stronger than the effect of meadow management. Community preference for closed habitats was associated with higher forest cover in the surroundings of the meadows, but heterogeneous landscapes (in their composition or configuration) mitigated this effect.Implications for insect conservationOur findings suggest that we should ensure that communities have time to react to the diverse stressors imposed by global change. Facilitating survival to all kinds of functional and taxonomic groups implies promoting landscape heterogeneity and connectivity.
Highlights
Biodiversity loss caused by human actions has overcome a critical threshold
We developed community indices based on species traits
There was a tendency of species with preference for closed habitats to increase in density as time since abandonment proceeded
Summary
Biodiversity loss caused by human actions has overcome a critical threshold. Up to 75% of the terrestrial environment has been “severely altered”, with land use change among the1 3 Vol.:(0123456789)Journal of Insect Conservation (but see Marini et al 2009; Slancarova et al 2016; Ubach et al 2020; Colom et al 2021).The butterfly community in any given grassland will be the result of both local and landscape-level filters (Perović et al 2015). A reduction in plant diversity within the grassland could affect nectar resources (Krauss et al 2003) and potentially hostplant availability, which have been shown to negatively affect butterfly diversity (Skórka et al 2007; Marini et al 2009). Landscape heterogeneity can moderate the effects of local grassland management and influence species persistence, by supporting a larger species pool, providing a diversity of patches with different disturbance dynamics and encouraging spillover of organisms between complementary resources (van Halder et al 2011; Tscharntke et al 2012; Janisová et al 2014; Dantas de Miranda et al 2019). Understanding how landscape structure (i.e. composition:diversity of habitat types;- and configuration: number, size and arrangement of habitat patches) moderates the response of species and communities to changes in habitat management, is critical to comprehending their dynamics (Tscharnke et al 2012). Movements of species between landscape elements may ensure community resilience, the capacity to reorganise after disturbance in changing environments (Tscharntke et al 2007)
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