Abstract
Climate change impacts biodiversity and is driving range shifts of species and populations across the globe. To understand the effects of climate warming on biota, long-term observations of the occurrence of species and detailed knowledge on their ecology and life-history is crucial. Mountain species particularly suffer under climate warming and often respond to environmental changes by altitudinal range shifts. We assessed long-term distribution trends of mountain butterflies across the eastern Alps and calculated species’ specific annual range shifts based on field observations and species distribution models, counterbalancing the potential drawbacks of both approaches. We also compiled details on the ecology, behaviour and life-history, and the climate niche of each species assessed. We found that the highest altitudinal maxima were observed recently in the majority of cases, while the lowest altitudes of observations were recorded before 1980. Mobile and generalist species with a broad ecological amplitude tended to move uphill more than specialist and sedentary species. As main drivers we identified climatic conditions and topographic variables, such as insolation and solar irradiation. This study provides important evidence for responses of high mountain taxa to rapid climate change. Our study underlines the advantage of combining historical surveys and museum collection data with cutting-edge analyses.
Highlights
Climate change impacts biodiversity and is driving range shifts of species and populations across the globe
Butterflies are sensitive to environmental changes, such as climatic shifts, because many representatives of this group of species are strictly adapted to certain environmental conditions, and their development depends on certain larval food plants and specific microhabitat structures[12]
We generated principal component analysis (PCA) based on climate and topographic features
Summary
Climate change impacts biodiversity and is driving range shifts of species and populations across the globe. Effects from climate change on biodiversity are visible in mountain regions, where species often occupy specific climatic niches, frequently combined with high ecological specialisation, making them highly sensitive to environmental c hanges[8,9]. Most of these species are highly specialized on specific hostplants and to abiotic conditions (e.g. climatic niche); in addition, they are adapted in their evolution to interact with the phenologies of other taxa. What are the characteristics (dispersal behaviour, ecological specialisation) of these butterfly species that make them either more resilient or sensitive to climate warming?
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