Influences of landscape structure on butterfly diversity in urban private gardens using a citizen science approach

Manfred Pendl,Thomas Drapela,Dietmar Moser,Thomas Frank,Raja Imran Hussain

doi:10.1007/s11252-021-01168-6

Manfred Pendl, Thomas Drapela + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-021-01168-6

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Abstract

Although urbanization is increasing worldwide, private gardens may help mitigate the impact of urbanization on butterfly diversity. We investigated how local and landscape factors correspond with the observed butterfly species diversity and species composition in Viennese private gardens. The goal is to determine the importance of private gardens for butterfly conservation. Butterfly species were observed by skilled volunteers by applying a citizen science approach. We related butterfly species numbers in private gardens with local parameters and landscape composition in a radius of 1 km around each garden. Data were analyzed using a regression approach based on generalized linear models. The butterfly species richness in private gardens was positively correlated with butterfly species richness in the surrounding landscapes. Butterfly species richness in private gardens increased with higher proportions of area relevant for butterflies in the surrounding landscape and with increasing numbers of host and nectar plant species in the private gardens. A higher proportion of wooded areas in the surrounding landscape was related with a smaller proportion of the landscape butterfly species pool being observed in the private gardens. Overall, our results could be useful in land use planning, and for future studies of how to integrate citizen science and make urban gardens more beneficial for butterfly conservation.

Highlights

Urbanization is expanding worldwide (Carlucci et al 2020), resulting in habitat modifications (Liu et al 2016) which often alter the composition and distribution of species (Freitas et al 2020), including insects (Corcos et al 2019)
The most frequently observed species were Maniola jurtina (16 private gardens), Vanessa atalanta (14 private gardens) and Iphiclides podalirius (13 private gardens); no species was observed in all private gardens
The number of observed butterfly species in private gardens increased with higher proportions of area relevant for butterflies in the surrounding landscape (F1, 19 = 8.78, p = 0.007; Fig. 2A), and with increasing numbers of host plant (F1, 19 = 2.46, p < 0.05; Fig. 2B) and nectar plant species in the private gardens (F1, 19 = 1.74, p < 0.05; Fig. 2C)

Summary

Introduction

Urbanization is expanding worldwide (Carlucci et al 2020), resulting in habitat modifications (Liu et al 2016) which often alter the composition and distribution of species (Freitas et al 2020), including insects (Corcos et al 2019). Recent research has put urban biodiversity into the conservation focus, either by examining multi-city analyses at larger scales (Baldock et al 2019; Cubino et al 2020) or by focusing on patches within the urban landscape (Jain et al 2020). Urban Ecosystems management practices, to predict the biodiversity response to urbanization (Lerman et al 2018; Cubino et al 2020) Such biodiversity research, including studies on insects, has so far been conducted without conservationbased citizen science approaches. In light of butterfly biodiversity decline (Warren et al 2021), citizen science will be an important approach to monitor butterfly biodiversity in urban landscapes (Baker and Potter 2019)

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