Relative importance of habitat and landscape scales on butterfly communities of urbanizing areas.
Agricultural decline and urbanization entail rapid alterations of the patterns of organization of rural landscapes in Europe. The spread of the urban footprint to the adjacent countryside contributes to the development of new anthropogenic ecosystems in formerly rural hinterlands. In this study, butterflies are considered as biological indicators of these rapid environmental changes. Our purpose is to better understand changes in biodiversity related to the evolution of available habitats in a mutating landscape. In this study, we investigate butterfly communities of four land-use types (fallow lands, gardens, vineyards, woodlands) within different landscape contexts. Our results reveal that variations in structure and functional composition of these communities are related to different levels of human disturbance at both landscape scale and habitat scale.
UMR 151, laboratoire population environnement développement, université de Provence, 3, place Victor-Hugo, 13331 Marseille cedex 03, France. marie-helene.lizee@univ-provence.fr
Marie-Hélène
MH
Lizée
Rémi
R
Bonardo
Jean-François
JF
Mauffrey
Valérie
V
Bertaudière-Montes
Thierry
T
Tatoni
Magali
M
Deschamps-Cottin
D000383:Agriculture; D000818:Animals; D002080:Butterflies / Q000502:physiology*; D026661:Clinical Trials Data Monitoring Committees; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004032:Diet; D017753:Ecosystem; D005602:France; D007814:Larva; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012098:Reproduction / Q000502:physiology; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D013045:Species Specificity; D014506:Urban Renewal; D014507:Urbanization