A matter of connection: the importance of habitat networks for endangered butterflies in anthropogenic landscapes

IF 2.5 3区 环境科学与生态学 Q2 BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION Urban Ecosystems Pub Date : 2024-04-05 DOI:10.1007/s11252-024-01542-0
Leonardo Ancillotto, Fabio Mosconi, Rocco Labadessa
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Abstract

Cities are expanding at fast rates across the world, representing one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss due to habitat replacement. Nonetheless, urban and peri-urban areas often feature green spaces that may offer opportunities to wildlife and even represent safe havens for endangered species. Nonetheless, the key drivers that shape wildlife responses to urban landscapes, and in turn their ability to persist within cities, are far from being fully understood. Here we focus on an ecologically specialized butterfly, the endemic Italian festoon Zerynthia cassandra, as a model to assess how endangered species may survive in highly modified urban landscapes. The relatively low mobility and high host plant specialization make Z. cassandra an excellent target for studies in urban ecology, as they make the species able to exploit small suitable patches while at the same time potentially sensitive to habitat fragmentation and loss due to urbanization and land reclamation. We thus first document the relatively widespread occurrence of potentially suitable sites within two highly modified landscapes of central and southern Italy, with 25 and 35% of sites actually occupied by Z. cassandra. By modeling the probability of butterfly occurrence as a function of environmental characteristics, we found that Z. cassandra is strongly influenced by functional connectivity among suitable sites in urban landscapes, as well as by the abundance of Aristolochia host plants, and by the availability of profitable land cover classes in the immediate surroundings of potential oviposition sites. Our results indicate not only that networks of urban and peri-urban green spaces may host populations of protected and endangered species, but that management should also focus on the urban matrix in order to provide connecting corridors, as key assets to guarantee species persistence in cities.

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联系:人为景观中濒危蝴蝶栖息地网络的重要性
世界各地的城市都在快速扩张,由于栖息地被取代,这是导致生物多样性丧失的主要原因之一。然而,城市和城郊地区往往拥有绿地,这些绿地可以为野生动物提供机会,甚至是濒危物种的安全避难所。然而,野生动物对城市景观的反应以及它们在城市中的生存能力的关键驱动因素远未得到充分了解。在这里,我们以一种生态特化的蝴蝶--意大利特有的花斑蝶(Zerynthia cassandra)为模型,评估濒危物种如何在高度改造的城市景观中生存。相对较低的流动性和高度的寄主植物专一性使卡桑德拉蝶成为城市生态学研究的绝佳目标,因为它们使该物种能够利用合适的小斑块,同时对城市化和土地开垦导致的栖息地破碎化和丧失具有潜在的敏感性。因此,我们首先记录了在意大利中部和南部两个高度改造的地貌中潜在适宜地点的相对广泛分布情况,分别有 25% 和 35% 的地点被卡桑德拉蝶实际占据。通过模拟蝴蝶发生概率与环境特征之间的函数关系,我们发现,在城市景观中,马兜铃属寄主植物的丰度以及潜在产卵地点周围有利可图的土地覆盖等级,都会对马兜铃蝶在适宜地点之间的功能连通性产生强烈影响。我们的研究结果表明,城市和城郊绿地网络不仅可以容纳受保护物种和濒危物种的种群,而且管理部门还应该关注城市基质,以提供连接走廊,作为保证物种在城市中持续生存的关键资产。
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来源期刊
Urban Ecosystems
Urban Ecosystems BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION-ECOLOGY
CiteScore
5.70
自引率
6.90%
发文量
113
期刊介绍: Urban Ecosystems is an international journal devoted to scientific investigations of urban environments and the relationships between socioeconomic and ecological structures and processes in urban environments. The scope of the journal is broad, including interactions between urban ecosystems and associated suburban and rural environments. Contributions may span a range of specific subject areas as they may apply to urban environments: biodiversity, biogeochemistry, conservation biology, wildlife and fisheries management, ecosystem ecology, ecosystem services, environmental chemistry, hydrology, landscape architecture, meteorology and climate, policy, population biology, social and human ecology, soil science, and urban planning.
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