RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Landscape functional connectivity for butterflies under different scenarios of land-use, land-cover, and climate change in Australia
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.02.07.479372
DO 10.1101/2022.02.07.479372
A1 Vishesh L. Diengdoh
A1 Stefania Ondei
A1 Rahil J. Amin
A1 Mark Hunt
A1 Barry W. Brook
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/02/10/2022.02.07.479372.abstract
AB Pollinating invertebrates are vital to terrestrial ecosystems but are impacted by anthropogenic habitat loss/fragmentation and climate change. Conserving and improving landscape connectivity is important to offset those threats, yet its assessment for invertebrates is lacking. In this study, we evaluated the functional connectivity between protected areas in Australia for 59 butterfly species, under present conditions and different future scenarios (for 2050 and 2090) of land-use, land-cover, and climate change. Using circuit-theory analysis, we found that functional connectivity under present conditions varies widely between species, even when their estimated geographical ranges are similar. Under future scenarios, functional connectivity is predicted to decrease overall, with negative changes worsening from 2050 to 2090, although a few species are positive exceptions. We have made our results available as spatial datasets to allow comparisons with taxa from other studies and can be used to identify priority areas for conservation in terms of establishing ecological corridors or stepping-stone habitat patches. Our study highlights the importance of considering pollinating invertebrates when seeking holistic conservation and restoration of a landscape’s functional connectivity, underscoring the need to expand and promote protected areas to facilitate functional connectivity under future scenarios of global change.Research Data The habitat suitability maps and functional connectivity maps are made available as GeoTiff images via Figshare (10.6084/m9.figshare.19130078).Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.