Journal ArticleDOI
Biotope Use and Trends of European Butterflies
TLDR
The sensitivity of butterflies to environmental changes and the availability of data suggest that they are very good candidates to build biodiversity indicators and, along with other major groups such as birds, suitable to monitor progress towards the EU target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010.Abstract:
Europe has undergone substantial biotope loss and change over the last century and data are needed urgently on the rate of decline in different wildlife groups in order to identify and target conservation measures However, pan-European data are available for very few taxonomic groups, notably birds We present here the first overview of trends for an insect group within different biotopes across Europe, based on data from the Red Data Book of European Butterflies The most important biotopes for Europe’s 576 butterfly species, including threatened species, are man-made or man-influenced, notably types of grassland or heath/scrub communities Our results show that butterflies are declining substantially across Europe, with a decline in distribution of −11% over the last 25 years The distributions of the 25 most “generalist” species are declining only slowly (−1%) compared to specialist butterflies of grassland (−19%), wetlands (−15%), and forests (−14%) On average, grassland butterflies have declined somewhat slower than farmland birds (annual decrease −08% compared to −15%), but woodland butterflies have decreased more rapidly (−001% to −06%) than woodland birds, which are more or less stable The sensitivity of butterflies to environmental changes and the availability of data across Europe suggest that they are very good candidates to build biodiversity indicators and, along with other major groups such as birds, suitable to monitor progress towards the EU target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010read more
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Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers
TL;DR: In this paper, a comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers of insect extinction, reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world's insect species over the next few decades.
Journal ArticleDOI
Environmental factors driving the effectiveness of European agri‐environmental measures in mitigating pollinator loss – a meta‐analysis
Jeroen Scheper,Andrea Holzschuh,Mikko Kuussaari,Simon G. Potts,Maj Rundlöf,Henrik G. Smith,David Kleijn +6 more
TL;DR: It is suggested that the ecological contrast in floral resources created by schemes drives the response of pollinators to AES but that this response is moderated by landscape context and farmland type, with more positive responses in croplands and associated pollination services in species-poor landscapes.
Journal ArticleDOI
Sown wildflower strips for insect conservation: a review
TL;DR: Sown wildflower strips are increasingly being established in European countries within agri‐environmental schemes to enhance biodiversity, especially in intensively used agricultural areas.
Journal ArticleDOI
Compounded effects of climate change and habitat alteration shift patterns of butterfly diversity
Matthew L. Forister,Andrew C. McCall,Nathan J. Sanders,James A. Fordyce,James H. Thorne,Joshua M. O’Brien,David P. Waetjen,Arthur M. Shapiro +7 more
TL;DR: The interacting negative effects of human-induced changes on both the climate and habitat available to butterfly species in California reveal the decline of ruderal, disturbance-associated species, and indicates that the traditional focus of conservation efforts should be broadened to include entire faunas when estimating and predicting the effects of pervasive stressors.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Agricultural intensification and the collapse of Europe's farmland bird populations
TL;DR: The results suggest that recent trends in agriculture have had deleterious and measurable effects on bird populations on a continental scale and predict that the introduction of EU agricultural policies into former communist countries hoping to accede to the EU in the near future will result in significant declines in the important bird populations there.
Journal ArticleDOI
Comparative Losses of British Butterflies, Birds, and Plants and the Global Extinction Crisis
Jeremy A. Thomas,Mark G. Telfer,David B. Roy,Christopher D. Preston,J. J. D. Greenwood,J. Asher,Richard Fox,R. T. Clarke,John H. Lawton +8 more
TL;DR: A comparison at the national scale of population and regional extinctions of birds, butterflies, and vascular plants from Britain in recent decades is presented, strengthening the hypothesis that the natural world is experiencing the sixth major extinction event in its history.
Journal ArticleDOI
Developing indicators for European birds
Richard D. Gregory,Arco J. van Strien,Petr Vorisek,Adriaan W. Gmelig Meyling,David G. Noble,Ruud P. B. Foppen,David W. Gibbons +6 more
TL;DR: It is argued that the farmland bird indicator is a useful surrogate for trends in other elements of biodiversity in this habitat, and developed statistical methods to calculate supranational, multi-species indices using population data from national annual breeding bird surveys in Europe.