Dataset and R code from: Positive and negative effects of land abandonment on butterfly communities revealed by a hierarchical sampling design across climatic regions

Land abandonment may decrease biodiversity but also provides an
opportunity for rewilding. It is therefore necessary to identify areas
that may benefit from traditional land management practices and those that
may benefit from a lack of human intervention. In this study, we conducted
comparative field surveys of butterfly occurrence in abandoned and
inhabited settlements in 18 regions of diverse climatic zones in Japan to
test the hypotheses that species-specific responses to land abandonment
correlate with climatic niches and habitat preferences. Hierarchical
models that unified species occurrence and habitat preferences revealed
that negative responses to land abandonment were associated with species
that have cold climatic niches and utilize open habitats, suggesting that
species negatively impacted by land abandonment will decline more due to
future climate warming. Maps representing species gains and losses due to
land abandonment, which were created from the model estimates, showed
similar geographic patterns, but some areas exhibited high species losses
relative to gains. Our hierarchical modelling approach was useful for
scaling up local-scale effects of land abandonment to a macro-scale
assessment, which is crucial to developing spatial conservation strategies
in the era of depopulation.