Climate and topography as key drivers of butterfly diversity in a South European mountain range

ABSTRACT Mountains occupy around 25% of Earth’s land but they hold
disproportionate amounts of biodiversity. Different patterns of
biodiversity change with elevation can result from a variety of
contemporary and historical environmental drivers. Determining those
drivers is particularly relevant in a context of global change and global
biodiversity decline. Here, we explored the patterns of butterfly
diversity with elevation in a Southwestern European mountain range (Picos
de Europa, Northwest Spain) and identified the environmental drivers of
those patterns. Along the elevation gradient, butterfly diversity showed
two peaks, at lower (150 m) and intermediate elevations (1500 m), and was
positively related to near-surface relative humidity and distance to the
coast, which is a surrogate for continentality. Although we found only
weak evidence for landscape effects on butterfly diversity, we recommend
that further research is undertaken to explore the interaction of climate,
topography and landscape factors to inform land management options for
conservation of butterfly species. Data for unpublished manuscript on
diversity metrics of butterfly communities at different locations in the
Picos de Europa National Park (North Spain) and environmental data for the
same sites. The excel file contains two sheets, one with the environmental
predictors (climatic , topographical and habitat variables) for each sites
and the other with the response variables (Hill numbers) for each site and
year.Description