Local and landscape scale woodland cover and diversification of agroecological practices shape butterfly communities in tropical smallholder landscapes

The conversion of biodiversity-rich woodland to farmland and subsequent management has strong, often negative, impacts on biodiversity. In tropical smallholder agricultural landscapes, the impacts of agriculture on insect communities, both through habitat change and subsequent farmland management, is understudied. The use of agroecological practices has social and agronomic benefits for smallholders. Although ecological co-benefits of agroecological practices are assumed, systematic empirical assessments of biodiversity effects of agroecological practices are missing, particularly in Africa.
In Malawi, we assessed butterfly abundance, species richness, species assemblages and community life-history traits on 24 paired woodland and smallholder-managed farmland sites located across a gradient of woodland cover within a 1 km radius. We tested whether habitat type (woodland vs. farmland) and woodland cover at the landscape scale interactively shaped butterfly communities. Farms varied in th..., ,