Data from: Diversity and composition of tropical butterflies along an Afromontane agricultural gradient in the Jimma Highlands, Ethiopia

Afromontane landscapes are typically characterized by a mosaic of
smallholder farms and the biodiversity impacts of these practices will
vary in accordance to local management and landscape context. Here, we
assess how tropical butterfly diversity is maintained across an
agricultural landscape in the Jimma Highlands of Ethiopia. We used
transect surveys to sample understory butterfly communities within
degraded natural forest, semi-managed coffee forest (SMCF), exotic timber
plantations, open woodland, croplands and pasture. Surveys were conducted
in 29 one-hectare plots and repeated five times between January and June
2013. We found that natural forest supports higher butterfly diversity
than all agricultural plots (measured with Hill's numbers). SMCF and
timber plantations retain relatively high abundance and diversity, but
these metrics drop off sharply in open woodland, cropland and pasture.
SMCF and timber plantations share the majority of their species with
natural forest and support an equivalent abundance of forest-dependent
species, with no increase in widespread species. There was some
incongruence in the responses of families and sub-families, notably that
Lycaenidae are strongly associated with open woodland and pasture. Adult
butterflies clearly utilize forested agricultural practices such as SMCF
and timber plantations, but species diversity declines steeply with
distance from natural forest suggesting that earlier life-stages may
depend on host plants and/or microclimatic conditions that are lost under
agricultural management. From a management perspective, the protection of
natural forest remains a priority for tropical butterfly conservation, but
understanding functioning of the wider landscape mosaic is important as
SMCF and timber plantations may act as habitat corridors that facilitate
movement between forest fragments.