Butterfly functional diversity in north west Japan

Anthropogenic activities can negatively impact the major shifts in butterfly functional diversity in semi-natural ecosystems. However, little is known about their functional trait diversity, rather than total species richness, driven by forest fragmentation and urbanization. In the present study, we evaluated whether forest fragmentation and urbanization affects the functional diversity and stability of butterfly assemblages. Regarding the anthropogenic impacts on butterfly biodiversity loss, we predicted that the functional diversity and temporal stability of butterfly species would increase with increasing area of fragmented forests, and that they would be higher in the rural areas than in the urban areas. The present study demonstrated that butterfly functional diversity and stability of species composition were maintained in the presence of larger forest remnant and less urbanized areas. In particular, the uni-voltine species and species overwintering during the egg-pupa stage were significantly negatively affected by forest fragmentation. We emphasized that future studies should use multi-functional traits of insect species to evaluate the impact of human activities on insect declines, as past studies may have overlooked this significant key for assessing species vulnerability and ecological adaptations under human activities.

Methods
The dataset was collected during 1999-2005 at Kanazawa City, located in the temperate region of Japan. This study has been reviewed in Biology letters.

人类活动会对半自然生态系统中蝴蝶功能多样性（functional diversity）的显著变化产生负面影响。然而，目前学界对森林破碎化与城市化所驱动的蝴蝶功能性状多样性（functional trait diversity）——而非物种总丰富度——的相关研究仍较为匮乏。本研究旨在探究森林破碎化与城市化是否会对蝴蝶群落（butterfly assemblages）的功能多样性及其稳定性产生影响。针对人类活动导致蝴蝶生物多样性丧失这一问题，我们提出如下研究假设：蝴蝶的功能多样性与时间稳定性（temporal stability）会随破碎化森林面积的扩大而提升，且乡村地区的该两项指标会高于城市地区。本研究结果显示，在面积更大的森林残存斑块（forest remnant）与城市化程度更低的区域中，蝴蝶的功能多样性与物种组成稳定性得以维持。具体而言，一年一代型（uni-voltine）物种以及以卵-蛹阶段越冬的物种会受到森林破碎化的显著负面影响。我们强调，未来研究应采用昆虫物种的多功能性状来评估人类活动对昆虫种群衰退的影响，因为过往研究可能忽略了这一用于评估人类活动下物种脆弱性与生态适应性的关键指标。

研究方法
本数据集于1999年至2005年间，在位于日本温带地区的金泽市采集完成。本研究已在《Biology Letters》（《生物学快报》）期刊完成同行评审并刊发。