Compensatory dynamics on the community structure of fruit-feeding butterflies across hyper-fragmented Atlantic forest habitats

Author(s)

Filgueiras, Bruno K. C. ^[1] ; Melo, Douglas H. A. ^[2] ; Uehara-Prado, Marcio ^[3] ; Freitas, Andre Victor L. ^[4] ; Leal, Inara R. ^[5] ; Tabarelli, Marcelo ^[5]

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Fed Pernambuco, Programa Posgrad Biol Vegetal, BR-50670901 Recife, PE - Brazil

^[2] Univ Fed Pernambuco, Programa Posgrad Biol Anim, BR-50670901 Recife, PE - Brazil

^[3] Inst Neotrop Pesquisa & Conservacao, Caixa Postal 19009, BR-81531980 Curitiba, PR - Brazil

^[4] Univ Estadual Campinas, Inst Biol, Dept Biol Anim, CP 6109, BR-13083970 Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[5] Univ Fed Pernambuco, Dept Bot, BR-50670901 Recife, PE - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS; v. 98, p. 276-284, MAR 2019.
• Web of Science Citations: 2

Abstract

The creation of forest edges promotes a drastic extirpation of forest-dependent species across tropical fragmented landscapes. Yet, this loss of forest-dependent species can be compensated by the proliferation of disturbance adapted species (winner-loser replacement) maintaining community-level attributes in altered habitats. Here, we test whether this replacement reflects a sort of compensatory dynamics, which alters patterns of species richness, abundance, ecological composition and beta-diversity (multiplicative diversity decompositions of Hill numbers) of fruit-feeding butterflies between non-disturbed and disturbed habitats in two fragmented landscapes of the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Additionally, we examined the determinants of these compensatory dynamics analyzing the effects of patch (core area and edge density) and landscape structure (proximity index) on these community level attributes. Our results show that (1) habitat loss and fragmentation can in fact reorganize natural communities (i.e., altering community level attributes) by favoring disturbance-adapted species, while negatively impacting forest dependent species; (2) disturbed habitats showed more species and individuals than non-disturbed habitats with a clear segregation in terms of species composition; (3) disturbed habitats exhibited lower beta-diversity than non-disturbed habitats regarding dominant species, and (5) core area (positively) and edge density (negatively) were significantly related to forest-dependent species (in terms of abundance and diversity). Thus, our results indicate that compensatory dynamics is extrapolating the threshold of edge-affected habitats and highlight that the conservation value of human-modified landscapes depends on the nature of the ecological groups responsible for the increased beta-diversity. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 11/50225-3 - Natural history, phylogeny and conservation of Neotropical Lepidoptera
• Grantee: André Victor Lucci Freitas
• Support Opportunities: BIOTA-FAPESP Program - Regular Research Grants
• FAPESP's process: 12/50260-6 - Structure and evolution of the Amazonian biota and its environment: an integrative approach
• Grantee: Lúcia Garcez Lohmann
• Support Opportunities: BIOTA-FAPESP Program - Thematic Grants