MS Warren
Rapid responses of British butterflies to opposing forces of climate and habitat change
Warren, MS; Hill, JK; Thomas, JA; Asher, J; Fox, R; Huntley, B; Roy, DB; Telfer, MG; Jeffcoate, S; Harding, P; Jeffcoate, G; Willis, SG; Greatorex-Davies, JN; Moss, D; Thomas, CD
Authors
JK Hill
JA Thomas
J Asher
R Fox
B Huntley
DB Roy
MG Telfer
S Jeffcoate
P Harding
G Jeffcoate
Professor Stephen Willis s.g.willis@durham.ac.uk
Professor
JN Greatorex-Davies
D Moss
CD Thomas
Abstract
Habitat degradation and climate change are thought to be altering the distributions and abundances of animals and plants throughout the world, but their combined impacts have not been assessed for any species assemblage(1-4). Here we evaluated changes in the distribution sizes and abundances of 46 species of butterflies that approach their northern climatic range margins in Britain-where changes in climate and habitat are opposing forces. These insects might be expected to have responded positively to climate warming over the past 30 years, yet three-quarters of them declined: negative responses to habitat loss have outweighed positive responses to climate warming. Half of the species that were mobile and habitat generalists increased their distribution sites over this period (consistent with a climate explanation), whereas the other generalists and 89% of the habitat specialists declined in distribution size (consistent with habitat limitation). Changes in population abundances closely matched changes in distributions. The dual forces of habitat modification and climate change are likely to cause specialists to decline, leaving biological communities with reduced numbers of species and dominated by mobile and widespread habitat generalists.
Citation
Warren, M., Hill, J., Thomas, J., Asher, J., Fox, R., Huntley, B., …Thomas, C. (2001). Rapid responses of British butterflies to opposing forces of climate and habitat change. Nature, 414(6859), 65-69. https://doi.org/10.1038/35102054
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Nov 1, 2001 |
Deposit Date | May 18, 2007 |
Journal | Nature |
Print ISSN | 0028-0836 |
Electronic ISSN | 1476-4687 |
Publisher | Nature Research |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 414 |
Issue | 6859 |
Pages | 65-69 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1038/35102054 |
Keywords | Ranges, Availability. |
You might also like
The phenology and clutch size of UK Blue Tits does not differ with woodland composition
(2023)
Journal Article
Drivers of the changing abundance of European birds at two spatial scales
(2023)
Journal Article
Global impacts of climate change on avian functional diversity
(2022)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search