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Butterfly community monitoring on City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks property: analysis of the changes in species richness and diversity from 2002 to 2016

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dc.contributor.authorKeeley, Will, author
dc.contributor.authorColorado Natural Heritage Program, author
dc.contributor.authorColorado Natural Heritage Program, publisher
dc.coverage.spatialBoulder (Colo.)
dc.date.accessioned2019-03-07T22:35:30Z
dc.date.available2019-03-07T22:35:30Z
dc.date.issued2017-05
dc.descriptionPrepared for: City of Boulder, Open Space and Mountain Parks.
dc.descriptionPrepared by Colorado Natural Heritage Program in collaboration with Will Keeley, Wildlife Ecologist, Open Space and Mountain Parks.
dc.description2017 May.
dc.descriptionIncludes bibliographical references.
dc.description.abstractButterfly populations are naturally patchy and undergo extinctions and recolonizations. Recent published research indicates that butterfly fauna show a net loss over time in species richness and diversity, when populations are subject to anthropogenic disturbances like development, climate change, and invasion by nonnative plant species. This document reports on an analysis of changes in butterfly community over time at 18 transects, distributed in six habitat types, and sampled in five different years: 2002, 2007, 2008, 2015, and 2016. Species richness and diversity was greatest in earlier years of the study and all habitats studied exhibited declining trends in both richness and Shannon’s diversity index H over time (richness, m = -0.8; Shannon diversity, m = -0.07). There were also differences in diversity among the habitats sampled with the Forest Riparian habitat type supporting more butterfly species, while the Prairie Riparian habitat type had lower diversity. This analysis represents a snapshot of the butterfly community among time periods, rather than a comprehensive survey making it difficult to identify the causes for the observed patterns. Some factors that could explain the patterns observed among habitats include the greater quality of the native plant community at higher elevations, a greater diversity of plants in riparian areas compared to adjacent uplands, exurban development, more intensive historical and recent grazing of riparian habitats at lower elevation, the effects of recreation, variability in climate among years, and climate change. Conserving butterfly communities of the study area may require increasing the size of protected areas, improving the quality of their habitat, managing nonnative plants, and increasing native plant diversity. Additionally, understanding that regional butterfly diversity is dependent upon maintaining habitat continuity at the landscape scale between butterfly metapopulations is important.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediumreports
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/194273
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartofPublications
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.subjectbutterfly
dc.subjectdiversity
dc.subjectspecies richness
dc.subjecturbanization
dc.subjecttime
dc.subjectvegetation heterogeneity
dc.titleButterfly community monitoring on City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks property: analysis of the changes in species richness and diversity from 2002 to 2016
dc.typeText

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