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The impact of habitat fragmentation on trophic interactions of the monophagous butterfly Polyommatus coridon

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Abstract

Theory predicts that habitat fragmentation, including reduced area and connectivity of suitable habitat, changes multitrophic interactions. Species at the bottom of trophic cascades (host plants) are expected to be less negatively affected than higher trophic levels, such as herbivores and their parasitoids or predators. Here we test this hypothesis regarding the effects of habitat area and connectivity in a trophic system with three levels: first with the population size of the larval food plant Hippocrepis comosa, next with the population density of the monophagous butterfly species Polyommatus coridon and finally with its larval parasitism rate. Our results show no evidence for negative effects of habitat fragmentation on the food plant or on parasitism rates, but population density of adult P. coridon was reduced with decreasing connectivity. We conclude that the highly specialized butterfly species is more affected by habitat fragmentation than its larval food plant because of its higher trophic position. However, the butterfly host species was also more affected than its parasitoids, presumably because of lower resource specialization of local parasitoids which also frequently occur in alternative hosts. Therefore, conservation efforts should focus first on the most specialized species of interaction networks and second on higher trophic levels.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Kathrin Wagner and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript, Emily Martin for improvement of English, Hans-Peter Tschorsnig for determination of the tachinid flies, and Linda Seifert and Christoph Brütting for their work assistance in the season 2008. This project was supported by the EU 6FP project COCONUT (Understanding effects of land use changes on ecosystems to halt loss of biodiversity due to habitat destruction, fragmentation and degradation; Contract Number 2006-044346 to ISD and JK; www.coconut-project.net) and in part by the EU FP7 SCALES project (“Securing the conservation of biodiversity across administrative levels and spatial, temporal and ecological scales”; project #226852).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Population Ecology Group, Department of Animal Ecology I, University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstrasse 30, 95447, Bayreuth, Germany

    Sabrina V. Brückmann, Jochen Krauss & Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter

  2. Department of Terrestrical Zoology, NCB Naturalis, Postbus 9517, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Cornelis van Achterberg

  3. Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg, Biocentre, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany

    Jochen Krauss & Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter

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  1. Sabrina V. Brückmann
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  4. Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter
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Correspondence to Sabrina V. Brückmann.

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Brückmann, S.V., Krauss, J., van Achterberg, C. et al. The impact of habitat fragmentation on trophic interactions of the monophagous butterfly Polyommatus coridon . J Insect Conserv 15, 707–714 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-010-9370-7

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