Fragmentation and insects: theory and application to calcareous grasslands

Abstract

Habitat loss poses the greatest threat to the long-term survival of species on earth and has three major components: straightforward destruction of habitat, increasing fragmentation and deterioration of habitat quality. Habitat fragmentation, i.e. the reduction of continuous habitat into several smaller spatially isolated remnants, decreases species richness, increases edge effects, decreases density and abundance of species, alters interspecific interactions and ecological processes, and decreases connectivity. Some preliminary results of the effects of fragmentation on butterfly communities (species diversity and abundance) of the calcareous grasslands of the Viroin valley (Belgium) will be presented.

Keywords

• Habitat loss
• fragmentation
• species diversity
• species abundance
• community evolution
• Lepidoptera
• Belgium