ArticleInsects2021
Changes in Alpine Butterfly Communities during the Last 40 Years.
Article in Insects, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Long-Term Phenological Shifts in Butterfly Species from Transylvania, Romania-A Case Study.Insects · 2025Article
- Article
- Unrecorded Butterfly Species and Potential Local Extinctions: The Role of Citizen Science and Sampling.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Forecasting Range Shifts in Terrestrial Alpine Insects Under Global Warming.Ecology and evolution · 2025Review
- How Biodiversity, Climate and Landscape Drive Functional Redundancy of British Butterflies.Insects · 2023Article
- The rising threat of climate change for arthropods from Earth's cold regions: Taxonomic rather than native status drives species sensitivity.Global change biology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Our work aims to assess how butterfly communities in the Italian Maritime Alps changed over the past 40 years, in parallel with altitudinal shifts occurring in plant communities. In 2019, we sampled butterflies at 7 grassland sites, between 1300-1900 m, previously investigated in 2009 and 1978, by semi-quantitative linear transects. Fine-scale temperature and precipitation data elaborated by optimal interpolation techniques were used to quantify climate changes. The changes in the vegetation cover and main habitat alterations were assessed by inspection of aerial photographs (1978-2018/1978-2006-2015). The vegetation structure showed a marked decrease of grassland habitats and an increase of woods (1978-2009). Plant physiognomy has remained stable in recent years (2009-2019) with some local exceptions due to geomorphic disturbance. We observed butterfly 'species substitution' indicating a general loss in the more specialised and a general gain in more tolerant elements. We did not observe any decrease in species richness, but rather a change in guild compositions, with (i) an overall increased abundance in some widespread and common lowland species and (ii) the disappearance (or strong decrease) of some alpine (high elevation) species, so that 'resilience' could be just delusive. Changes in butterfly community composition were consistent with predicted impacts of local warming.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.