Article
Evaluating butterflies as surrogates for birds and plantsin semi-natural grassland buffers
Journal of Insect Conservation
(2014)
Abstract
Semi-natural grasslands can support diverse faunal and floral communities, including grassland birds,beneficial insects, and native wildflowers. Monitoring biodiversity of this type of ecosystem is important to assess abundance and richness of grassland-associated species,evaluate success of establishing grasslands, and to assess overall ecosystem health. We tested butterflies as surrogates for birds and plants to assess establishment success of semi-natural grassland buffers in north-central Mississippi using Spearman rank correlation (Spearman’s p). Disturbance and grassland butterfly guilds were generally not suitable surrogates for grassland bird metrics, non-grass-land bird metrics, or nest density metrics. Butterflies did have consistent positive correlations with plant species richness and forb metrics, as well as consistent negative correlations with grass metrics, but these correlations were generally smaller than what is considered suitable to serve as surrogates. In general, butterflies were not suitable surrogates for birds or plants in semi-natural grassland buffers.
Keywords
- birds,
- butterflies,
- grass buffers,
- plants,
- species richness,
- surrogate
Disciplines
Publication Date
Spring March 1, 2014
Citation Information
Jolie G Dollar, Sam Riffell, Heidi Adams and L. Wes Burger. "Evaluating butterflies as surrogates for birds and plantsin semi-natural grassland buffers" Journal of Insect Conservation Vol. 18 (2014) p. 171 - 178 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/heidi-adams/4/