Elevational gradient and human effects on butterfly species richness in the French Alps

International audience ; We examined how butterfly species richness is affected by human impact and elevation , and how species ranges are distributed along the elevational gradient (200-2700 m) in the Isère Department (French Alps). A total of 35,724 butterfly observations gathered in summer (May-September) between 1995 and 2015 were analyzed. The number of estimated species per 100-m elevational band was fitted to the elevational gradient using a generalized additive model. Estimations were also performed on a 500 m × 500 m grid at low altitude (200-500 m) to test for the human impact on species richness using generalized least squares regression models. Each species eleva-tional range was plotted against the elevational gradient. Butterfly richness along the elevational gradient first increased (200-500 m) to reach a maximum of 150 species at 700 m and then remained nearly constant till a sharp decrease after 1900 m, suggesting that after some temperature threshold, only few specialized species can survive. At low elevation, urbanization and arable lands had a strongly negative impact on butterfly diversity, which was buffered by a positive effect of permanent crops. Butterfly diversity is exceptionally high (185 species) in this alpine department that represents less than 5% of the French territory and yet holds more than 70% of all the Rhopalocera species recorded in France. Both climate and habitat shape the distribution of species, with a negative effect of anthropization at low altitude and strong climatic constraints at high altitude. K E Y W O R D S arable lands, elevational gradient, permanent crops, species range, species richness, urbanization