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Lepidopteran species richness of alpine sites in the High Sudetes Mts.: effect of area and isolation

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Abstract

Alpine sites in the High Sudetes Mts. host—due to their history and special climatic conditions—unique assemblages of lepidopteran species. We used data from ten of these sites to study species richness of the lepidopteran fauna and to test the effect of site area, distance to the nearest site and connectivity. For this, we used cluster analyses, species–area relationship and the incidence function model, followed by canonical analysis to test the importance of individual factors. The list of species was compiled from available literature sources with regard to recent findings. Species richness depended significantly on all geographic factors—area, distance and connectivity. Large alpine sites were more species-rich than smaller ones and remote sites differed in species composition from the others. We conclude that any decrease of the area of these sites will drastically affect the unique lepidopteran assemblages living in the High Sudetes Mts.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Vaclav Treml for providing geographical data regarding timberline, site locations and situation map of the High Sudetes Mts. (Fig. 1). We are also obliged to Jan Liska for classifying species from the Krkonose-West and Krkonose-East and Tony Dixon for English correction. This research was funded by the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic (projects VaV SM/6/70/05 and VaV/620/15/03), grant No. IG UP 913104041/31 and by the MSMT grants CzechGlobe—Reg.No. CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0073, and LC06073.

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  1. Faculty of Science, Palacky University Olomouc, tr. Svobody 26, 77146, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Karolina Bila, Tomas Kuras & Jan Sipos

  2. Department of Biodiversity Research, Global Change Research Centre AS CR, Na sadkach 7, 37005, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic

    Karolina Bila & Pavel Kindlmann

  3. Institute of Environmental Studies, Charles University, Benatska 2, 12801, Prague 2, Czech Republic

    Pavel Kindlmann

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  1. Karolina Bila
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Correspondence to Karolina Bila.

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Bila, K., Kuras, T., Sipos, J. et al. Lepidopteran species richness of alpine sites in the High Sudetes Mts.: effect of area and isolation. J Insect Conserv 17, 257–267 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-012-9504-1

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