For long-term preservation, we need to understand the dynamics of loss of species in space and time. One source of data of particular value here is those collected in large-scale biodiversity monitoring systems.
Examples of aims and projects are:
- Identify factors affecting the diversity of day-flying butterflies in semi-natural pastures, e.g. cover of trees and bushes, grazing intensity and area of the pasture.
- Identify the importance of agricultural landscape elements (small, linear or non-linear habitat islands in or near crop fields) to the diversity of day-flying butterflies.
- Investigate how the biodiversity of dayflying butterflies are affected in a landscape perspective, e.g. area of semi-natural pastures in the neighborhood, distance to nearest semi-natural pastures and the effect of different matrix (deciduous and coniferous forest and agricultural fields).
- Identify indicator species and study if other indicator elements (vegetational and physical structures) could be used for evaluating the conservation value of semi-natural pastures and landscape elements.
- Analyzing monitoring data and how an effective and accurate monitoring of biodiversity (butterflies and bumblebees) should be performed with respect to: natural variation between seasons, variation within season, weather variations and stochastic environmental variation to be able to estimate “real” changes in species number, communities and abundance.
