By Nadia Jessica Jonatan
Change of land use is the major threat to butterfly diversity. Human activities such as urbanization, agriculture, and infrastructure building has caused habitat loss and fragmentation of natural forests, harming species residing in the area including butterflies. As a result, butterflies now reside in the remaining urban green areas such as Urban Parks.
Why is conserving butterflies important? Butterflies not only act as herbivores, they also contribute to the sexual reproduction of plants by helping pollination. When butterflies forage, the pollen of male gets attached to butterflies' bodies and gets carried to another female flower they forage next, causing fertilization. Sexual reproduction is important in making genetically different plant populations. With more diverse genes, a population is more resilient towards disturbances such as diseases. Without butterflies, the plant community will be less genetically diverse and more prone to natural selection.
Now the problem is, human activities cause not only climate change, but also biodiversity loss. According to Clark, Reed dan Chew (2007) urbanization in the form of increased population and roads affect the decrease of butterfly diversity, especially to species with specific food plant. They found that locations with more green areas is positively correlated to butterfly diversity. This is because butterflies are easily affected by environmental factors such as temperature, light intensity, humidity, and presence of food plant (Sharma and Sharma, 2017)
In response to the emerging problem, what can we do to lessen the repercussions? We can urge our local government to add more urban green areas. Koh and Sodhi (2004) found that conserving urban green areas such as primary forests, secondary forests, ruderal vegetations and urban parks contribute to urban butterfly conservation. Similar results were found by Fontaine et al. (2016) that gardening practice with nectar offers can balance out urbanization impacts to urban butterfly diversity.
By providing food plants and host plants in urban parks, we can better conserve butterflies. Food plants are the plants which adult butterfly lay its eggs on and its larvae feeds upon, while host plants are plants which flower the adult butterfly forages on. These two types of plants are crucial to maintain the butterfly life cycle. By knowing what plants each butterfly species depend on, we can plant accordingly in urban parks to sustain the butterfly population. As an example, the Mormon Butterfly (Papilio memnon) feeds on Orange plants (Citrus sp.) flowers. If we want to conserve the Mormon Butterfly, we better plant more orange plants at home. Same principle goes for other butterfly species.
References:
Clark, P. J., Reed, M. dan Chew, F. S. (2007) “Effects of Urbanization on Butterfly Species Richness, Guild Structure, and Rarity,” Urban Ecosystem. Springer, 10, hal. 321-337. doi: 10.1007/s11252-007-0029-4.
Fontaine, B. et al. (2016) “Impact of Urbanization and Gardening Practices on Common Butterfly Communities in France,” Ecology and Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell, 6(22), hal. 8174-8180. doi: 10.1002/ece3.2526.
Koh, L. P., & N. S. Sodhi, 2004. Importance of reserves, fragments, and parks for butterfly conservation in a tropical urban landscape. Ecological Applications, 14(6): 1695-1708.
Sharma, M. dan Sharma, N. (2017) “Suitability of Butterflies as Indicators of Ecosystem Condition: A comparison of butterfly diversity across four habitats in Gir Wildlife Sanctuary,” International Journal of Advanced Research in Biological Sciences, 4(3), hal. 43–53. doi: 10.22192/ijarbs.
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