Ten years of the resource-based habitat paradigm: the biotopehabitat issue and implications for conserving butterfly diversity
Journal Title: Journal of Insect Biodiversity - Year 2014, Vol 2, Issue 8
Abstract
The widely used term ‘habitat’ underlies all aspects of a species’ (and community’s) population size, consequently population changes, distribution and range size and changes; ultimately, habitat parameters determine the status of species, whether thriving or threatened with extinction. Habitat parameters also lie at the root of species’ evolution (speciation) involving cycles of resource specialism/generalism. A basic problem is that habitat has long been treated as synonymous with biotope. But, the two variable terms habitat and biotope describe very different phenomena and we make a case for clarity in the use of the term ‘habitat’, especially when the focus is conserving biodiversity. In this review, in reference to butterflies, we distinguish habitat from biotope as a real, grounded resourcesbased and conditions-based entity, and explain how usage of the terms greatly affects our perception of population status, and of population, distribution, range and speciation processes, central to conserving biodiversity.
Authors and Affiliations
Roger L. H. Dennis, Leonardo Dapporto, John W. Dover
Keywords
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