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Anna Persson. Photo.

Anna Persson

Researcher

Anna Persson. Photo.

Urban green spaces in Dhaka, Bangladesh, harbour nearly half the country's butterfly diversity

Author

  • Shawan Chowdhury
  • Shihab A. Shahriar
  • Monika Böhm
  • Anuj Jain
  • Upama Aich
  • Myron P. Zalucki
  • Thomas Hesselberg
  • Federico Morelli
  • Yanina Benedetti
  • Anna S. Persson
  • Deponkor K. Roy
  • Saima Rahman
  • Sultan Ahmed
  • Richard A. Fuller
Show all

Summary, in English

Cities currently harbour more than half of the world's human population and continued urban expansion replaces natural landscapes and increases habitat fragmentation. The impacts of urbanisation on biodiversity have been extensively studied in some parts of the world, but there is limited information from South Asia, despite the rapid expansion of cities in the region. Here, we present the results of monthly surveys of butterflies in three urban parks in Dhaka city, Bangladesh, over a 3-year period (January 2014 to December 2016). We recorded 45% (137 of the 305 species) of the country's butterfly richness, and 40% of the species detected are listed as nationally threatened. However, butterfly species richness declined rapidly in the three study areas over the 3-year period, and the decline appeared to be more severe among threatened species. We developed linear mixed effect models to assess the relationship between climatic variables and butterfly species richness. Overall, species richness was positively associated with maximum temperature and negatively with mean relative humidity and saturation deficit. Our results demonstrate the importance of urban green spaces for nationally threatened butterflies. With rapidly declining urban green spaces in Dhaka and other South Asian cities, we are likely to lose refuges for threatened fauna. There is an urgent need to understand urban biodiversity dynamics in the region, and for proactive management of urban green spaces to protect butterflies in South Asia.

Department/s

  • Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC)

Publishing year

2021

Language

English

Publication/Series

Journal of Urban Ecology

Volume

7

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Topic

  • Ecology

Keywords

  • environmental predictor
  • South Asia
  • species richness
  • threatened butterflies
  • urban ecology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2058-5543