20.500.12556/DiRROS-27645 Larval diet breadth and wingspan mediate landscape–richness relationship in butterfly communities Landscape structure and species traits both shape butterfly assemblages, but their joint effects, and how landscapes restructure trait space independently of richness, remain less understood. We surveyed butterflies at 50 semi-natural grasslands (Serbia) and modelled species richness (SR) with GAMs using two sets of landscape predictors within 2-km buffers: composition (% cover of grassland, forest, complex agriculture) and configuration (distance to the nearest natural patch, nearest natural-patch size, edge density). We included community-weighted mean (CWM) of two traits: wingspan (WS) and host-plant specificity (HPS) and fit landscape-only models, trait-additive models and pre-specified trait–landscape interactions per set (HPS and complex agriculture; WS and distance to the nearest natural patch). To test whether these gradients restructure trait space, we modelled functional divergence (FDiv) as a complementary response. The only landscape predictor of SR was complex agriculture, which increased richness but reduced FDiv. Beyond landscape composition, HPS consistently improved SR models in both sets, with richness peaking at intermediate-to-narrow diet breadth and declining towards extremes. Isolation increased SR only in large-winged communities (WS × distance to the nearest natural patch), and FDiv increased with isolation, evidencing greater representation of trait extremes. Crucially, landscape effects on FDiv persisted after conditioning on SR, showing that landscapes filter which traits persist, not just how many species occur. Butterfly assemblages are driven by resource-based and movement-based filtering rather than landscape structure alone. Our key novelty shows that the same landscape gradients decouple taxonomic from functional diversity; agricultural complexity adds species while compressing trait breadth, whereas isolation benefits large-winged communities and expands trait dispersion. Conservation should therefore track functional structure as well as counts, maintaining diverse larval host-plants and stepping-stone connectivity to sustain both species richness and the functional breadth that underpins resilience. butterfly community larval diet breadth species richness trait–environment interactions wingspan združbe metuljev metulji živalske združbe širina larvalne prehrane vrstno bogastvo interakcije med lastnostmi in okoljem razpon kril true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Znanstveno delo 2026-02-17 11:48:38 2026-02-17 11:48:39 2026-03-06 03:56:40 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 Nasl. z nasl. zaslona; Opis vira z dne 17. 2. 2026; str. 624-635 iss. 3 Vol. 40 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 630*1 1365-2435 10.1111/1365-2435.70270 268719875 https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.70270 1 3962303a-0bee-11f1-bcbc-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=40551 Functional_Ecology_-_2026_-_Vujanovic_-_Larval_diet_breadth_and_wingspan_mediate_landscape_richness_relationship_in_(2).pdf Functional_Ecology_-_2026_-_Vujanovic_-_Larval_diet_breadth_and_wingspan_mediate_landscape_richness_relationship_in_(2).pdf 1 5EDDD9F94660C7980FD486E043197740 a8a0ef59e5441ab95ccb513bcd7790cc3891f343ae4777e33f42c183c65b2b91 2d10a27d-189a-11f1-81cd-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=41285 Gozdarski inštitut Slovenije 0 0 0