Distribution and Influences on Butterfly Diversity in Urban Park Green Spaces: A Case Study of Harbin, China

Abstract

With the acceleration of urbanization, urban parks play a critical role in protecting biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem stability. As environmental indicator species, butterflies exhibit high sensitivity to environmental changes and anthropogenic disturbances, making them ideal subjects for studying urbanization's impacts on biodiversity. This study focuses on the effects of spatial heterogeneity in the surrounding matrix and its interaction with park resources on butterfly diversity in urban parks. Using Harbin City in Heilongjiang Province, northeastern China, as the study area, we collected data on butterfly species richness and park characteristics from 44 urban parks. Spatial heterogeneity was quantified through landscape metrics across eight spatial scales (100-2500 m), and generalized linear mixed models were employed to analyze butterfly community responses to park characteristics and landscape patterns (composition and configuration) at multiple spatial scales. The results identified 38 butterfly species and 12,885 individuals in Harbin's urban area, with significantly higher species richness in urban fringe zones compared to the city center. Heterogeneity indicators across different spatial scales showed complex relationships with butterfly communities. Butterfly community structure and composition demonstrated highest sensitivity to landscape heterogeneity at 100 and 200 m scales, with optimal model explanatory power for richness, abundance, and diversity being 67.8%, 81.1%, and 38.8% respectively. Key predictors exhibited hierarchical differentiation: richness was primarily positively driven by flowering plant richness and distance from the city center, while being significantly suppressed by park perimeter-area ratio and built-up land patch proportion; abundance was core-driven by flowering plant richness, patch quantity, and patch proximity; diversity relied on the synergistic effects of grassland patch proportion and plant diversity. This study confirms that under intensive urbanization, coordinated management of intra-park habitat resources and surrounding landscape heterogeneity can significantly mitigate urban development-induced butterfly diversity decline, providing a multi-scale planning framework for establishing a "patch-matrix" linkage ecological regulation system in high-latitude cold-region cities.

Keywords: butterfly species richness; landscape matrix; spatial heterogeneity; urban parks; urbanization.

FIGURE 1

Location map of sampling parks in Harbin, China. (a) Administrative boundaries of China (including national borders); (b) Administrative boundaries of Heilongjiang Province with the location of Harbin City; (c) Distribution of sampling parks and urban ring roads in Harbin's main urban area.

FIGURE 2

NMDS analysis of butterfly community structure across urban ring zones (R1–R5). R1 is parks inside the first ring, R2 is parks inside the second ring, R3 is parks inside the third ring, R4 is parks inside the fourth ring, and R5 is parks outside the fourth ring.

FIGURE 3

Comparison of urbanization levels across parks. (a) Grassland habitat, (b) Shrubland habitat, (c) Woodland habitat. R1 is parks inside the first ring, R2 is parks inside the second ring, R3 is parks inside the third ring, R4 is parks inside the fourth ring, and R5 is parks outside the fourth ring.

FIGURE 4

Butterfly species richness in urban areas. The letters (a, b, ab) in the figure indicate significant differences between groups: Groups with the same letter (e.g., a and ab) are not significantly different from each other, while groups with different letters (e.g., a and b) are significantly different. The whisker lines represent data variability, usually indicating the standard error (SE). R1 is parks inside the first ring, R2 is parks inside the second ring, R3 is parks inside the third ring, R4 is parks inside the fourth ring, and R5 is parks outside the fourth ring.

FIGURE 5

Heatmap of correlations between butterfly diversity metrics and park attributes.***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05. Rich: Butterfly species richness; Abun: Butterfly abundance; Shan: Butterfly Shannon diversity index; Area: Park area (ha); PA: Park perimeter‐area ratio; Flo: Abundance of blooming plants; Plant: Total plant abundance; PlantS: Plant Shannon diversity index; Age: Park age (years); Dis: Distance to city center (km).