Since the beginning of the fellowship (August 2022), the project has resulted in a modeling pipeline that generates quickly and serially species distribution models (SDMs) across spatial grains, and tested it using the case study of the butterflies of Italy (Riva et al. 2023, Global Change Biology 29 (7), 1715-1728). The fellow also led a review of the field of Complex System Science in ecology and conservation (Riva, Graco-Roza et al. 2023, Science Advances, in press). This second project was included in PROBAE because the assumptions underlying traditional SDMs might be unreasonable as climates change abruptly (e.g. due to tipping points), requiring the exploration of alternative approaches to identify hotspots of conservation value based on climate change refugia (e.g. evaluating networks of interacting species, instead of individual species distribution models). Ongoing work based on thousands of population trends for butterflies will assess the drivers of demographic change in butterfly populations across Europe, capitalizing on extensive citizen science data.
Preliminary analyses conducted in Italy identified land use as an important determinant of the distribution of butterfly species even at scales of 50 by 50 km cells. This means that identifying climate change refugia without considering land use change will be at best inaccurate. Implementation of this framework across Europe will ensure the identification of proper conservation hotspots based on climate change refugia that account for land use patterns and forecasted change. The review we published on Complex System Science in ecology and conservation (Riva, Graco-Roza et al. 2023, Science Advances, in press) has outlined a series of philosophies and paradigms that will be explored as the European-scale trends in butterfly populations are assessed.
I have shared via social media the first output of PROBAE with success. Based on Altmetric (
https://wiley.altmetric.com/details/141778947(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)) Riva et al. 2023 (Global Change Biology 29 (7), 1715-1728) ranks in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric. Our review of Complex System Science also has already received attention. I will participate at two conferences in Summer 2023 - Biology of Butterflies Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, and the International Congress for Conservation Biology, Kigali, Rwanda - to present the result of butterfly population trends across Europe and related drivers.
