Open Access

The loss and fragmentation of natural habitats due to the intensification of agricultural land use have detrimental impacts on the biodiversity of arthropods. The reduction of natural habitats results in a decreased availability of essential resources, which may select for rapid development and phenotypes enhancing dispersal ability. We here compared replicated populations of the butterfly Coenonympha pamphilus in field‐caught females and their laboratory‐reared offspring across two landscape types: highly fragmented and intensified “modern” and less fragmented “traditional” agricultural landscapes. We also examined the effects of food stress and landscape parameters representing compositional and configurational landscape heterogeneity on intraspecific trait variation at different spatial scales. The differences between the two landscape types in butterfly traits were nonsignificant throughout, but both field‐caught females and their offspring exhibited various responses to the measured landscape parameters. In particular, landscapes with (1) high heterogeneity of habitat patches (i.e., relatively smaller grassland patches with high boundary length), (2) higher proportion of non‐crop habitats (i.e., grassland, forests, and woodland), and (3) lower proportion of crop fields seemed to select for phenotypes enhancing dispersal ability. Flight propensity of male offspring was increased under food stress, indicating plastic responses to resource scarcity. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the compositional and configurational landscape heterogeneity, namely parameters indicative of agricultural intensification, select for enhanced dispersal in C. pamphilus . As higher investment in dispersal often comes at a cost to reproduction, such trait shifts may reduce population viability, which may have important implications for insect declines in agricultural landscapes.

In recent decades, severe declines in biodiversity have been observed globally, with agricultural intensification being one of the key drivers. However, the abandonment of traditional land-use practices may also negatively affect diversity. Setting aside steep-slope vineyards, driven by heavy workloads and diminishing profitability, may pose a major challenge to biodiversity conservation and related ecosystem services in Germany. Here, we compare ground-dwelling beetle taxonomic and functional diversity across four management categories: (1) conventionally managed vineyards, (2) set-aside vineyards that are now managed as grazed grasslands, (3) set-aside vineyards that are now managed as mown grasslands, and (4) vineyard fallows. Using pitfall traps, we examined 10 sites per management category along the Upper Middle Rhine Valley in southwestern Germany. We show that conventionally managed vineyards and grazed grasslands exhibited the highest species richness, taxonomic and functional diversity, while fallows showed strongly reduced values. The same applies to the ‘conservation value’ of beetle assemblages, being highest on conventionally managed vineyards and grazed grasslands but lowest on fallows. Especially open landscape and xerothermic beetle species were negatively affected by abandonment. Beetle diversity was additionally affected by landscape composition, with (semi)-natural habitats having positive effects. Thus, our findings suggest that conventionally managed vineyards can provide valuable habitats for taxonomically and functionally diverse ground beetle communities, and that grazing represents an appropriate alternative for set-aside sites. Implications for insect conservation Our results show that some sort of management is important to halt secondary succession in xerothermic landscapes to preserve landscape heterogeneity and promote ground-dwelling beetle diversity. To this end, grazing seems to be especially suitable.