RESEARCH ARTICLE Matrix configuration and patch isolation influences override the species–area relationship for urban butterfly communities Marie-He ´le `ne Lize ´e • Ste ´phanie Manel • Jean-Franc ¸ois Mauffrey • Thierry Tatoni • Magali Deschamps-Cottin Received: 18 March 2011 / Accepted: 29 August 2011 / Published online: 16 September 2011 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine the role of urban public parks in maintaining connectivity and butterfly assemblages. Using a regression framework, we first test the relative importance of park size and isolation in predicting abundance and species richness of butterfly assemblages across a set of 24 public parks within a large metropolitan area, Marseille (South- East France). Then, we focus on landscape features that affect diversity patterns of the recorded butterfly communities. In this second part, the urban landscape surrounding each park is described (within a 1 9 1 km window) according to two major compo- nents: vegetated areas (habitat patches) and impervi- ous or built areas (matrix patches). Specifically, we aim to test whether the incorporation of this built component (matrix) in the landscape analysis provides new insights into the understanding of ecological connectivity in the urban environment. We found a significant effect of both matrix configuration (shape complexity of the built patches) and distance from regional species pool (park isolation) on diversity of butterflies that overrides park size in their contribution to variation in species richness. This result suggests that many previous studies of interactions between biodiversity and urban landscape have overlooked the influence of the built elements. Keywords Connectivity Á Hierarchical partitioning Á Landscape metrics Á Public parks Á Remote sensing Á Rhopalocera Introduction Over the past few years, urban parks and gardens have been the focus of more and more attention in scientific studies as urban nature becomes increasingly restricted to these official ‘urban green spaces’ (Snep et al. 2006). Moreover, with the implementation of sustainable development policies that highlight in particular the question of ecological connectivity in cities, urban parks are shifting from the status of simple public facilities to that of potential frames for the setting up of urban green networks. Promoting ecological connectivity in cities through the planning of green networks requires, however, a better under- standing of urban ecological processes and thus the Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10980-011-9651-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M.-H. Lize ´e (&) Á S. Manel Á J.-F. Mauffrey Á M. Deschamps-Cottin Population Environment Development Laboratory, UMR 151, University of Provence, 3, Place Victor Hugo, 13331 Marseille Cedex 03, France e-mail: marie-helene.lizee@univ-provence.fr M.-H. Lize ´e Á T. Tatoni Mediterranean Institute of Ecology and Paleoecology, UMR 6116, St Jerome Science Faculty, 13397 Marseille Cedex 20, France 123 Landscape Ecol (2012) 27:159–169 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9651-x