14 research outputs found
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Complexity within an oil palm monoculture: The effects of habitat variability and rainfall on adult dragonfly (Odonata) communities
Recent expansion of oil palm agriculture has resulted in loss of forest habitat and forest-dependent species. However, large numbers of species – particularly insects – can persist within plantations. This study focuses on Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies): a charismatic indicator taxon, and a potentially valuable pest control agent. We surveyed adult Odonata populations biannually over three years within an industrial oil palm plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. We assessed the effects of rainfall (including an El Niño Southern Oscillation-associated drought), the role of roadside ditches, and the importance of understory vegetation on Odonata populations. To assess the impacts of vegetation we took advantage of a long-term vegetation management experiment that is part of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme. We found 41 Odonata species, and communities varied between plantation core and roadside edge microhabitats, and between seasons. Abundance was significantly related to rainfall levels four months before surveys, probably indicating the importance of high water levels in roadside ditches for successful larval development. We found no significant effect of the BEFTA understory vegetation treatments on Odonata abundance, and only limited effects on community composition, suggesting that local understory vegetation structure plays a relatively unimportant role in determining communities. Our findings highlight that there are large numbers of Odonata species present within oil palm plantations, and suggest that their abundance could potentially be increased by maintaining or establishing waterbodies. As Odonata are predators, this could bring pest control benefits, in addition to enhancing biodiversity within intensive agricultural landscapes.This work was funded by The Isaac Newton Trust Cambridge, Golden Agri Resources, and the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number NE/P00458X/1]
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Resilience of ecological functions to drought in an oil palm agroecosystem
Abstract
Oil palm is a major habitat in the tropics. It is highly productive and contributes substantially to the economies of producing countries, but its expansion has caused widespread deforestation, with negative consequences for biodiversity. Such biodiversity losses may have substantial impacts on ecosystem functions within oil palm and resilience of functions to changing rainfall patterns, with impacts on yield. However, although the direct effects of water deficit on yield have been studied, little work has investigated ecosystem processes within plantations or the resilience of functions to changing rainfall. We conducted ecosystem function experiments within mature oil palm at the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme site in Sumatra, Indonesia. We measured rates of leaf litter decomposition, seed removal, mealworm predation, and herbivory at multiple time points spanning the 2015–2016 El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event that caused widespread drought within Southeast Asia. We found that mealworm predation, seed removal, and decomposition rates were high, whilst herbivory levels were low, indicating a healthy ecosystem with high levels of pest control and organic matter breakdown. Exclusion tests showed that the presence of invertebrates was associated with higher levels of seed removal and decomposition and the presence of vertebrates with higher predation. All functions were relatively robust to changes in rainfall. Yet, whilst seed removal and herbivory did not alter with rainfall, decomposition and predation showed more complex effects, with levels of both processes increasing with current rainfall levels when rainfall in preceding time periods was low. This suggests that both processes are resilient to change and able to recover following drought. Our results indicate that the ecosystem processes measured within oil palm plantations are healthy and resilient to changing rainfall patterns. This is hopeful and suggests that the crop may be fairly robust to future changes in precipitation.Isaac Newton Trust Cambridge
Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology Research Institut
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Managing Oil Palm Plantations More Sustainably: Large-Scale Experiments Within the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme
Conversion of tropical forest to agriculture results in reduced habitat heterogeneity, and associated declines in biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Management strategies to increase biodiversity in agricultural landscapes have therefore often focused on increasing habitat complexity; however, the large-scale, long-term ecological experiments that are needed to test the effects of these strategies are rare in tropical systems. Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.)—one of the most widespread and important tropical crops—offers substantial potential for developing wildlife-friendly management strategies because of its long rotation cycles and tree-like structure. Although there is awareness of the need to increase sustainability, practical options for how best to manage oil palm plantations, for benefits to both the environment and crop productivity, have received little research attention.
In this paper we introduce the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme: a long-term research collaboration between academia and industry in Sumatra, Indonesia. The BEFTA Programme aims to better understand the oil palm agroecosystem and test sustainability strategies. We hypothesise that adjustments to oil palm management could increase structural complexity, stabilize microclimate, and reduce reliance on chemical inputs, thereby helping to improve levels of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The Programme has established four major components: (1) assessing variability within the plantation under business-as-usual conditions; (2) the BEFTA Understory Vegetation Project, which tests the effects of varying herbicide regimes; (3) the Riparian Ecosystem Restoration in Tropical Agriculture (RERTA) Project, which tests strategies for restoring riparian habitat; and (4) support for additional collaborative projects within the Programme landscape. Across all projects, we are measuring environmental conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions. We also measure oil palm yield and production costs, in order to assess whether suggested sustainability strategies are feasible from an agronomic perspective.
Early results show that oil palm plantation habitat is more variable than might be expected from a monoculture crop, and that everyday vegetation management decisions have significant impacts on habitat structure. The BEFTA Programme highlights the value of large-scale collaborative projects for understanding tropical agricultural systems, and offers a highly valuable experimental set-up for improving our understanding of practices to manage oil palm more sustainably.This work was funded by The Isaac Newton Trust Cambridge, Golden Agri Resources, ICOPE (the International Conference on Oil Palm and the Environment), and the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number NE/P00458X/1]
Habitat heterogeneity supports day-flying Lepidoptera in oil palm plantations
Oil palm is one of Southeast Asia's most common crops, and its expansion has caused substantial modification of natural habitats and put increasing pressure on biodiversity. Rising global demand for vegetable oil, coupled with oil palm's high yield per unit area and the versatility of the palm oil product, has driven the expansion of oil palm agriculture in the region. Therefore, it is critical to identify management practices that can support biodiversity in plantations without exacerbating negative impacts on the environment. This study focuses on day-flying Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), which contribute to the ecosystem functioning as pollinators, prey, and herbivore species. We assessed whether density and behaviours of day-flying Lepidoptera varied between different habitats within oil palm plantations and across seasons. We surveyed the density and behaviours of Lepidoptera communities in mature industrial oil palm plantations within the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme sites, in Riau, Indonesia. We surveyed two distinct habitats within the plantations in March and September 2013: Edge habitats, which were bordered by plantation roads on one side, and Core habitats in the centre of oil palm planting blocks. We conducted analyses on the effect of habitat type and season on both the overall density and behaviour of Lepidoptera communities and, independently, on the most common species. In our surveys, we observed 1464 individuals across 41 species, with a significantly higher density in Edge than in Core habitats. While there was no significant difference between overall density in March and September surveys, there was an interaction between season and habitat, with density increasing more markedly in Edge than Core areas in September. There was also a significant effect of habitat and season on behavioural time budget for the community as a whole, with more active behaviours, such as foraging and mating, being recorded more frequently in Edge than Core habitats, and more commonly in September than March. The effect of habitat type, season, and their interaction differed between the six most common species. Our findings indicate that Lepidoptera abundance is affected by habitat characteristics in a plantation and can therefore be influenced by plantation management practices. In particular, our study highlights the value of road edges and paths in plantations for day-flying Lepidoptera. We suggest that increased non-crop vegetation in these areas, achieved through reduced clearing practices or planting of flowering plants, could foster abundant and active butterfly communities in plantations. These practices could form part of sustainability management recommendations for oil palm, such as those of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
Understory vegetation supports more abundant and diverse butterfly communities in oil palm plantations
IntroductionThe cultivation of oil palm, from which palm oil, the world’s most widely traded vegetable oil, is processed, has had marked effects on ecosystems and native species across the tropics. While declines in biodiversity due to conversion to oil palm have been well recorded across plant and animal taxa, less work has been done to identify approaches to plantation management which will enable producers to satisfy growing global demand while limiting environmental damage.MethodsThrough a large-scale understory management experiment, we investigated the long- and short-term effects of varying vegetation management regimes on the abundance, richness, and diversity of day-flying Lepidoptera.ResultsOver the long-term, the lowest levels of vegetation complexity resulted in significantly lower Lepidoptera abundance, species richness and evenness. Less intensive understory clearing resulted in healthier communities, with limited differences between removal by herbicide application or chemical-free removal. Over the short-term, biodiversity was not directly affected by vegetation complexity, suggesting that manual removal of vegetation may be equally damaging to butterfly or moth communities as removal by intermediate levels of herbicide spraying.DiscussionThese findings substantiate calls to limit vegetation clearing and maintain habitat heterogeneity on both a local and landscape scale, while also suggesting that a hard “no-spray” guideline may not be the only option to support butterfly friendly plantations
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Resilience of ecological functions to drought in an oil palm agroecosystem
Oil palm is a major habitat in the tropics. It is highly productive and contributes substantially to the economies of producing countries, but its expansion has caused widespread deforestation, with negative consequences for biodiversity. Such biodiversity losses may have substantial impacts on ecosystem functions within oil palm and resilience of functions to changing rainfall patterns, with impacts on yield. However, although the direct effects of water deficit on yield have been studied, little work has investigated ecosystem processes within plantations or the resilience of functions to changing rainfall. We conducted ecosystem function experiments within mature oil palm at the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme site in Sumatra, Indonesia. We measured rates of leaf litter decomposition, seed removal, mealworm predation, and herbivory at multiple time points spanning the 2015–2016 El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event that caused widespread drought within Southeast Asia. We found that mealworm predation, seed removal, and decomposition rates were high, whilst herbivory levels were low, indicating a healthy ecosystem with high levels of pest control and organic matter breakdown. Exclusion tests showed that the presence of invertebrates was associated with higher levels of seed removal and decomposition and the presence of vertebrates with higher predation. All functions were relatively robust to changes in rainfall. Yet, whilst seed removal and herbivory did not alter with rainfall, decomposition and predation showed more complex effects, with levels of both processes increasing with current rainfall levels when rainfall in preceding time periods was low. This suggests that both processes are resilient to change and able to recover following drought. Our results indicate that the ecosystem processes measured within oil palm plantations are healthy and resilient to changing rainfall patterns. This is hopeful and suggests that the crop may be fairly robust to future changes in precipitation
Recommended from our members
Managing Oil Palm Plantations More Sustainably: Large-Scale Experiments Within the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme
Conversion of tropical forest to agriculture results in reduced habitat heterogeneity, and associated declines in biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Management strategies to increase biodiversity in agricultural landscapes have therefore often focused on increasing habitat complexity; however, the large-scale, long-term ecological experiments that are needed to test the effects of these strategies are rare in tropical systems. Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.)—one of the most widespread and important tropical crops—offers substantial potential for developing wildlife-friendly management strategies because of its long rotation cycles and tree-like structure. Although there is awareness of the need to increase sustainability, practical options for how best to manage oil palm plantations, for benefits to both the environment and crop productivity, have received little research attention. In this paper we introduce the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme: a long-term research collaboration between academia and industry in Sumatra, Indonesia. The BEFTA Programme aims to better understand the oil palm agroecosystem and test sustainability strategies. We hypothesise that adjustments to oil palm management could increase structural complexity, stabilise microclimate, and reduce reliance on chemical inputs, thereby helping to improve levels of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The Programme has established four major components: (1) assessing variability within the plantation under business-as-usual conditions; (2) the BEFTA Understory Vegetation Project, which tests the effects of varying herbicide regimes; (3) the Riparian Ecosystem Restoration in Tropical Agriculture (RERTA) Project, which tests strategies for restoring riparian habitat; and (4) support for additional collaborative projects within the Programme landscape. Across all projects, we are measuring environmental conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions. We also measure oil palm yield and production costs, in order to assess whether suggested sustainability strategies are feasible from an agronomic perspective. Early results show that oil palm plantation habitat is more variable than might be expected from a monoculture crop, and that everyday vegetation management decisions have significant impacts on habitat structure. The BEFTA Programme highlights the value of large-scale collaborative projects for understanding tropical agricultural systems, and offers a highly valuable experimental set-up for improving our understanding of practices to manage oil palm more sustainably
Complexity within an oil palm monoculture: the effects of habitat variability and rainfall on adult dragonfly (Odonata) communities.
Recent expansion of oil palm agriculture has resulted in loss of forest habitat and forest-dependent species. However, large numbers of species – particularly insects – can persist within plantations. This study focuses on Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies): a charismatic indicator taxon, and a potentially valuable pest control agent. We surveyed adult Odonata populations biannually over three years within an industrial oil palm plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. We assessed the effects of rainfall (including an El Niño Southern Oscillation-associated drought), the role of roadside ditches, and the importance of understory vegetation on Odonata populations. To assess the impacts of vegetation we took advantage of a long-term vegetation management experiment that is part of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme. We found 41 Odonata species, and communities varied between plantation core and roadside edge microhabitats, and between seasons. Abundance was significantly related to rainfall levels four months before surveys, probably indicating the importance of high water levels in roadside ditches for successful larval development. We found no significant effect of the BEFTA understory vegetation treatments on Odonata abundance, and only limited effects on community composition, suggesting that local understory vegetation structure plays a relatively unimportant role in determining communities. Our findings highlight that there are large numbers of Odonata species present within oil palm plantations, and suggest that their abundance could potentially be increased by maintaining or establishing waterbodies. As Odonata are predators, this could bring pest control benefits, in addition to enhancing biodiversity within intensive agricultural landscapes.,
Site.—Fieldwork was conducted within oil palm plantations in Riau Province, central Sumatra, Indonesia. The plantations are owned and managed by PT Ivo Mas Tunggal (a subsidiary company of Golden Agri Resources, GAR), with technical input from Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology Research Institute (SMARTRI) (the research and development centre of GAR) (Fig. S1, full manuscript). The area is naturally mixed lowland dipterocarp forest, but was deforested ~30 years ago, and is currently heavily dominated by oil palm agriculture, with very little non-converted habitat remaining. The region has a tropical climate, with mean annual rainfall of 2350 mm, spread unevenly across the year, and is based on mineral soil (Tao et al. 2016).
We surveyed sites that formed part of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme (Foster et al. 2014; Luke et al. 2020). As part of this, the BEFTA Understory Vegetation Project tests the effects of understory vegetation complexity on the oil palm ecosystem, through varying levels of herbicide use and manual cutting of vegetation. BEFTA has established three understory vegetation treatments (see Luke et al. (2020) for full details):
Reduced complexity: this involves spraying all understory vegetation with herbicides. Hereafter referred to as ‘Reduced’.
Normal complexity: this is the standard practice used within the SMARTRI estates and involves an intermediate level of herbicide spraying, with harvest paths and 1.5 m circles around palms being sprayed and woody vegetation being manually removed, but other vegetation being allowed to regrow. Hereafter referred to as ‘Normal’.
Enhanced complexity: this involves no spraying of herbicides and only limited hand-cutting of woody vegetation, and along harvesting paths and in palm circles. Hereafter referred to as ‘Enhanced’.
The three treatments represent the range of different management strategies that occur within oil palm plantations. There are eighteen BEFTA Understory Vegetation Project plots, split across two estates (Ujung Tanjung and Kandista), and organized into six triplets, each at least 800m from the next (Fig. S1; Fig. S2; Table S1, full manuscript). Each triplet contains one 150 x 150 m plot of each treatment, with the order allocated randomly. The middle plot in each triplet is 155 m from each of the outer plots within the triplet. Each plot is located at the end of a plantation block of 900 x 300 m, so that it is adjacent to an access road, and therefore includes both core and edge plantation microhabitat (hereafter referred to as ‘Core’ and ‘Edge’). Edge sites were located alongside both a dirt road and a drainage ditch filled with standing water (Fig. S2, full manuscript). These Edge sites occur around each of the 900 x 300m planting blocks. Core sites were within the interior of oil palm planting blocks, at least 50m from the edge. This led to differences in shading, exposure, and water occurrence in the two microhabitats, with consequent impacts on vegetation structure and diversity. Specifically, Edge areas had significantly higher plant biomass and cover, plant species richness, and higher occurrence of Turnera ulmifolia (planted along roadsides to promote populations of beneficial insects) than Core areas, whilst Core areas had significantly higher percentage cover of frond heaps (stacks of chopped palm fronds) (Luke et al. 2019, 2020) (and also see assessments of habitat structure presented in the full manuscript). All plots are in flat areas of the plantation, 10-30 m asl, and are in areas that were mature palm (palms planted between 1988 and 1993) at the time of survey. The SMARTRI estates are criss-crossed by a network of small streams (Fig. S1, full manuscript), and two plots had small streams running through them. There were no natural ponds or lakes nearby. Plots were marked out in October 2012 and were all managed using the standard SMARTRI vegetation practices (Normal complexity) until treatments began in February 2014, after which plots were managed according to their allocated understory vegetation treatment. Refer to Luke et al. (2020), for more details.
Odonata surveying.—Within each plot, adult Odonata were surveyed along transects in the Core and Edge of the plot. Core transects followed the edge of a central 50 x 50 m sampling area within each plot and so were 200 m long, whilst Edge transects followed the roadside edge of the plot and so were 150 m long (Fig. S2, full manuscript). Recorders walked at a steady pace along each transect and identified and counted the dragonflies seen within a 5 m sided cube of space in front of them. Survey duration was not fixed because the time required to complete a survey depended on the number of dragonflies present. When a species was not immediately identifiable by sight, they were caught using a hand-net and photographed, allowing later identification by an experienced taxonomist (Rory A. Dow) and using identification guides (Orr 2003; Tang et al. 2010). Surveys were conducted at each plot during two ‘Seasons’: February-April, and September, hereafter referred to as ‘March’ and ‘September’. Both seasons were surveyed in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Two repeat surveys of each plot were conducted within each season. Surveys conducted in March 2014 fell partly during the BEFTA Understory Vegetation Project pre-treatment (hereafter referred to as ‘pre-treatment’), and partly during the BEFTA Understory Vegetation Project post-treatment (hereafter referred to as ‘post-treatment’) time period, and were categorised accordingly in analyses. Surveys were conducted between 9am and 5pm.
Vegetation measurements.—Vegetation measurements were taken every 10 m along each of the transects, once in March-April 2013 (pre-treatment), and again in September 2014 (post-treatment). Vegetation percentage cover (of ferns, palm fronds, bare ground, empty fruit bunch (EFB – used husks of harvested palm fruits, applied by industry as a mulch), and the non-native shrub Turnera ulmifolia (planted by industry along roadways to promote pest control)) was assessed by eye within a 5 x 5 m area at each point. Vegetation height was measured with a metre rule. At each measurement point, the metre rule was held in a vertical position, with its base resting on the ground, and an A4 clipboard lightly rested on the vegetation (to push down any single tall stems) and the height measured accordingly. Canopy openness was measured using a densiometer (Lemmon 1956), averaging four measurements taken North, South, East and West at each point.
Rainfall measurements.—We recorded daily rainfall (mm) using rain gauges that each had a 100 cm2 collecting area. Rainfall values from all rain gauges within each estate (three in Ujung Tanjung, and two in Kandista) were averaged to calculate a monthly rainfall value for each estate. In analyses, we used the estate rainfall value that was applicable to each plot. We used rainfall measures from March of the relevant year as the ‘monthly rainfall’ value for surveys conducted during February to April, and rainfall measures from September for September surveys. In addition to ‘monthly rainfall’, we also used the value of rainfall for the calendar month that was four months before (‘rainfall four months before’) the March and September dragonfly surveys in analyses. This is because dragonflies have an aquatic larval stage, and therefore presence of adults at a site is dependent on sufficient water for larval development before the survey date. Although different dragonfly species exhibit a range of reproductive strategies, the majority of tropical species are multivoltine (Corbet 1980). The development time for many tropical dragonfly larvae is between 60 and 200 days (Corbet 1980), the mean of which is 130 days (4.3 months). Using this lagged rainfall value in analyses allowed us to consider the influence of rainfall on egg laying, egg survival, and larval development stages of the dragonfly lifecycle, in addition to assessing impacts of rainfall on adult presence.
Statistical analyses.—We conducted analyses using R statistical program version 3.5.1 (R Core Team 2018), and the program R Studio (R Studio Team 2016). To compare 200 m-long Core transects and 150 m-long Edge transects, we standardised all abundance data to predicted values for 150 m-long transects by multiplying Core abundance values by 0.75. We included data for an unidentified teneral individual (‘Unknown teneral’) within overall abundance models, but excluded this data point from species richness curves and family level analyses, as its species and family were unknown.</span
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Habitat heterogeneity supports day-flying Lepidoptera in oil palm plantations
Abstract
Oil palm is one of Southeast Asia’s most common crops, and its expansion has caused substantial modification of natural habitats and put increasing pressure on biodiversity. Rising global demand for vegetable oil, coupled with oil palm’s high yield per unit area and the versatility of the palm oil product, has driven the expansion of oil palm agriculture in the region. Therefore, it is critical to identify management practices that can support biodiversity in plantations without exacerbating negative impacts on the environment. This study focuses on day-flying Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), which contribute to the ecosystem functioning as pollinators, prey, and herbivore species. We assessed whether density and behaviours of day-flying Lepidoptera varied between different habitats within oil palm plantations and across seasons. We surveyed the density and behaviours of Lepidoptera communities in mature industrial oil palm plantations within the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme sites, in Riau, Indonesia. We surveyed two distinct habitats within the plantations in March and September 2013: Edge habitats, which were bordered by plantation roads on one side, and Core habitats in the centre of oil palm planting blocks. We conducted analyses on the effect of habitat type and season on both the overall density and behaviour of Lepidoptera communities and, independently, on the most common species. In our surveys, we observed 1464 individuals across 41 species, with a significantly higher density in Edge than in Core habitats. While there was no significant difference between overall density in March and September surveys, there was an interaction between season and habitat, with density increasing more markedly in Edge than Core areas in September. There was also a significant effect of habitat and season on behavioural time budget for the community as a whole, with more active behaviours, such as foraging and mating, being recorded more frequently in Edge than Core habitats, and more commonly in September than March. The effect of habitat type, season, and their interaction differed between the six most common species. Our findings indicate that Lepidoptera abundance is affected by habitat characteristics in a plantation and can therefore be influenced by plantation management practices. In particular, our study highlights the value of road edges and paths in plantations for day-flying Lepidoptera. We suggest that increased non-crop vegetation in these areas, achieved through reduced clearing practices or planting of flowering plants, could foster abundant and active butterfly communities in plantations. These practices could form part of sustainability management recommendations for oil palm, such as those of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.</jats:p
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Understory vegetation supports more abundant and diverse butterfly communities in oil palm plantations
Peer reviewed: TrueAcknowledgements: We thank RISTEK (Kementerian Riset dan Teknologi Republik Indonesia) for permission to establish the BEFTA Understory Vegetation Project and to conduct research in Indonesia (permit numbers 426/SIP/FRP/SM/XI/2012, 72/EXT/ SIP/FRP/SM/IX/2013, 44/EXT/SIP/FRP/SM/IX/2014, 354/SIP/ FRP/E5/Dit.KI/X/2016, 66/EXT/SIP/FRP/E5/Dit.KI/IX/2017,45/ EXT/SIP/FRP/E5/Dit.KI/X/2018,431/E5/E5.4/SIP/2019, 53/E5/ E5.4/SIP.EXT/2020, and 1/SIP.EXT/IV/FR/1/2022). We thank Pt Ivo Mas Tunggal and Golden Agri Resources, and Sinar Mas Agro Resources Technology Research Institute (SMARTRI) for allowing us to conduct research in their plantations, and we are grateful to the staff of SMARTRI for their help with fieldwork.IntroductionThe cultivation of oil palm, from which palm oil, the world’s most widely traded vegetable oil, is processed, has had marked effects on ecosystems and native species across the tropics. While declines in biodiversity due to conversion to oil palm have been well recorded across plant and animal taxa, less work has been done to identify approaches to plantation management which will enable producers to satisfy growing global demand while limiting environmental damage.MethodsThrough a large-scale understory management experiment, we investigated the long- and short-term effects of varying vegetation management regimes on the abundance, richness, and diversity of day-flying Lepidoptera.ResultsOver the long-term, the lowest levels of vegetation complexity resulted in significantly lower Lepidoptera abundance, species richness and evenness. Less intensive understory clearing resulted in healthier communities, with limited differences between removal by herbicide application or chemical-free removal. Over the short-term, biodiversity was not directly affected by vegetation complexity, suggesting that manual removal of vegetation may be equally damaging to butterfly or moth communities as removal by intermediate levels of herbicide spraying.DiscussionThese findings substantiate calls to limit vegetation clearing and maintain habitat heterogeneity on both a local and landscape scale, while also suggesting that a hard “no-spray” guideline may not be the only option to support butterfly friendly plantations.</jats:sec