The dual role of rivers in facilitating or hindering movements of the false heath fritillary butterfly

Abstract

Species movement responses to landscape structures have been studied using a variety of methods, but movement research is still in need of simple methods that help predicting and comparing movements across structurally different landscapes. We demonstrate how habitat-specific movement models can be used to disentangle causes of differentiated movement patterns in structurally different landscapes and to predict movement patterns in altered and artificial landscapes. In our case study, we studied the role of riparian landscapes to the persistence of the endangered false heath fritillary butterfly (Melitaea diamina) in its newly discovered coastal distribution region in Finland. We compared the movement parameters of the riparian population to two reference populations by using capture-recapture data and habitat-specific diffusion modelling, and analysed the role of the river and riverbank buffer zones in facilitating or hindering false heath fritillary movement with movement simulations.

Published in

Movement Ecology
2015, volume: 3, article number: 4

SLU Authors

• Fabritius, Henna

  • University of Helsinki

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-015-0031-z

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/89692