Effects of habitat fragmentation on butterfly populations and their conservation

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Project objective

Research objectives and content The aim of the present project is to evaluate the effects of landscape fragmentation on distributions and abundances of butterflies. The fellowship will be focused on some species of Pieridae and Hesperiidae. The field work will be around Llandudno, North Wales, UK, where the landscape chiefly consists in improved" species-poor pastures with remnant species-rich habitat patches. The following objectives are proposed: (1) to determine what proportion of butterfly species suffers problems from habitat isolation in a fragmented landscape; (2) to test whether there is a relationship between mobility and distribution of species; (3) to examine what proportion of species experiences the landscape as habitat islands with reduced movement between them, and what proportion perceives the landscape as habitat fragments with frequent movements from site to site. Field data will be recordings of presence-absence from individual host plants to 1 km2 grid squares, density estimates of adults, eggs and larvae, dispersal measures of adults from mark-release-recapture techniques, several estimates of ecological specialization (vegetation type and height, host plant attributes, insolation, thermal ambient, soil moisture), and measures of patch areas, shape and isolation. The data collected will be fed into existing spatially-explicit metapopulation models to evaluate whether large-scale dynamics are likely to contribute to landscape-scale patterns of distribution and abundance of butterfly species. Training content (objective, benefit and expected impact) The experience and training gained should provide a strong foundation for future work on the effects of landscape fragmentation and climatic change on biodiversity patterns in Europe. Both maintenance of biodiversity and their response to climatic change are key and national issues. Results obtained will be relevant to environmental and conservation management agencies, providing a strong support for testing viability of species re-introductions in fragmented landscapes. Links with industry / industrial relevance (22) "

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS · LEEDSCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
• Not availableCity levelSpain

Links

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