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Temporal variability of local abundance, sex ratio and activity in the Sardinian chalk hill blue butterfly

  • Population Ecology
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An Erratum to this article was published on 29 October 2003

Abstract

When capturing and marking of individuals is possible, the application of newly developed capture-recapture models can remove several sources of bias in the estimation of population parameters such as local abundance and sex ratio. For example, observation of distorted sex ratios in counts or captures can reflect either different abundances of the sexes or different sex-specific capture probabilities, and capture-recapture models can help distinguish between these two possibilities. Robust design models and a model selection procedure based on information-theoretic methods were applied to study the local population structure of the endemic Sardinian chalk hill blue butterfly, Polyommatus coridon gennargenti. Seasonal variations of abundance, plus daily and weather-related variations of active populations of males and females were investigated. Evidence was found of protandry and male pioneering of the breeding space. Temporary emigration probability, which describes the proportion of the population not exposed to capture (e.g., absent from the study area) during the sampling process, was estimated, differed between sexes, and was related to temperature, a factor known to influence animal activity. The correlation between temporary emigration and average daily temperature suggested interpreting temporary emigration as inactivity of animals. Robust design models were used successfully to provide a detailed description of the population structure and activity in this butterfly and are recommended for studies of local abundance and animal activity in the field.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center staff for help and logistic support when beginning this manuscript, William Kendall for many comments on previous drafts and elucidating robust design models, Jim Hines for help in data analysis, and one anonymous referee for precious comment on a previous version. Thanks also to Gary White for updating and answering questions about parameterisation of robust design models implemented in program MARK, Roberto Crnjar and Annalisa Marchi for many suggestions during the early stages of this research, Rita Cosseddu for promptly providing literature, and the Regional Forestry Service for logistic support. Special thanks to all the volunteers that in any way participated in the field research and, particularly, to the indispensable Debora Scanu for help in gathering an analysable data set. This project was supported by a Regional Government grant LR no. 7/94 ex. Art. 37, by the University of Cagliari/Minister of University and Scientific Research grant, and by the private Dina and Franco’s Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Biologia Sperimentale, Sezione di Genetica, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Viale Poetto No. 1, 09126, Cagliari, Italy

    Paolo Casula

  2. U.S. Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD 20708–4017, USA

    James D. Nichols

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  1. Paolo Casula
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  2. James D. Nichols
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Correspondence to Paolo Casula.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1426-x

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Casula, P., Nichols, J.D. Temporal variability of local abundance, sex ratio and activity in the Sardinian chalk hill blue butterfly. Oecologia 136, 374–382 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1288-2

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