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Inverse link between density and dispersal distance in butterflies: field evidence from six co-occurring species

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Population Ecology

Abstract

A pertinent question in animal population ecology is the relationship between population abundance, density, and mobility. Two extreme ways to reach sufficient abundance for long-term persistence are to inhabit restricted locations at high densities, or large areas in low densities. The former case predicts low individual mobility, whereas the later predicts high one. This assumption is rarely tested using across-species comparisons, due to scarcity of data on both mobility and population sizes for multiple species. We used data on dispersal and local population densities of six butterfly species gained by mark-recapture, and data on their (relative) regional abundance obtained by walking transects in a landscape surrounding the mark-recapture sites. We correlated both local density and regional abundance against slopes of the inverse power function, appropriate for describing the shape of dispersal kernel. Local densities correlated negatively with the dispersal kernel slopes both when sexes were treated as independent data points and if treated together. For regional abundance, the correlation was also negative but only marginally significant. Our results corroborate the notion that a trade-off exists between living in dense populations and having poor dispersal, and vice versa. We link this observation to resource use by individual species, and distribution of such resources as host plants in the study landscape.

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Acknowledgments

Over 20 persons participated in the marking campaigns. As space does not allow listing all of them, we name just the most active ones: M. Bartos, L. Filipova, M. Maradova, J. Patera, M. Lövy, D. Novotny. Funding was provided by Czech Conservation Authority (contractual payments for E. aurinia monitoring), the Karlovy Vary region (D723/2007), Czech Ministry of Education (6007665801, 6215648905, LC06073), and Czech Science Foundation (P505/10/2167).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University South Bohemia, School of Sciences, Branisovska 31, 370 05, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic

    Martin Konvicka, Kamil Zimmermann, Martina Klimova & Zdenek Fric

  2. Institute of Entomology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Branisovska 31, 370 05, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic

    Martin Konvicka, Kamil Zimmermann & Zdenek Fric

  3. Mendel University in Brno, School of Agronomy, Zemědělská 1, 613 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Vladimir Hula

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  1. Martin Konvicka
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  2. Kamil Zimmermann
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Correspondence to Martin Konvicka.

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Konvicka, M., Zimmermann, K., Klimova, M. et al. Inverse link between density and dispersal distance in butterflies: field evidence from six co-occurring species. Popul Ecol 54, 91–101 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-011-0277-2

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