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In dynamic landscapes, effective species conservation requires an understanding of the spatial and temporal dynamics of species’ habitats. In this study, vegetation data across differently aged sites, site management history data and expert elicitation are used to estimate (i) expected habitat patch lifetimes and (ii) the impacts of habitat management history on how habitat quality changes through time for an early‐successional habitat specialist, the endangered false heath fritillary butterfly (Melitaea diamina). Results demonstrate the accelerated temporal dynamics experienced by false heath fritillary habitats, with the quality of false heath fritillary habitats peaking 2–3 years after management, and a median‐sized habitat patch initially without tree cover predicted to become unsuitable 15 years after management due to overgrowth. As a co‐product of habitat management patterns, habitat succession and land use changes, non‐conserved false heath fritillary habitats had an expected lifetime of 13.1 years. This study demonstrates a method that can be used to estimate habitat network dynamics for an early‐successional habitat specialist economically in situations where the urgency of conservation challenges favours fast decision‐making.

BackgroundSpecies 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.ResultsThe riparian population of the false heath fritillary did not show major differences to reference populations in terms of movement parameters within breeding habitat, high-quality matrix and low-quality matrix. However, movement simulations showed that the habitat-specific movement parameters estimated for the false heath fritillary can lead into markedly different movement patterns in structurally different landscapes. An artificial riparian landscape mimicking those of the coastal distribution resulted into more directional, longitudinal movements both parallel and perpendicular to the river than a more mosaic-like landscape, but the existence of the river in the landscape reduced movements across the river.ConclusionsOur study demonstrates how habitat-specific movement models enable comparisons of movement patterns across structurally different real, altered and artificial landscapes. As such, they can be used to compare movement parameters across populations, to study the effects of management interventions to endangered species and to identify areas that have high sensitivity to individual movement. In our case study, the river is shown to perform a dual role for the movements of the riparian false heath fritillary population. Whereas the river acts as a moderate movement barrier for the false heath fritillary, the longitudinal configuration of riverbank habitats provides a means especially for the male false heath fritillaries to move across the landscape.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40462-015-0031-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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1. Global policy for future biodiversity conservation is ultimately implemented at landscape and local scales. In parallel, green infrastructure planning needs to account for socioeconomic dynamics at national and global scales. Progress towards policy goals must, in turn, be evaluated at the landscape scale. Evaluation tools are often environmental quality indicators. How developments of different organism groups will relate to developments of these indicators is unclear.2. We evaluated three management scenarios for a 100,000 hectare boreal forest landscape in the coming 100 years in terms of their effects on the future habitat suitability/occupancy of four bird species, six wood-decaying fungi and one lichen, most of them red-listed. The scenarios optimize financial returns and account for downscaled projected global demand of wood given a middle-of-the road Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP2). We contrast a reference scenario meeting the wood demand against an economy scenario with no upper harvest limit, and a green infrastructure scenario optimizing the levels of environmental indicators. Environmental indicators generally reached the highest and lowest levels in thegreen infrastructure and economy scenarios, respectively. Most indicators increased further in set-asides. The profit was 14% lower in the green infrastructure and 2% higher in the economy than in the reference scenario.4. In the green infrastructure scenario, the species increased on average by 135%, followed by the reference scenario (+65%), and the economy scenario (+47%).All bird species increased in the green infrastructure scenario, while in the other scenarios, only hazel grouse increased and Siberian tit instead decreased. Most fungi increased in the production forest of the green infrastructure scenario but decreased in the economy scenario. All increased in set-asides. In all scenarios, the lichen Lobaria pulmonaria increased, owing to host tree retention. Synthesis and applications.Effects of global socioeconomic developments can be downscaled and accounted for in planning landscape-scale forest and