Habitat connectivity is determined by the scale of habitat loss and dispersal strategy

Abstract

Understanding factors that ameliorate the impact of habitat loss is a major focus of conservation research. One key factor influencing species persistence and evolution is the ability to disperse across increasingly patchy landscapes. Here we ask whether interpatch distance (a proxy for habitat loss) and dispersal strategy can interact to form thresholds where connectivity breaks down. We assayed dispersal across a range of interpatch distances in fruit flies carrying allelic variants of a gene known to underlie differences in dispersal strategy. Dispersal‐limited flies experienced a distinct negative threshold in connectivity at greater interpatch distances, and this was not observed in more dispersive flies. Consequently, this differential response of dispersal‐limited and more dispersive flies to decreasing connectivity suggests that habitat loss could have important implications on the evolution and maintenance of genetic variation underlying dispersal strategy.

Functional ecology of wild bees in cities: towards a better understanding of trait-urbanization relationships

“…For example, at the habitat scale, if we know that wild bees of a certain feeding guild rely on certain habitat features such as perennial vegetation, we can inform city policies on vegetation management within city parks and roadsides (Aronson et al 2016;Turo and Gardiner 2019). At the landscape scale, if we understand that certain landscape features such as high habitat connectivity promote species of short flight distances that are critical to pollination services (Edelsparre et al 2018), we can guide city planning to prioritize habitats that connect to other habitats across a city. Aside from biological traits, functional diversity comprises components of biodiversity that are linked to ecosystem processes and therefore adds additional ecological information to typical measures of taxonomic diversity (Magurran and McGill 2011).…”

Individual differences in dominance-related traits drive dispersal and settlement in hatchery-reared juvenile brown trout

“…Dispersal is a central issue for the understanding of evolutionary processes and population dynamics 1 , 2 , with profound implications for current spatial distributions, local population densities, demographic dynamics, and the genetics of spatially-structured populations 3 – 5 . Moreover, dispersal processes are important because of their implications for forecasting animal distributions and for robust decision-making in the areas of resource management and conservation of biodiversity 6 .…”

Scaling up: understanding movement from individual differences to population-level dispersal

“…To evaluate how strain-differences in behaviour influence dispersal of flies in the field we used two inbred strains (rover-for R and sitter-for s ) and one outbred strain of flies. The effect of for on the dispersal strategy of the rover and sitter inbred strains was documented in Edelsparre et al (2014) and Edelsparre et al (2018). The outbred population was established from 92 iso-female lines originally collected in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada (501484.97 E, 5143198.65 N UTM) on August 12, 2012 by Thomas Merritt.…”

“…To accomplish this we first produced a large outbred study population from field collected flies. Secondly, we incorporated individual-level predictors of dispersal by using Drosophila melanogaster that carry variants of a gene known to influence differences in the propensity of the adult fly to disperse (Edelsparre et al 2014;Edelsparre et al 2018). This particular Drosophila system consists of two strains of flies that differ in several movement related behaviours both as larvae and adults and these differences are mediated by natural variation in the foraging (for) gene (Osborne et al 1987;de Belle et al 1993;Pereira and Sokolowski 1993;Edelsparre et al 2014).…”