No abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Ecological Society of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ecology.Abstract. We used mark-recapture methods to estimate the number of Parnassius smintheus (Papilionidae) butterflies moving among 20 alpine meadows separated by varying amounts of forest along the east slope of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. We combined generalized additive models and generalized linear models to estimate the effects of intervening habitat type and of population size on butterfly movement. By incorporating habitat-specific distances between patches, we were better able to estimate movement compared to a strictly isolation-by-distance model. Our analysis estimated that butterflies move readily through open meadow but that forests are twice as resistant to butterfly movement. Butterflies also tended to stay at sites with high numbers of butterflies, but readily emigrate from sites with small populations. We showed that P. smintheus are highly restricted in their movement at even a fine spatial scale, a pattern reflected in concurrent studies of population genetic structure. As an example of the utility of our approach, we used these statistical models, in combination with aerial photographs of the same area taken in 1952, to estimate the degree to which landscape change over a 43-year interval has reduced movement of butterflies among subpopulations. At these sites, alpine meadow habitat has declined in area by 78%, whereas the estimated effect of fragmentation has been to reduce butterfly movement by 41%.

Four microsatellite DNA markers were developed which were used to examine the relationship between landscape and population genetic structure among a set of populations of the butterfly Parnassius smintheus located in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. Detailed information on the dispersal of adult butterflies among this same set of populations was available. Simple and partial Mantel tests were used to examine the relationships between genetic distances, predicted rates of dispersal, and a number of landscape variables, all measured pairwise for 17 sample sites. Nei's standard genetic distance was negatively correlated with predicted dispersal. We observed a significant pattern of isolation by distance at a very small spatial scale. The distance between sites that was through forest was a stronger predictor of genetic distance than the distance through open meadow, indicating a significant effect of landscape on population genetic structure beyond that of simple isolation by distance. Our results suggest that rises in the tree-line in alpine areas, caused by global warming, will lead to reduced gene flow among populations of P. smintheus.

I examined historical data (1950-1984) on the duration of outbreaks of the forest tent caterpillar (Malacosoma disstria) in northern Ontario, Canada. Outbreak duration was compared to host tree species dominance and forest structure over large areas of boreal forest partially cleared for agriculture. Abundance of the principal host tree species Populus tremuloides had no consistent effect on duration of outbreak within forest districts, and was negatively correlated with duration of outbreaks among the eight forest districts examined. The amount of forest edge per km was the best, and most consistent, predictor of the duration of tent caterpillar outbreaks both within individual forest districts and among forest districts. Because forest tent caterpillar populations are driven largely by the impact of parasitoids and pathogens, results here suggest that large-scale increase in forest fragmentation affects the interaction between these natural enemies and forest tent caterpillar. Increased clearing and fragmentation of boreal forests, by agriculture and forestry, may be exacerbating outbreaks of this forest defoliator.

Habitat fragmentation is a ubiquitous by-product of human activities that can alter the genetic structure of natural populations, with potentially deleterious effects on population persistence and evolutionary potential. When habitat fragmentation results in the subdivision of a population, random genetic drift then leads to the erosion of genetic diversity from within the resulting subpopulations and greater genetic divergence among them. Theoretical and simulation analyses predict that these two main genetic effects of fragmentation, greater differentiation among resulting subpopulations and reduced genetic diversity within them, will proceed at very different rates. Despite important implications for the interpretation of genetic data from fragmented populations, empirical evidence for this phenomenon has been lacking. In this analysis, we carry out an empirical study in populations of an alpine meadow-dwelling butterfly, which have become fragmented by increasing forest cover over five decades. We show that genetic differentiation among subpopulations (G ST ) is most highly correlated with contemporary forest cover, while genetic diversity within subpopulations (expected heterozygosity) is better correlated with the spatial pattern of forest cover 40 years in the past. Thus, where habitat fragmentation has occurred in recent decades, genetic differentiation among subpopulations can be near equilibrium while contemporary measures of within subpopulation diversity may substantially overestimate the equilibrium values that will eventually be attained.