Dataset Information

Narrow anthropogenic corridors direct the movement of a generalist boreal butterfly.

ABSTRACT: Ecological and anthropogenic corridors are becoming more common worldwide, but little is known about how corridor size (width) affects species' movements, and thus their effects. Here we investigated whether 4- and 8-m wide anthropogenic corridors (seismic lines) cleared for petroleum (oil sands) exploration in boreal forests in Alberta, Canada, act on altering the behaviour of a habitat generalist butterfly, the Arctic fritillary (Boloria chariclea). Specifically, we captured 539 Arctic fritillaries and released them in seismic line corridor or control sites with no structural directionality (i.e. forests and clearings), and recorded both their initial direction (along the seismic line or not) and persistence in directional movements. Arctic fritillaries moved inside these lines twice as often as they left them, and maintained their initial direction more often, regardless of line size and independently of forest structure or sex of individuals. Thus, anthropogenic corridors as narrow as 4 m can affect insect movements. Given the vast area of boreal forests disturbed from seismic assessments, investigating if the effects of these dense, localized lines affect population dynamics and species interactions would provide important insights to managing this ecosystem and identifying restoration actions.

SUBMITTER: Riva F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5830670 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Narrow anthropogenic corridors direct the movement of a generalist boreal butterfly.

Riva Federico F Acorn John H JH Nielsen Scott E SE

Biology letters 20180201 2

Ecological and anthropogenic corridors are becoming more common worldwide, but little is known about how corridor size (width) affects species' movements, and thus their effects. Here we investigated whether 4- and 8-m wide anthropogenic corridors (seismic lines) cleared for petroleum (oil sands) exploration in boreal forests in Alberta, Canada, act on altering the behaviour of a habitat generalist butterfly, the Arctic fritillary (<i>Boloria chariclea</i>). Specifically, we captured 539 Arctic ...[more]

PMID: 29491029

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Project description:BackgroundUnderstanding the factors influencing movement is essential to forecasting species persistence in a changing environment. Movement is often studied using mechanistic models, extrapolating short-term observations of individuals to longer-term predictions, but the role of weather variables such as air temperature and solar radiation, key determinants of ectotherm activity, are generally neglected. We aim to show how the effects of weather can be incorporated into individual-based models of butterfly movement thus allowing analysis of their effects.MethodsWe constructed a mechanistic movement model and calibrated it with high precision movement data on a widely studied species of butterfly, the meadow brown (Maniola jurtina), collected over a 21-week period at four sites in southern England. Day time temperatures during the study ranged from 14.5 to 31.5 °C and solar radiation from heavy cloud to bright sunshine. The effects of weather are integrated into the individual-based model through weather-dependent scaling of parametric distributions representing key behaviours: the durations of flight and periods of inactivity.ResultsFlight speed was unaffected by weather, time between successive flights increased as solar radiation decreased, and flight duration showed a unimodal response to air temperature that peaked between approximately 23 °C and 26 °C. After validation, the model demonstrated that weather alone can produce a more than two-fold difference in predicted weekly displacement.ConclusionsIndividual Based models provide a useful framework for integrating the effect of weather into movement models. By including weather effects we are able to explain a two-fold difference in movement rate of M. jurtina consistent with inter-annual variation in dispersal measured in population studies. Climate change for the studied populations is expected to decrease activity and dispersal rates since these butterflies already operate close to their thermal optimum.

Project description:Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy negatively impacting cervids on three continents. Soil can serve as a reservoir for horizontal transmission of CWD by interaction with the infectious prion protein (PrPCWD) shed by diseased individuals and from infected carcasses. We investigated the pathways for PrPCWD migration in soil profiles using lab-scale soil columns, comparing PrPCWD migration through pure soil minerals (quartz, illite and montmorillonite), and diverse soils from boreal (Luvisol, Brunisol) and prairie (Chernozem) regions. We analyzed the leachate of the soil columns by immunoblot and protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) and detected PrP in the leachates of columns composed of quartz, illite, Luvisol and Brunisol. Animal bioassay confirmed the presence of CWD infectivity in the leachates from quartz, illite and Luvisol columns. Leachates from columns with montmorillonite and prairie Chernozems did not contain PrP detectable by immunoblotting or PMCA; bioassay confirmed that the Chernozemic leachate was not infectious. Analysis of the solid phase of the columns confirmed the migration of PrP to lower layers in the illite column, while the strongest signal in the montmorillonite column remained close to the surface. Montmorillonite, the prevalent clay mineral in prairie soils, has the strongest prion binding ability; by contrast, illite, the main clay mineral in northern boreal and tundra soils, does not bind prions significantly. This suggests that in soils of North American CWD-endemic regions (Chernozems), PrPCWD would remain on the soil surface due to avid binding to montmorillonite. In boreal Luvisols and mountain Brunisols, prions that pass through the leaf litter will continue to move through the soil mineral horizon, becoming less bioavailable. In light-textured soils where quartz is a dominant mineral, the majority of the infectious prions will move through the soil profile. Local soil properties may consequently determine the efficiency of environmental transmission of CWD.

Dataset Information

Narrow anthropogenic corridors direct the movement of a generalist boreal butterfly.

Publications

Narrow anthropogenic corridors direct the movement of a generalist boreal butterfly.

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