Interactive effects of distance and matrix on the movements of a peatland dragonfly

• Published in: Ecography
• Main Authors: Chin, Krista S., Taylor, Philip D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2009
• Subjects: Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2009.05744.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1600-0587.2009.05744.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2009.05744.x

We conducted a mark–release–recapture survey of a peatland dragonfly ( Leucorrhinia hudsonica ) in each of two years (2002; 2003) in a harvested forest landscape in western Newfoundland, Canada. The odds of an individual male moving between peatlands was influenced by both the distance between peatlands and the type of intervening habitat (the matrix). Specifically, at meso scales (>700 m) there was a positive effect of the amount of cut matrix between peatlands on the odds of moving, but at fine scales (<700 m) there was the opposite effect; proportionally fewer individuals moved between peatlands. The odds of moving out of a peatland decreased as the surface area of water in the peatland increased. Multi‐state mark–recapture models showed that the daily probability of a male moving between any two peatlands was 1.9% in 2002 and 6.9% in 2003 (n=1527 and 1280 marked individuals). The results suggest that additional empirical studies that directly measure patterns of movement with respect to landscape structure at multiple spatial scales in other taxa and situations are needed in order to uncover other possible non‐linear changes in behavior.