The dispersal patterns of animals are important in metapopulation ecology because they affect the dynamics and survival of populations. Theoretical models assume random dispersal but little is known in practice about the dispersal behaviour of individual animals or the strategy by which dispersers locate distant habitat patches. In the present study, we released individual meadow brown butterfl...

Understanding the impact of human disturbance on breeding habitat selection endangered species is critical to improving their conservation. Blue-crowned Laughingthrush Pterorhinus courtoisi (Ménégaux, 1923) syn. Garrulax (Passeriformes: Leiotrichidae) an in China. To explore nesting and its response during period, we conducted a field survey at sites Wuyuan County Dexing City, Jiangxi Province,...

Habitat loss and climate change pose a double jeopardy for many threatened taxa, making the identification of optimal habitat for the future a conservation priority. Using a case study of the endangered Bornean orang-utan, we identify environmental refuges by integrating bioclimatic models with projected deforestation and oil-palm agriculture suitability from the 1950s to 2080s. We coupled a ma...

Habitat selection during the breeding season has important consequences for reproductive success and, in seasonal and heterogeneous environments, most likely occurs on several temporal and spatial scales. I examined several possible topographical, substrate and vegetation, as well as anthropological effects on snowy plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) habitat selection across pre-breeding and bree...

In addition to serving as vectors of several other human pathogens, the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say, and western black-legged tick, Ixodes pacificus Cooley and Kohls, are the primary vectors of the spirochete (Borrelia burgdorferi) that causes Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in the United States. Over the past two decades, the geographic range of I. pacificus has...

In the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade ranges of California and Oregon, a genetically distinct population of the black-backed woodpecker has become rare due, in part, to fire suppression. This species is considered an indicator species for its primary habitat: early successional burned forests with an abundance of standing dead trees. Fuel reduction treatments such as post-fire logging, and ...