Appendix A. Species, data, and study systems.
Demography and dispersal were estimated in five metapopulations, which were isolated from other metapopulations of the species. As we did not find any data for several metapopulations of a given species, the five metapopulations correspond to five different species: four Fritillaries and one Satyrinae.
(1) The Bog Fritillary Proclossiana eunomia Esper is a specialist Nymphalid species restricted in Western Europe to peat bogs and wet hay meadows with Polygonum bistorta L. Adults were monitored by Capture-Mark-Recapture (CMR) each year since 1992 in a patchy population (Baguette and Nève 1994) in southeastern Belgium, which is the central part of a larger metapopulation (Nève et al. 1996). Yearly population size estimates for the whole patchy population were obtained from these CMR data using constrained linear models (CLM) (Schtickzelle et al. 2002). CMR results also indicated that adult butterflies are able to move between relatively distant local populations (4600 m), but genetic analyses revealed that this metapopulation is isolated from others in the landscape (Vandewoestijne and Baguette, unpublished data).
(2) The Cranberry Fritillary Boloria aquilonaris Stichel, whose larvae feed on Vaccinium oxycoccos L., is another peat bog specialist. The same procedure (CMR and CLM) was used to produce yearly population size estimates for a metapopulation located in a landscape in southeastern Belgium (Baguette and Schtickzelle 2003), where long distance dispersal movements up to 13,500 m were detected (Baguette 2003). Here again, genetic analyses revealed that the metapopulation is isolated from other populations of B. aquilonaris (Vandewoestijne and Baguette 2002).
(3) The Marsh Fritillary Euphydryas aurinia Rottemburg lives mainly in wet meadows and peat bogs where larvae feed on Succisia pratensis Moench. Larvae from the same clutch overwinter in conspicuous collective nests at the bottom of a stem of the food plant. As adult females generally lay only one large egg batch, the number of nests is a reliable estimate of the effective female population size. The largest population in Belgium was monitored yearly in autumn as of 1994 by counting all the nests; we used population size estimates (obtained in 1995 from CMR and CLM) to convert observed numbers of nests into adult population size (Schtickzelle; Choutt; Goffart; Fichefet and Baguette, in press.). This patchy population is located in a 5.7 ha wet meadow and completely isolated: the nearest populations are more than 25 km away, largely beyond the dispersal capacity of the species (Warren 1994), but adult movements between subsets of the population (up to 400 m) were recorded.
(4) The population biology of the Bay Checkerspot Euphydryas editha bayensis Sternitzky has been investigated by a long-term study in California (see review in Ehrlich et al. 1975, Ehrlich and Murphy 1981 and many chapters in Ehrlich and Hanski 2004). Adult butterflies were monitored in two local populations (JRC and JRH) each year from 1960 to extinction (1991 for JRC, 1998 for JRH; data used here are 1960-1987 as estimates are poor after that period: Hellmann et al. 2003); a third population (JRG) was situated between JRC and JRH, and a fourth (Woodside) in the North of Jasper Ridge, but no long-term series of size were available for these populations. Movements of adult butterflies between JRC and JRH (1200 m), as well as between JRC and Woodside B (4700 m) were reported (Hellmann et al. 2004; C.L. Boggs, personal communication); these populations are isolated from other local populations in the landscape (Hellmann et al. 2003).
(5) Lopinga achine Scopoli is a forest Satyrinae species, and its ecology and habitat differ therefore from the four previous species. It is threatened in large parts of Western Europe, where it inhabits glade edges with Carex montana L. An isolated metapopulation of the species has been studied by Bergman and Landin (Bergman 2001, Bergman and Landin 2002) in the province of Östergötland (Sweden): population size time series, obtained from CMR and Jolly-Seber method, are reported for seven populations, of which four are long enough for use here (populations A, C, D, and N). Movements up to 3500 m were recorded in this metapopulation (Bergman and Landin 2002).
From both ecological and morphological viewpoints, the four species of Fritillary butterflies are closely related, while L. achine is relatively different; it should be viewed as a kind of control because of such differences and the fact that the data for this species are also somewhat different (peak population sizes instead of total population size over the whole generation; both are correlated but not perfectly). All are univoltine specialist species living in small discrete open habitats scattered in the landscape. E. e. bayensis is a subspecies listed as threatened under the United States Federal Endangered Species Act, whereas the four other species are endangered in Western Europe.
See Appendix C for list of references.