The contribution of roadsides to connect grassland habitat patches for butterflies in landscapes of contrasting permeability.

Roadsides, in particular those being species-rich and of conservation value, are considered to improve landscape permeability by providing corridors among habitat patches and by facilitating species' dispersal. However, little is known about the potential connectivity offered by such high-value roadsides. Using circuit theory, we modelled connectivity provided by high-value roadsides in landscapes with low or high permeability in south-central Sweden, with 'permeability' being measured by the area of semi-natural grasslands.

Species partitioning in a temperate mountain chain: Segregation by habitat vs. interspecific competition.

Disentangling the relative influence of the environment and biotic interactions in determining species coexistence patterns is a major challenge in ecology. The zonation occurring along elevation gradients, or at bioclimatic contact zones, offers a good opportunity to improve such understanding because the small scale at which the partitioning occurs facilitates inference based on experiments and ecological modelling. We studied the influence of abiotic gradients, habitat types, and interspecific competition in determining the spatial turnover between two pipit and two bunting species in NW Spain.

The evolutionary convergence of avian lifestyles and their constrained coevolution with species' ecological niche.

The fit between life histories and ecological niche is a paradigm of phenotypic evolution, also widely used to explain patterns of species co-occurrence. By analysing the lifestyles of a sympatric avian assemblage, we show that species' solutions to environmental problems are not unbound. We identify a life-history continuum structured on the cost of reproduction along a temperature gradient, as well as habitat-driven parental behaviour.

Individual and spatio-temporal variations in the home range behaviour of a long-lived, territorial species.

Despite the fact that investigations of home range behaviour have exponentially evolved on theoretical, analytical and technological grounds, the factors that shape animal home range behaviour still represent an unsolved question and a challenging field of research. However, home range studies have recently begun to be approached under a new integrated conceptual framework, considering home range behaviour as the result of the simultaneous influences of temporal, spatial and individual-level processes, with potential consequences at the population level. Following an integrated approach, we studied the influence of both external and internal factors on variations in the home range behaviour of 34 radiotagged eagle owl (Bubo bubo) breeders.