Smarter habitat restoration in harmony with species reintroductions- testing solutions for the Chequered Skipper

栖息地丧失和退化仍然是世界各地物种面临的主要威胁，但在一些地方，栖息地恢复也取得了重大成功。栖息地的恢复可以与物种的重新引入相辅相成，在气候变化的情况下，这两种策略可能越来越需要。然而，重新引进是昂贵的，而且很容易失败，即使是对脊椎动物物种进行了充分的研究。如果我们能够开发出相对简单和可转移的方法来评估栖息地网络是否适合一个物种，我们就可以大大增加可以考虑重新引入的物种的数量和类型。这尤其有利于无脊椎动物，它们是生态系统中丰富而有影响力的组成部分，但研究相对不足。方格Skipper是一种旗舰蝴蝶，在20世纪中期从英国灭绝，可能是由于其栖息地的改变。在北欧的其他地方，它持续存在于林地边缘潮湿的草原栖息地。这种特定的植被结构传统上不会在生境清单中绘制出来，但是新的遥感技术使探测特定物种所需的变量的关键组合变得容易得多。此外，这种技术可以更容易地推广到几乎任何物种。蝴蝶保护组织正在该物种最后一个已知的据点重新引入方格Skipper，那里的栖息地最近已经恢复。该项目旨在为当前和未来的方格跳鱼重新引入提供信息，通过确保栖息地足够人口增长和分布在景观上来提高它们的成功率。通过试验新的、低成本的预测栖息地适宜性的方法，我们也将提供一个模型系统，在此基础上，未来可以引入其他物种。我们的目标是：1。了解促进方格跳鼠种群增长和持久性的关键生境因素。这将通过将北欧监测计划的现有数据与遥感生境特性和一些实地验证相结合来实现。了解方格跳船的空间种群结构，确定支持一个种群或几个相连种群所需的最小栖息地面积。这将通过观察运动行为和从不同大小的栖息地网络中存在/不存在的方格Skipper的推断来实现。我们还将研究遗传方法，以显示邻近种群在功能上是如何联系在一起的。预测栖息地（不）适宜性是否会限制英国重新引入的方格跳船的生存和传播，并测试栖息地的丧失是否解释了20世纪中期英国方格跳船的灭绝。

Habitat loss and degradation remain major threats to species around the world, yet habitat restoration is also enjoying significant success in places. Habitat restoration can go hand-in-hand with the re-introduction of species, and both tactics may be increasingly needed under climate change. However, re-introductions are costly, and quite prone to failure, even with well-studied vertebrate species. If we could develop relatively simple and transferrable methods to assess whether habitat networks are suitable for a species, we will could greatly expand the numbers and types of species that could be considered for re-introduction. This could particularly benefit invertebrates, which are rich and influential components of ecosystems, but relatively understudied.The Chequered Skipper is a flagship butterfly species which went extinct from England in the mid-20th century, likely due to modification of its habitat. Elsewhere in northern Europe, it persists on damp grassland habitats at woodland edges. This specific vegetation structure would not traditionally have been mapped in habitat inventories, but new techniques for remote sensing make it much easier to detect the key combinations of variables that are needed by a particular species. Furthermore, such techniques can more easily be extended to almost any species. Butterfly Conservation are performing re-introductions of Chequered Skipper in the species' last known stronghold, where habitat has recently been restored. This project aims to inform the current and future re-introductions of Chequered Skipper, improving their success by ensuring that the habitat is sufficient for populations to grow and spread over the landscape. By trialling novel and low-cost methods of predicting habitat suitability, we will also provide a model system upon which future introductions of other species can be based.Our objectives are to:1. Understand the key habitat factors that promote Chequered Skipper population growth and persistence. This will be achieved by combining available data from monitoring schemes in northern Europe with remotely-sensed habitat properties and some field validation.2. Understand Chequered Skipper spatial population structure and determine the minimum area of habitat needed to support a population or several linked populations. This will be achieved by observations of movement behaviour and inference from the presence/absence of Chequered Skipper in habitat networks of different sizes. We will also investigate genetic approaches to show how neighbouring populations are functionally linked.3. Predict whether habitat (un)suitability would limit the survival and spread of re-introduced chequered skippers in England, and test whether habitat loss explains the Chequered Skipper's extinction in England in the mid-20th century.