Landscape heterogeneity and population stability- implications for conservation

Habitat heterogeneity is often suggested as being important for the stability of populations, and promoted as a means to aid the conservation of species, but the evidence for such an assumption is poor. We summarise a study which shows that heterogeneous landscapes that contain a variety of suitable habitat types are associated with more stable population dynamics for 35 British butterfly species from 166 sites. In addition, topographic heterogeneity may also promote stability. Responses to landscape heterogeneity differed among species; for more mobile ‘wider-countryside’ species, habitat heterogeneity at larger landscape scales had the strongest effect on population dynamics. We discuss the implications of these results for landscape-scale conservation policy and identify knowledge gaps for future research in this area.