Demographic and movement parameters in frugivorous butterflies in contrasting environments
movement, dispersion, butterflies, frugivorous, capture-marking-recapture, multi-state models
Currently, habitat fragmentation has been one of the major factors in changing the physiognomy of landscapes and habitats. Understanding how this influences the dispersal and movement of animal species may be crucial for future, conservation and management projects, to take into account this type of behavior of the species. In this study, using as an experimental model a food guild of frugivorous butterflies, we tried to understand how species specialists in forest and generalist species move in a landscape where there is a fragment of Atlantic Forest and neighboring habitats with distinct characteristics of the original forest, a plantation of Acacias and a coqueiral, in different seasons of the year (dry and rainy). Using a capture-mark-recapture method and a multi-state mode approach, we observe that specialists individuals move less between habitats during the dry season and move more during the rainy season and that the reverse occurs with generalist individuals. It is concluded that the movement behavior of frugivorous butterflies depends both on the group (specialist or generalist) in which the species is, and on the season (dry or rainy), as well as on the preferential habitat. From now on, it is necessary to consider the o movement behavior and dispersion in future studies and conservation of the species projects