Figure 13.18 Metapopulation dynamics of a butterfly. (a) The Glanville fritillary butterfly lives in isolated meadows on the Åland Islands of Finland. Here, the butterflies exist as a metapopulation. (b) On the Finnish island of Sottungia, researchers placed butterflies in 10 of the 20 available meadows. Over time, the number of occupied patches varied from 3 to 14 with all of the original patches going extinct and some of them being recolonized. After a decade, the metapopulation was composed of 11 occupied patches, a number that is very close to its original starting point.

Data from I. Hanksi et al., Checkerspots and conservation biology, in On the Wings of Checkerspots, ed. P. Ehrlich and I. Hansk, Oxford University Press, 2004. Photo by Robert Thompson/naturepl.com.