Ecology Letters (2001) 4, 300-303

Kelvin F. Conrad, Joe N. Perry and Ian P. Woiwod (2001)
An abundance-occupancy time-lag during the decline of an arctiid tiger moth
Ecology Letters 4 (4), 300-303
Abstract: The positive interspecific abundance-occupancy relationship is one of the most general patterns in ecology. Positive intraspecific relationships should also exist within species over time, and so a species should occupy more sites in years when it is more abundant. However, positive intraspecific relationships are not as ubiquitous as their interspecific counterparts. It has been hypothesized that low levels of temporal variation and time-lags between changes of abundance and occupancy within species make positive intraspecific relationships difficult to detect. We analyse 31 years of U.K.-wide data on the decline of an arctiid moth, Arctia caja, which provides the first empirical demonstration of an abundance-occupancy time-lag for any species. Such time-lags are probably common and we discuss their impact on the intraspecific abundance-occupancy relationship and their implications for conservation management. In A. caja, the time-lag indicates that the decline of the species is probably not driven by habitat loss.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
population dynamics/ epidemiology

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Arctia caja		United Kingdom