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Modelling dispersal of a temperate insect in a changing climate.

Walters RJ, Hassall M, Telfer MG, Hewitt GM, Palutikof JP

School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK. richard.walters@zoologi.su.se

We construct a novel individual-based random-walk model to assess how predicted global climate change might affect the dispersal rates of a temperate insect. Using a novel approach we obtained accurate field measurements of daily movements for individuals over time to parameterize our model. Males were found to move significantly further on average than females. Significant variation in movement was evident among individuals; the most dispersive individuals moved up to five (females) and seven (males) times as far on average as the least dispersive individuals. Mean relative daily movement of both males and females were exponentially related to maximum daily temperature recorded within the grass sward. Variability, both within and among individuals, in relative daily movement was incorporated into the model using gamma probability distributions. Resultant dispersal functions for seasonal movement are predicted to be highly leptokurtic, which agrees well with observations from the field. Predictions of the model suggest that for populations at the polewards edge of the current range an increase of 3-5 degrees C in daily maximum temperature may increase the proportion of long-distance dispersers (those characterized as comprising the top 0.1% of furthest dispersing individuals under local conditions experienced during the 1963-1990 period) by up to 70%.

Published 18 July 2006 in Proc Biol Sci, 273(1597): 2017-23.
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