Beyond dispersal: the role of animal movement in modern agricultural landscapes

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter three major concepts relating animal population dynamics to landscape change mediated by animal mobility are outlined: meta-population/community dynamics (affecting many habitat specialists), spillover (affecting e.g. ground-living predators), and landscape complementation (affecting e.g. central-place foragers). It is shown that all three concepts contribute to current understanding of animal population dynamics in production landscapes, and that animals differ fundamentally in the extent to which the concepts are applicable. Therefore, it is argued that general recipes such as ‘reduce fragmentation’, ‘increase connectivity’, or ‘increase ecological heterogeneity’ may not provide a universal solution for conserving animals in contemporary agricultural landscapes. In addition, although animal movement studies have contributed to the understanding of biodiversity conservation in farmland, current knowledge about animal mobility is still limited. Thus research based on emerging methods such as landscape genetics or novel methods of tracking small animals is essential for increasing basic understanding of animal mobility.