Local distribution, metapopulation viability and conservation of the Blue-breasted Fairy-wren in fragmented habitat in the Western Australian wheatbelt

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The distribution of Blue-breasted Fairy-wrens, Malurus pulcherrimus, in 12 million hectares of the central wheatbelt of Western Australia was determined from ‘presence/absence’ records obtained from a search of 273 10’ blocks of latitude and longitude, supplemented with ‘presence-only’ records from the Birds Australia Atlas II, the literature and unpublished records. A simple ‘rule of thumb’ method is presented for ranking remnant neighbourhoods on their metapopulation potential, as a means of assessing future population persistence with respect to the size and isolation of vegetation remnants. The method is used to model the metapopulation structure of Blue-breasted Fairy-wrens and to map their relative likelihood of occurrence across the fragmented landscape of the central wheatbelt. The conservation implications are discussed.