Movement Patterns Differ between Sexes and Depend on Weather Conditions in the Butterfly Lycaena tityrus

Habitat loss and anthropogenic climate change are important threats to biodiversity conservation. Owing to the concomitantly deteriorating habitat quality, individuals are often forced to disperse to new habitats, rendering dispersal an ecologically important process. However, dispersal ability may differ within and among populations, and is further dependent on environmental conditions. We therefore studied sexual differences in and environmental effects on movement patterns in the sooty copper butterfly Lycaena tityrus . As predicted, males were more active and covered longer distances than females, presumably owing to mate location and territorial disputes. Males alighted more often on flowers than females, probably to fuel their high flight activity, while females showed a high affinity to host-plants for egg-laying. Our findings provide a striking example of sex-related differences in animal behavior, as revealed by the use of customary smartphones, which apparently can comprise suitable means to reveal biologically significant behavioural patterns. More problematic than the technical device used seems to be the challenge of following individual butterflies for long enough in the field, such that any extrapolations to dispersal seem difficult.