Prof. Hans van Dyck
Abstract
Habitat is a key concept in ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation. The way it is applied to species often takes the shape of typological thinking biased by human perception. Structural habitats (e.g., land cover types) as perceived by human perception may not always represent functional habitat units of species. Moreover, human activities interfere with the environmental information and cues used by organisms. These challenging issues in the field of behavioural ecology in rapidly changing anthropogenic environments will be illustrated with experimental field research on butterflies.