There is a growing scientific interest to understand the role of particular landscapes features for the dispersal of organisms. Degree of exchange has been studied intensively, but the focus on dispersal as a process (including associated behaviour and morphology) is rather new. This project aims to understand butterfly dispersal within a framework of meta-populations from a behavioural ecological and evolutionary point of view. Study species are habitat specialists of heahtlands (e.g. Hipparchia semele, Plebeius argus). Research issues are: comparison of behaviour and morphology between dispersing and resident individuals, observation and experimental study of behaviour along habitat vs. non-habitat borders and within non-habitat, detailed analysis of dispersal between habitat patches taking into account features of the landscape matrix using spatial explicit modelling methods. This research combines population ecology, functional morphology and behavioural ecology within a framework of nature conservation.