As wildlife becomes more isolated in human-dominated and rapidly changing environments, species conservation requires investment in landscape connectivity. Identifying stepping stones (discrete areas of suitable habitat that facilitate the movement of dispersing individuals) can help meet connectivity goals. We report the occurrence of the snow leopard Panthera uncia in Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, Mongolia, over 250 km from the nearest known population, one of the easternmost records for the species. Ikh Nart Nature Reserve lies within a region considered highly resistant to movement but harbours high densities of argali sheep Ovis ammon and Siberian ibexes Capra sibirica, both important prey items for snow leopards. This occurrence reveals a new distribution record for the species, the capacity of the species to move across low-quality environments, the value of investment in community conservation and collaborative park management, and the role of remote protected areas such as Ikh Nart Nature Reserve as stepping stones for facilitating population expansion and broader connectivity to other potentially suitable but unoccupied areas.

The aim of the present investigation is a thorough inventory of the Harpacticoida (Copepoda) of the Portuguese islands Madeira and Porto Santo to provide a basis for comparisons of the harpacticoid faunas of successive elevations of the so called ‘Madeira Hot Spot Track’. Quantitative samples from 10 sampling locations at the coastlines of both islands were analysed (eight from Madeira and two from Porto Santo) and revealed a total of 27 families of Harpacticoida. Nine of the families were determined on species level comprising 43 species of which 31 were new to science. Comparisons of the family and species assemblages at the different Madeiran sampling locations indicate strong habitat heterogeneity as well as differences of the southern from all remaining locations. The sampling locations at the north and east coast are predominately characterized by interstitial taxa, those of the south coast by more robust burrowing or epibenthic taxa. Furthermore the two easternmost sampling locations of Madeira show clear similarity in terms of their harpacticoid assemblages with the sampling locations of Porto Santo. Eighty-eight per cent of the determined species of Porto Santo occur at the coast of Madeira as well (predominately at the easternmost sampling locations) indicating dispersal of Harpacticoida between both islands.

In the North Sea, observations of the solitary coral Caryophyllia smithii are mostly limited to the north-east coast of the United Kingdom including the Shetland and Orkney islands. To date, C. smithii has not been reported from far offshore locations in the North Sea south of 57.7°N. Distribution of this species appears limited by the restricted availability of natural hard substrata in the central southern North Sea. There are, however, many artificial hard substrata in this area in the form of shipwrecks and offshore oil and gas installations. These may provide stepping stones for C. smithii to expand its distribution. Here we report the first sighting of C. smithii in the central southern North Sea on an unidentified wreck on the Dogger Bank. This is the first offshore observation of any hard coral in the central southern North Sea.

Each point with integer coordinates in d dimensions is occupied by one individual. These individuals produce offspring at a Poisson rate 1, and these offspring migrate and displace other individuals. With probability u (the mutation rate) an offspring is of an entirely new type. A number of points N0 will be occupied by the same type as the individual at the origin. It is shown that the distribution of N0 arising from an ancient mutation does not differ greatly from the distribution of N0 when the mutation is recent. However, the geographical spread is shown to be important, and a central limit theorem is proved for the age of the mutant clone given that a representative is present at a large distance from the origin.

Assume a population is distributed in an infinite lattice of colonies in a migration and random mating model in which all individuals are selectively equivalent. In one and two dimensions, the population tends in time to consolidate into larger and larger blocks, each composed of the descendants of a single initial individual. Let N(t) be the (random) size of a block intersecting a fixed colony at time t. Then E[N(t)] grows like √t in one dimension, t/log t in two, and t in three or more dimensions. On the other hand, each block by itself eventually becomes extinct. In two or more dimensions, we prove that N(t)/E[N(t)] has a limiting gamma distribution, and thus the mortality of blocks does not make the limiting distribution of N(t) singular. Results are proven for discrete time and sketched for continuous time.

If a mutation rate u > 0 is imposed, the ‘block structure' has an equilibrium distribution. If N(u) is the size of a block intersecting a fixed colony at equilibrium, then as u → 0 N(u)/E[N(u)] has a limiting exponential distribution in two or more dimensions. In biological systems u ≈ 10–6 is usually quite small.

The proofs are by using multiple kinship coefficients for a stepping stone population.