In my PhD, I looked at how wildlife survives in landscapes that are increasingly shaped by people, focusing on butterflies in fragmented woodland across Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes is a useful case study because of its distinctive structure, with large grid roads separating neighbourhoods, and a dense network of parks, woodlands, and green corridors running between them. It has a strong reputation for trees and urban nature, but it is still a city, with habitats divided by roads, housing, and other development. My thesis asked what actually allows species to persist in a place like this.

To explore that, I combined field surveys with long-term monitoring data and statistical modelling to examine how butterfly populations respond to differences in habitat quality and landscape connectivity. Butterflies are a good group to study because they are sensitive to environmental change and closely tied to specific habitat features, such as vegetation structure and the availability of food plants.

One of the main findings of my thesis is that habitat quality and connectivity often matter more than patch size alone. I found that relatively small woodland sites in Milton Keynes could support stable butterfly populations when they were well managed and well connected to nearby green spaces. In contrast, larger sites were sometimes more vulnerable to decline if habitat quality was poor or if they were isolated from the surrounding landscape. This challenges the idea that conserving biodiversity is mainly about protecting or creating large habitat patches.

My work also showed that different species respond in different ways. Some butterflies were strongly influenced by landscape connectivity, benefiting from networks of habitats that allowed individuals to move between sites. Others were more sensitive to local habitat conditions. This shows why conservation strategies need to be flexible and species-specific, rather than relying on a single approach everywhere.

Overall, my thesis shows that meaningful biodiversity conservation is possible even in urban environments. In a city like Milton Keynes, improving the quality of existing habitats and maintaining connections between them can have a real impact. The findings highlight the importance of thinking about cities as networks of habitats, with clear implications for urban planning, land management, and how we design green spaces for both people and wildlife.