Factors including limited habitat range, low dispersal rate, and strong food specialization also contribute to population loss.

[citation needed] In the United Kingdom, Boloria selene is widespread across upland and western Britain, but is not found in central, eastern England or Ireland.

It occurs in damp, grassy habitats, woodland clearings and moorland, but has also been found in dune slacks and coastal cliffs.

[12] However, no major decline was detected from the introduced predators alone, as there was no significance between reduced adult emergence and increased ground birds.

[13] A study using North American populations found that sibling mating events of this species almost always result in unviable offspring.

However, due to the age of the study, more work is needed to confirm that local adaptation is indeed taking place in North American populations of small pearl-bordered fritillaries instead of individual plasticity.

The same study also analyzed among and between population data, and suggested that these animals quickly capitalize on early warming and late cooling regardless of location (in the US at least), and seem to also know when to wait longer or shorter before beginning reproduction.

This species also struggles with breeding across habitat fragments[11] as it must lay eggs exclusively on violets in order to have any viable offspring.

However, adults seem to be quite flexible in their movement patterns, with one study stating that only 45% of released Boloria selene specimens were able to be found and recaptured.

[11] Another study found that this species has another characteristic which makes it vulnerable to extinction: it is not only a dietary specialist, also migrates only small distances.

This creates problems for the species, since fragmentation most strongly affects animals that migrate short distances and are unable to cross the gaps made by human habitat destruction.

[3] Many species, including Boloria selene, fail to find good nesting sites as they cannot pass through the human habitat that divides suitable fragments.

[14] This could be detrimental to a population that already has reduced individual genetic diversity, as sibling mating will become more common as fragmentation chips away at short distance migration and gene flow in this species.