Landscape connectivity is frequently represented as a property of habitat arrangement, yet insects encounter fragmentation through sensory, behavioral, and survival processes that are not captured by geometry alone. A structurally connected landscape can remain functionally difficult to cross, whereas some altered landscapes can retain realized connectivity for mobile taxa. Approach: This framework decomposes dispersal success into linked components: perceptual range, departure motivation, matrix resistance, movement mortality, patch detectability, and the distinction between structural and functional connectivity. Evidence is interpreted at the level at which it was measured, separating direct movement observations from trait proxies, genetic exchange, community responses, and modeled outcomes. Synthesis: The framework proposes that dispersal success emerges from sequential but interacting filters. An insect must leave a source context, traverse a matrix at acceptable cost, survive exposure, detect or encounter a suitable destination, and convert landscape opportunity into realized movement. High performance in one component cannot automatically compensate for failure in another. Taxon, sex, life stage, resource distribution, experience, spatial scale, and measurement method can shift each filter. Implications: Connectivity management should therefore diagnose which component constrains movement rather than assuming that increasing structural linkage alone will improve dispersal. The framework is a testable synthesis, not a validated predictive model, and requires comparative field validation across insect taxa and landscape contexts.
