Abstract
One of the biggest challenges in large-scale conservation is quantifying connectivity at broad geographic scales and for a large set of species. Because connectivity analyses can be computationally intensive, and the planning process quite complex when multiple taxa are involved, assessing connectivity at large spatial extents for many species turns to be often intractable. Such limitation results in that conducted assessments are often partial by focusing on a few key species only, or are generic by considering a range of dispersal distances and a fixed set of areas to connect that are not directly linked to the actual spatial distribution or mobility of particular species. By using a graph theory framework, here we propose an approach to reduce computational effort and effectively consider large assemblages of species in obtaining multi-species connectivity priorities. We demonstrate the potential of the approach by identifying defragmentation priorities in the Italian road network focusing on medium and large terrestrial mammals. We show that by combining probabilistic species graphs prior to conducting the network analysis (i) it is possible to analyse connectivity once for all species simultaneously, obtaining conservation or restoration priorities that apply for the entire species assemblage; and that (ii) those priorities are well aligned with the ones that would be obtained by aggregating the results of separate connectivity analysis for each of the individual species. This approach offers great opportunities to extend connectivity assessments to large assemblages of species and broad geographic scales.
Highlights
Natural areas have largely been converted to croplands, plantations, pastures and humanmade infrastructures [1], increasing the fragmentation of natural habitats globally [2] and negatively affecting species richness and abundance [3]
Europe is one of the continents with the longest history of land use [4], and today a large proportion of European lands are devoted to agriculture [5]
We considered 2 alternative aggregations of the node attributes for each individual species k into the node attributes of the composite multi-species network, as given by Eq 4 and 5: Xn ai 1⁄4
Summary
Natural areas have largely been converted to croplands, plantations, pastures and humanmade infrastructures [1], increasing the fragmentation of natural habitats globally [2] and negatively affecting species richness and abundance [3]. Europe is densely populated and highly urbanized [5,6], and holds one of the densest road networks globally [7]. Roads are one of the most disrupting elements in landscapes, likely limiting animal movements and spatial dynamics of natural populations. Roads are known to have important ecological effects on wildlife through reduced habitat quality, increased mortality due to collisions with vehicles, and disruption of movement patterns potentially leading to genetic isolation [8,9,10,11]. European habitats are considered to be highly fragmented [5,6]
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