Abstract
With the implementation of human activities, such as logging, reclamation, and construction, the increasing fragmentation of ecological space and the increasing blockage of biological migration corridors cause many threats to biodiversity conservation. In this study, we used the Northwest Beijing Ecological Containment Area as the research area. Based on an integrated circuit theoretical model, we identified functional connectivity networks and analyzed the spatial and temporal changes of ecological blockage patterns in the region from 1998–2018 in terms of the landscape connectivity, ecological breakpoints, pinch points, and barriers, respectively. The results show that the average remote sensing ecological index had a trend of decreasing and then increasing, and a total of 33, 34, and 63 habitat core areas and 70, 74, and 152 ecological corridors were identified in 1998, 2010, and 2018, respectively. The regions with high ecological blockage were mainly in the central part of Yanqing District, the southwest corner of the study area, and the eastern urban area. Although the number of potential ecological corridors gradually increases with the probability of migration in the study area, the blockage status and vulnerability of the ecological corridors continue to increase due to the conflict between land uses. The ecological status of the study area reflects the comprehensive effectiveness of the capital’s high-quality development under the strategic deployment of ecological civilization. In the context of habitat fragmentation, the effective protection and restoration of the ecological conditions in the ecological function areas is of great importance in guaranteeing the ecological quality and sustainable development of the country.
Highlights
Continued human activity alters the land use and land cover of a region, resulting in landscape fragmentation, which is considered to be a key driver for the loss of natural habitat, the spread of patches, and the reduction in biodiversity [1,2]
Was used to evaluate the habitat quality in the study area, which consists of the normalized vegetation index (NDVI), the wetness component of the tasseled cap transformation (WET), and the land surface temperature (LST) and the normalized difference built-up and soil index (NDBSI), coupled to reflect the greenness, wetness, heat, and dryness that are closely related to human activities [46]
By analyzing the spatial and temporal evolution of the overall landscape connectivity in the study area with the use of the current density maps to reflect the migration probability between any two source sites, we found that the number and location of the habitat core areas played a dominant role in influencing the overall connectivity of the study area (Figure 5), and the magnitude of current values increased year by year from 1998 to 2018, which indicates that the landscape permeability became higher and the landscape matrix connectivity improved year by year
Summary
Continued human activity alters the land use and land cover of a region, resulting in landscape fragmentation, which is considered to be a key driver for the loss of natural habitat, the spread of patches, and the reduction in biodiversity [1,2]. With population and economic growth, the human impact on the surface landscape, including the phenomenon of urban sprawl and the continued extension and networking of artificial corridors such as roads, has increased dramatically [3–5]. The meaning of ecological blockage in the ecological sense includes, in addition to geospatial distance blockage (geographic isolation), migration and blocked isolation of genetic exchange and movement among individuals or populations of organisms caused by changes in subsistence conditions, such as climate temperature, moisture, and food, as well as by shifts in land use types. Under the dual threats of climate change and the expansion of modified ecosystems, the protection and the restoration of landscape connectivity by creating effective ecological networks have become core strategies for nature conservation [7–9].
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