Landscape change effects on habitat quality in a forest biosphere reserve: Implications for the conservation of native habitats

Abstract

Anthropogenic pressures have caused spatial and temporal patterns of Land-Use Land Cover (LULC) change. The LULC change has a significant influence on the quality of natural habitat and ecosystem functions. The study assessed and modeled the habitat quality of the Kaffa biosphere reserve using the “Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs” (InVEST) model. The InVEST model helps to evaluate the impacts of landscape changes on the quality of habitats in combination with habitat-threatening factors. The mean values of the habitat quality indices in 1986, 1999, 2009, and 2019 were 0.80, 0.77, 0.67, and 0.65, respectively. Furthermore, the habitat quality for the years 2034 and 2049 would decrease continuously to 0.61 and 0.60, respectively. Settlement and agricultural areas have a lower habitat quality index compared to the other native habitats. This confirms the expansion of human-modified landscapes such as settlement and agricultural lands in the biosphere reserve, which, in turn, caused degrading the habitat quality of the biosphere reserve. The spatial metrics of patch number, patch density, the largest patch index, and the area mean index showed the prevalence of forest fragmentation. This, in turn, has worsened the overall habitat quality of the biosphere reserve. In addition, the result of the binary logistic regression indicated that the expansion of settlement areas in the biosphere reserve was a significant influencing factor on the habitat quality. Overall, the study results confirmed that the biosphere reserve has both spatial and temporal variability of habitat quality. Therefore, evaluating and predicting the spatiotemporal status of habitat quality under the influence of LULC change can offer a scientific basis for developing strategies for biodiversity conservation and landscape planning.