Abstract
The approximately 300 (298, 95% CI: 152–581) elephants in the Lower Kinabatangan Managed Elephant Range in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo are a priority sub-population for Borneo's total elephant population (2,040, 95% CI: 1,184–3,652). Habitat loss and human-elephant conflict are recognized as the major threats to Bornean elephant survival. In the Kinabatangan region, human settlements and agricultural development for oil palm drive an intense fragmentation process. Electric fences guard against elephant crop raiding but also remove access to suitable habitat patches. We conducted expert opinion-based least-cost analyses, to model the quantity and configuration of available suitable elephant habitat in the Lower Kinabatangan, and called this the Elephant Habitat Linkage. At 184 km2, our estimate of available habitat is 54% smaller than the estimate used in the State's Elephant Action Plan for the Lower Kinabatangan Managed Elephant Range (400 km2). During high flood levels, available habitat is reduced to only 61 km2. As a consequence, short-term elephant densities are likely to surge during floods to 4.83 km−2 (95% CI: 2.46–9.41), among the highest estimated for forest-dwelling elephants in Asia or Africa. During severe floods, the configuration of remaining elephant habitat and the surge in elephant density may put two villages at elevated risk of human-elephant conflict. Lower Kinabatangan elephants are vulnerable to the natural disturbance regime of the river due to their limited dispersal options. Twenty bottlenecks less than one km wide throughout the Elephant Habitat Linkage, have the potential to further reduce access to suitable habitat. Rebuilding landscape connectivity to isolated habitat patches and to the North Kinabatangan Managed Elephant Range (less than 35 km inland) are conservation priorities that would increase the quantity of available habitat, and may work as a mechanism to allow population release, lower elephant density, reduce human-elephant conflict, and enable genetic mixing.
Highlights
As wildlife habitats and populations become increasingly isolated, assessing the relative potential for animal movement between habitat patches, known as the permeability of the landscape [1], becomes increasingly important to understanding a landscape’s functional connectivity
As a thin strip following the Kinabatangan River, the Elephant Habitat Linkage has an average width of only 1.3 km
The area with visual connectivity of forests in the Lower Kinabatangan was estimated at 351 km2
Summary
As wildlife habitats and populations become increasingly isolated, assessing the relative potential for animal movement between habitat patches, known as the permeability of the landscape [1], becomes increasingly important to understanding a landscape’s functional connectivity. Landscape permeability is species specific, is linked to both habitat composition and configuration in a landscape, and is spatially and temporally complex. Managers must consider movement of target species at multiple scales. Landscape connectivity that supports intra-territorial movement necessary for wildlife to access habitat resources may not maintain movement at greater spatial scales such as the inter-territorial movements influencing metapopulation function, dispersal, and range shifts [1]. A lack of connectivity can leave otherwise suitable wildlife habitat unoccupied [2] resulting in discrepancies between the spatial distribution of suitable habitat and species occupancy [3]
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