Structural connectivity as an indicator of species richness and landscape diversity in Castilla y León (Spain)

Abstract

Connectivity loss has been identified as one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, at both the species and ecosystem levels. This study aims to find possible correlations between structural connectivity and faunal richness and landscape diversity in Spain’s largest region, Castilla y León. Based on data provided by the National Biodiversity Inventory and the CORINE Land Cover land-use mapping for 2000 and 2006, species richness was characterized by the number of species occurring in a grid overlaid on the 10 × 10-km-territory. The Shannon Index for land uses was also calculated in each one of the grid cells, providing information on landscape diversity. Structural connectivity was studied using the Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis, thus providing information on landscape diversity for different edge widths in two different habitat types. Lastly, the analyses showed that there is a slight relationship between structural connectivity and landscape diversity, but not between structural connectivity and faunal richness.