Abstract
AbstractOne of the most vital and urgent global conservation challenges is to deal with the loss and fragmentation of wildlife habitats, particularly for large‐bodied and wide‐ranging terrestrial megafauna. The Central Forest Spine Master Plan for Ecological Linkages (CFS) was developed by the Malaysian Federal Government in 2010 to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services by securing landscape connectivity between Peninsular Malaysia's main forest blocks. Here we present an evaluation of the effectiveness of the CFS master plan to promote functional connectivity for Asian elephants, one of its focal species. The specific objectives of our study were to identify the most critical forest patches to maintain connectivity for elephants in Peninsular Malaysia, assess functional connectivity within the CFS ecological linkages, and identify alternative corridors where appropriate to enhance CFS effectiveness. We used the largest animal movement dataset in Peninsular Malaysia (220,000 GPS locations from 53 elephants) to develop models of elephant movement probability and to estimate landscape resistance using step selection functions based on landscape characteristics. According to our evaluation of 28 linkages, 57% of them provided high functional connectivity, 28% provided acceptable connectivity, and 14% provided low to no connectivity. A very important and positive finding is that the CFS linkages with the highest centrality values (i.e., the most important to maintain overall connectivity in Peninsular Malaysia) also score highly in functional connectivity (i.e., they are actually effective corridors for elephant movement). This means that an adequate CFS implementation can lead to high levels of functional connectivity among Peninsular Malaysia's main forest blocks. Based on our assessment, we recommend to conduct some revisions on the CFS plan to ensure its effectiveness.
Highlights
In the Anthropocene, humans continue expanding our global footprint and coopting resources away from other species (Barnosky, 2008)
We used the largest animal movement dataset in Peninsular Malaysia to develop models of elephant movement probability and to estimate landscape resistance using step selection functions (SSF) based on landscape characteristics
Our model suggests that connectivity is more compromised in the southern part of Peninsular Malaysia
Summary
In the Anthropocene, humans continue expanding our global footprint and coopting resources away from other species (Barnosky, 2008). Many plans have been proposed or are being implemented to use corridor networks to promote habitat connectivity for wildlife in conservation landscapes at continental, regional, and national scales (e.g., Jain, Chong, Chua, & Clements, 2014; Rabinowitz & Zeller, 2010). The principal aim of CFS linkages is to encourage and facilitate different types of wildlife movement by providing structural connectivity between Peninsular Malaysia's main forest blocks (Regional Planning Division, 2009a, 2009b), none of these corridors were designed based on actual wildlife surveys on the ground (Jain et al, 2014). We synthesized our evaluation into practical recommendations for conservation decisionmakers and other stakeholders to consider
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