Functional connectivity of lynx at their southern range periphery in Ontario, Canada

Walpole, Aaron A.; Bowman, Jeff; Murray, Dennis L.; Wilson, Paul J.

doi:10.1007/s10980-012-9728-1

Cited by 92 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Nodes placed within the study area resulted in a saturation of current, making it difficult to discern areas of high and low current caused by landscape patterns rather than node placement. and Walpole et al (2012) also placed nodes around the perimeter of the study area.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Landscape connectivity for wildlife: development and validation of multispecies linkage maps

et al. 2014

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Summary1. The ability to identify regions of high functional connectivity for multiple wildlife species is of conservation interest with respect to habitat management and corridor planning. We present a method that does not require independent, field-collected data, is insensitive to the placement of source and destination sites (nodes) for modeling connectivity, and does not require the selection of a focal species. 2. In the first step of our approach, we created a cost surface that represented permeability of the landscape to movement for a suite of species. We randomly selected nodes around the perimeter of the buffered study area and used circuit theory to connect pairs of nodes. When the buffer was removed, the resulting current density map represented, for each grid cell, the probability of use by moving animals. 3. We found that using nodes that were randomly located around the perimeter of the buffered study area was less biased by node placement than randomly selecting nodes within the study area. We also found that a buffer of ≥ 20% of the study area width was sufficient to remove the effects of node placement on current density. We tested our method by creating a map of connectivity in the Algonquin to Adirondack region in eastern North America, and we validated the map with independently collected data. We found that amphibians and reptiles were more likely to cross roads in areas of high current density, and fishers (Pekania [Martes] pennanti) used areas with high current density within their home ranges. 4. Our approach provides an efficient and cost effective method of predicting areas with relatively high landscape connectivity for multiple species..

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The benefits of this model include the ability of users to predict multiple pathways that account for the shape and structure of habitat swaths. Walpole et al (2012) and Pelletier et al (2014) extended the circuit theory model to be independent of point-based nodes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape connectivity for wildlife: development and validation of multispecies linkage maps

et al. 2014

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“…These user defined resistance models have been tested based on limited inference from few radiomarked individuals (Driezen et al 2007). However, examples exist of deriving resistance values from occurrence probability from occupancy models (Walpole et al 2012) or using a variety of different threshold values based on the most traversable habitat from radio-marked individuals (Poor et al 2012). Of importance is that these applications fail to utilize the information from animal movements to directly estimate landscape resistance values.…”

Section: Landscape Management and Corridor Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unifying population and landscape ecology with spatial capture–recapture

Royle¹,

Fuller

Sutherland³

2017

Ecography

126

172

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Spatial heterogeneity in the environment induces variation in population demographic rates and dispersal patterns, which result in spatio-temporal variation in density and gene flow. Unfortunately, applying theory to learn about the role of spatial structure on populations has been hindered by the lack of mechanistic spatial models and inability to make precise observations of population state and structure. Spatial capture-recapture (SCR) represents an individual-based analytic framework for overcoming this fundamental obstacle that has limited the utility of ecological theory. SCR methods make explicit use of spatial encounter information on individuals in order to model density and other spatial aspects of animal population structure, and they have been widely adopted in the last decade. We review the historical context and emerging developments in SCR models that enable the integration of explicit ecological hypotheses about landscape connectivity, movement, resource selection, and spatial variation in density, directly with individual encounter history data obtained by new technologies (e.g. camera trapping, non-invasive DNA sampling). We describe ways in which SCR methods stand to advance the study of animal population ecology.

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“…Unfortunately, many examples of cost-based corridor model applications have weaknesses, for example the use of habitat selection information that is generalized from the literature (e.g., LaRue and Nielsen 2008;Li et al 2010;Huck et al 2011) (despite being locality specific and often variable across sites and thus not generalizable ;Fahrig 2007) and the cost-based models themselves unrealistically assume an animal either has complete knowledge of the landscape (e.g., least cost path analysis; Adriaensen et al 2003) or no memory of the landscape (i.e., random walkers; e.g., McRae et al 2008). Most importantly, despite intending to predict and facilitate animal movements, most corridor studies do not directly incorporate animal behavior into their models (Chetkiewicz et al 2006;Beier et al 2008;Sawyer et al 2011;Zeller et al 2012), and only a few have compared their model predictions with movement data (Driezen et al 2007;Poor et al 2012;Walpole et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal behavior, cost-based corridor models, and real corridors

et al. 2013

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Corridors are popular conservation tools because they are thought to allow animals to safely move between habitat fragments, thereby maintaining landscape connectivity. Nonetheless, few studies show that mammals actually use corridors as predicted. Further, the assumptions underlying corridor models are rarely validated with field data. We categorized corridor use as a behavior, to identify animal-defined corridors, using movement data from fishers (Martes pennanti) tracked near Albany, New York, USA. We then used least-cost path analysis and circuit theory to predict fisher corridors and validated the performance of all three corridor models with data from camera traps. Six of eight fishers tracked used corridors to connect the forest patches that constitute their home ranges, however the locations of these corridors were not well predicted by the two cost-based models, which together identified only 5 of the 23 used corridors. Further, camera trap data suggest the cost-based corridor models performed poorly, often detecting fewer fishers and mammals than nearby habitat cores, whereas camera traps within animal-defined corridors recorded more passes made by fishers, carnivores, and all other nontarget mammal groups. Our results suggest that (1) fishers use corridors to connect disjunct habitat fragments, (2) animal movement data can be used to identify corridors at local scales, (3) camera traps are useful tools for testing corridor model predictions, and (4) that corridor models can be improved by incorporating animal behavior data. Given the conservation importance and monetary costs of corridors, improving and validating corridor model predictions is vital.

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Functional connectivity of lynx at their southern range periphery in Ontario, Canada

Cited by 92 publications

References 40 publications

Landscape connectivity for wildlife: development and validation of multispecies linkage maps

Landscape connectivity for wildlife: development and validation of multispecies linkage maps

Unifying population and landscape ecology with spatial capture–recapture

Animal behavior, cost-based corridor models, and real corridors

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