Detecting barriers and facilities to species dispersal: Introducing sloping flow connectivity

摘要

Connectivity in ecology deals with the problem of how biotic dispersals can happen, given actual landscapeproperties and species presence/absence over such landscape. Recently I have introduced a modelling approach(flow connectivity) to ecological connectivity that is alternative to circuit theory, and is able to fix the weakpoint of the “from-to” connectivity approach. In addition, I’ve introduced “reverse flow connectivity” thatcouples evolutionary algorithms to partial differential equations in order to fix the problem of subjectivity inthe attribution of friction values to landscape categories. I’ve also showed that flow connectivity can be used topredict biotic movements happened in the past (backward flow connectivity). To date, there has been littleeffort by conservation scientists towards detecting restoration opportunities by mapping barriers that stronglyreduce movement potential. In this paper, I introduce a new kind of theoretical and modelling approach called“sloping flow connectivity”. The goal of such proposal is to individuate and map barriers and facilities tospecies dispersals over the landscape. I define here a barrier as a landscape feature that impedes bioticmovements, the removal of which would increase the potential for biotic shifts. Using sloping flowconnectivity, it’s possible to plan greenways and ecological networks in an effective manner, since it is able toenhance the real potential of each landscape elements to facilitate or obstruct both directional and overallspecies movements.