RT journal article
T1 A distribution-oriented approach to support landscape connectivity for ecologically distinct bird species
A1 Herrera Vega, José Manuel
A1 Alagador, Diogo
A1 Salgueiro, Pedro
A1 Mira, António
A2 Biología
AB Managing landscape connectivity is a widely recognized overarching strategy for conservingbiodiversity in human-impacted landscapes. However, planning the conservation and man-agement of landscape connectivity of multiple and ecologically distinct species is still challeng-ing. Here we provide a spatially-explicit framework which identifies and prioritizes connectivityconservation and restoration actions for species with distinct habitat affinities. Specifically, ourstudy system comprised three groups of common bird species, forest-specialists, farmland-specialists, and generalists, populating a highly heterogeneous agricultural countryside in thesouthwestern Iberian Peninsula. We first performed a comprehensive analysis of the environ-mental variables underlying the distributional patterns of each bird species to reveal generali-ties in their guild-specific responses to landscape structure. Then, we identified sites whichcould be considered pivotal in maintaining current levels of landscape connectivity for thethree bird guilds simultaneously, as well as the number and location of sites that need to berestored to maximize connectivity levels. Interestingly, we found that a small number of sitesdefined the shortest connectivity paths for the three bird guilds simultaneously, and weretherefore considered key for conservation. Moreover, an even smaller number of sites wereidentified as critical to expand the landscape connectivity at maximum for the regional birdassemblage as a whole. Our spatially-explicit framework can provide valuable decision-mak-ing support to conservation practitioners aiming to identify key connectivity and restorationsites, a particularly urgent task in rapidly changing landscapes such as agroecosystems.
SN 1932-6203
YR 2018
FD 2018
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/30620
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/30620
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 05-nov-2026