Towards a unified framework for connectivity that disentangles movement and mortality in space and time
Abstract
Predicting connectivity, or how landscapes alter movement, is essential for understanding the scope for species persistence with environmental change. Although it is well known that movement is risky, connectivity modelling often conflates behavioural responses to the matrix through which animals disperse with mortality risk. We derive new connectivity models using random walk theory, based on the concept of spatial absorbing Markov chains. These models decompose the role of matrix on movement behaviour and mortality risk, can incorporate species distribution to predict the amount of flow, and provide both short‐ and long‐term analytical solutions for multiple connectivity metrics. We validate the framework using data on movement of an insect herbivore in 15 experimental landscapes. Our results demonstrate that disentangling the roles of movement behaviour and mortality risk is fundamental to accurately interpreting landscape connectivity, and that spatial absorbing Markov chains provide a generalisable and powerful framework with which to do so.
Open Research
Data Availability Statement
The data supporting the results are archived in an appropriate public repository (Figshare; https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8248826).
Citing Literature
Number of times cited according to CrossRef: 6
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- Caroline Poli, Jessica Hightower, Robert J. Fletcher, Validating network connectivity with observed movement in experimental landscapes undergoing habitat destruction, Journal of Applied Ecology, 10.1111/1365-2664.13624, 57, 7, (1426-1437), (2020).
- Yue Cao, Rui Yang, Steve Carver, Linking wilderness mapping and connectivity modelling: A methodological framework for wildland network planning, Biological Conservation, 10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108679, 251, (108679), (2020).
- Zhenhuan Liu, Qiandu Huang, Guoping Tang, Identification of urban flight corridors for migratory birds in the coastal regions of Shenzhen city based on three-dimensional landscapes, Landscape Ecology, 10.1007/s10980-020-01032-6, (2020).
- Jack Hartfelder, Chevonne Reynolds, Richard A. Stanton, Muzi Sibiya, Ara Monadjem, Robert A. McCleery, Robert J. Fletcher, The allometry of movement predicts the connectivity of communities, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2001614117, (202001614), (2020).
- Casey C. Day, Patrick A. Zollner, Jonathan H. Gilbert, Nicholas P. McCann, Individual-based modeling highlights the importance of mortality and landscape structure in measures of functional connectivity, Landscape Ecology, 10.1007/s10980-020-01095-5, (2020).
