A practical map-analysis tool for detecting potential dispersal corridors

William W. Hargrove; Forrest M. Hoffman; Rebecca A. Efroymson

doi:10.1007/s10980-004-3162-y

A practical map-analysis tool for detecting potential dispersal corridors

William W. Hargrove, Forrest M. Hoffman, Rebecca A. Efroymson

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

We describe the Pathway Analysis Through Habitat (PATH) tool, which can predict the location of potential corridors of animal movement between patches of habitat within any map. The algorithm works by launching virtual entities that we call 'walkers' from each patch of habitat in the map, simulating their travel as they journey through land cover types in the intervening matrix, and finally arrive at a different habitat 'island.' Each walker is imbued with a set of user-specified habitat preferences that make its walking behavior resemble a particular animal species. Because the tool operates in parallel on a supercomputer, large numbers of walkers can be efficiently simulated. The importance of each habitat patch as a source or a sink for a species is calculated, consistent with existing concepts in the metapopulation literature. The manipulation of a series of contrived artificial landscapes demonstrates that the location of potential dispersal corridors and relative source and sink importance among patches can be purposefully altered in expected ways. Finally, potential dispersal corridors are predicted among remnant woodlots within three actual landscape maps.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	361-373
Number of pages	13
Journal	Landscape Ecology
Volume	20
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-004-3162-y
State	Published - May 2005

Funding

This research was sponsored by the National Petroleum Technology Office, U. S. Department of Energy, and by the Southern Appalachian Information Node of the United States Geological Survey National Biological Information Infrastructure program, and was performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U. S. Department of Energy under contract DEAC0500OR22725. We thank Nancy Comstock, Kathy Stirling, and Daniel Gurney, NPTO project managers, and Mike Frame, NBII project manager, for their support of this project.

Funders	Funder number
National Petroleum Technology Office
U. S. Department of Energy
Oak Ridge National Laboratory	DEAC0500OR22725

Keywords

Connectivity
Fragmentation
Matrix
Metapopulation
Movement
Network
Patch
Preserve design
Sink
Source
Travel path

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10.1007/s10980-004-3162-y

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A practical map-analysis tool for detecting potential dispersal corridors

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Keywords

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