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Maintaining connectivity in landscapes where natural ecosystems are quickly replaced by human land-uses is a challenge. To reduce the effects of habitat loss, ecological corridors have been proposed as a relevant tool for landscape planning. We aimed to develop a spatial model to identify and prioritize riparian corridors to improve landscape connectivity. The model considers the effect of the land-use/cover types and remaining forests on the movement capacity of a focal species sensitive to fragmentation. Since landscape elements act as barriers or promoters to ecological fluxes, suitability values were set according to the element’s ability in providing habitat. The model recognizes the effect of the contact between associated elements along the riparian corridor’s width and length and corrects their suitability. These procedures enabled the calculation of the Utility Factor, resulting in a measure of the quality of the corridor. The results show that the model assists the identification of the riparian corridor’s sections where connectivity is hampered and management efforts are required to maintain landscape connectivity. In addition, it can be applied to select the corridors dominated by large forests, which could be designed for conservation purposes. The two study cases evidence that the model is flexible, adjustable to distinct landscapes, and the decision-maker’s objectives. We concluded that the proposed strategy helps decision-makers to prioritize the territories for managing or preserving connectivity. Finally, the method provides quantitative information that would not be perceived by just interpreting land-use/cover maps.

Neighbouring forests constitute biological sources that enable the succession from species-poor systems, such as tree-plantings, to highly diverse forests. However, old forest patches are becoming rare in tropical agricultural landscapes. We were interested in if, and how, spontaneous regeneration under tree-plantings reflects the age and the amount of the neighbouring forest cover. We anticipated that older forests promote a compositionally broader recovery in neighbouring tree-plantings, because older forests likely include disturbance-sensitive species, particularly within least deforested landscapes. We studied twenty-seven restoration sites implemented as tree-plantings in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We quantified the effects of age and amount of neighbouring forest cover on structural and compositional characteristics of the regeneration community (dbh

We evaluated changes in the Atlantic Forest landscape over the last 40 years based on changes in boundaries and mosaics, including the hypothetical landscape resulting from the application of Brazilian laws for forest protection. Mosaics were identified as sets of land-use patches with a similar pattern of boundaries. Landscapes of different years, therefore, can be distinguished by differences in mosaics. We developed a technique to identify boundaries between patches from land-use maps using ArcGis® and to build the patch x boundary matrix required for mosaic identification by means of a factorial and cluster analysis. The mosaics were characterized by some key uses as well as by their boundaries with other land uses. The mosaics were scored for forest conservation according to five issues: landscape permeability, cover, availability, quality, and fragmentation of forest. The values were based on land use and boundary patterns. Although Brazilian laws regarding forest protection have promoted conservation and the hypothetical legal landscape has presented the highest forest habitat availability, this expansion perpetuates a boundary pattern that complicates conservation and management, thus increasing the pressure on forest patches and favoring the further fragmentation of protected forest patches. These conclusions cannot be reached by simply recording changes in land uses.