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Intense road development and urbanization have fragmented the natural landscapeacross coastal Southern California since the middle of the 20th century. As mitigationefforts, in 1992 the Natural Community Conservation Plan and Habitat Conservation Plans Iand II (NCCP&HCP I and II) allocated reserves and non-reserve open spaces to connectthese fragmented natural habitats and foster the coexistence of wildlife and people inOrange County. Here, I aim to evaluate the effectiveness of two established wildlifecorridors (the Sand Canyon Wash Corridor and the Bonita Creek Corridor) in southernOrange County, linking two large reserve areas (Figure 1). I conducted camera trappingsurveys by using 11 cameras placed along these two linkage corridors. Additionally, Iobtained more photographic data at 10 different camera stations within the Irvine RanchWater District (IRWD) San Joaquin Marsh & Wildlife Sanctuary. Then, I calculated RelativeAbundance Index (RAI) values based on the photographic capture rates of key vertebratespecies of concern for each location. I compared the current RAI values with values from astudy by Lyren et al. (2008) to illustrate the changes over a decade at three subsets oflocations. I also obtained wildlife-vehicle collision (WVC) data from 2005 to 2019 from theCity of Irvine Local Animal Services. I found an average of two bobcat mortalities event peryear occurred until 2015. After 2015, no bobcat detection or roadkill mortality is observed.Additionally, the number of coyote detections has increased by almost 700% over a decadeat these locations. It is likely that this result reflects urban coyotes’ greater ability tofunction in a changing environment and (greater) resilience to anthropogenic effects. Thelong-term success of wildlife corridors requires understanding how the regional environment may influence species composition and potential use of these linkage elements reserve designs over extended periods.

International audience; Ecological restoration is essential to curb the decline of biodiversity and ecosystems worldwide. Since the resources available for restoration are limited, restoration efforts must be cost-effective to achieve conservation outcomes. Although decision support tools are available to aid in the design of protected areas, little progress has been made to provide such tools for restoration efforts. Here, we introduce the restoptr R package, a decision support tool designed to identify priority areas for ecological restoration. It uses constraint programming – an artificial intelligence technique – to identify optimal plans given ecological and socio-economic constraints. Critically, it can identify strategic locations to enhance connectivity and reduce fragmentation across a broader landscape using complex landscape metrics. We illustrate its usage with a case study in New Caledonia. By applying this tool, we identified priority areas for restoration that could reverse forest fragmentation induced by mining activities in a specific area. We also found that relatively small investments could deliver large returns to restore connectivity. The restoptr R package is a free and open-source decision support tool available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (https://cran.r-project.org/package=restoptr)

12 Pág. Centro de Investigación Forestal (CIFOR)., Natural corridors are essential components of wildlife conservation but, when human-wildlife conflicts emerge, the participation of local communities becomes imperative to ensure their efficacy and long-term persistence. Therefore, local people initiatives and commitments (community-based strategies) promoting human-wildlife coexistence are urgently needed especially in African natural corridors dominated by elephants (Loxodonta africana). Wildlife rangers represent skilled technical staff who are involved in the monitoring and protection of wildlife but also in promoting human-wildlife coexistence and community awareness. They are the closest conservation staff to local communities and have broad experience in dealing with elephants around the villages. Therefore, collecting and recognizing the knowledge of wildlife rangers on the suitability of possible local solutions could contribute to the successful planning and implementation of human elephant mitigation measures at farmer level. This study aims to quantify wildlife rangers' preferences for community-based strategies to increase human-elephant coexistence in the Selous-Niassa Wildlife Corridor (Southern Tanzania). In particular, we evaluated wildlife rangers' preferences regarding three attributes: local farm-based mitigation measures, the implication of technical support in the implementation of those measures and the preferred level of cooperation in the local community for that implementation. In 2019, we conducted a discrete choice experiment by interviewing 63 wildlife rangers (41% of the total rangers working along the corridor). Results showed that the most preferred management strategy included building chili-oil fences by farmers cooperating at community level and technically supported by external institutions. Other strategies considered were (in decreasing order of importance) crop species selection, beehive fences, crop translocation, cooperation in small groups, and the use of noisemakers. The discrete choice analysis of wildlife rangers' preferences, including the type and level of cooperation, allows quantifying the suitability of different management strategies for mitigating human-wildlife coexistence challenges., We would like to thank TAWIRI (Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute) and the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) for granting permission for the implementation of the study. We also thank the rangers that collaborated, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid-Funded Research, Development and Innovation Programme (specifically the funding for predoctoral contracts for the completion of doctoral degrees at UPM schools, faculties and R&D centers) for making it possible and the project RTI2018-096348-R-C21 funded by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Wildlife corridors aim to promote species' persistence by connecting habitat patches across fragmented landscapes. Their implementation is limited by patterns of land ownership and complicated by differences in the jurisdictional and regulatory authorities under which lands are managed. Terrestrial corridor conservation requires coordination across jurisdictions and sectors subject to site-specific overlapping sources of legal authority. Mapping spatial patterns of legal authority concurrent with habitat condition can illustrate opportunities to build or leverage capacity for connectivity conservation. Streamside areas provide pragmatic opportunities to leverage existing policy mechanisms for riverine and terrestrial habitat connectivity across boundaries. Conservation planners and practitioners can make use of these opportunities by harmonizing actions for multiple conservation outcomes. We formulated an integrative, data-driven method for mapping multiple sources of legal authority weighted by capacity for coordinating terrestrial habitat conservation along streams. We generated a map of capacity to coordinate streamside corridor protections across a wildlife habitat gap to demonstrate this approach. We combined values representing coordination capacity and naturalness to generate an integrated legal-ecological resistance map for connectivity modeling. We then computed least-cost corridors across the integrated map, masking the terrestrial landscape to focus on streamside areas. Streamside least-cost corridors in the integrated, local-scale model diverged (∼25 km) from national-scale least-cost corridors based on naturalness. Spatial categories comparing legal- and naturalness-based resistance values by stream reach highlighted potential locations for building or leveraging existing capacity through spatial coordination of policy mechanisms or restoration actions. Agencies or nongovernmental organizations intending to restore or maintain habitat connectivity across fragmented landscapes can use this approach to inform spatial prioritization and build coordination capacity. Article impact statement: Combined mapping of legal authority and habitat condition reveals capacity to coordinate actions along streams for clean water and wildlife.Mapeo de la Autoridad Legal para los Corredores Terrestres de Conservación a lo Largo de Ríos Stahl et al. Resumen Los corredores de fauna buscan promover la persistencia de las especies al conectar los fragmentos de hábitat a lo largo de paisajes fragmentados. Su implementación está limitada por los patrones de propiedad de tierras y se complica con las diferencias entre las autoridades jurisdiccionales y regulatorias que las administran. La conservación por corredores terrestres requiere de coordinación entre las jurisdicciones y los sectores sujetos a fuentes de autoridad legal que se traslapan y que son específicas del sitio. El mapeo de los patrones espaciales de la autoridad legal simultánea a la condición del hábitat puede ilustrar oportunidades para construir o hacer uso de la capacidad para la conservación por conectividad. Las áreas adyacentes a los cauces fluviales proporcionan oportunidades prácticas para hacer uso de los mecanismos políticos existentes para la conectividad de hábitats ribereño y terrestre a través de las fronteras. Los planificadores y practicantes de la conservación pueden usar estas oportunidades al armonizar las acciones para múltiples resultados de conservación. Formulamos un método integrativo orientado por los datos para mapear las múltiples fuentes de autoridad legal ponderadas por la capacidad para coordinar la conservación de hábitats terrestres a lo largo de ríos. Generamos un mapa de la capacidad para coordinar los corredores de protección a lo largo de los vacíos en los hábitats de fauna para demostrar esta estrategia. Combinamos los valores por medio de la representación de la capacidad de coordinación y la naturalidad para generar un mapa de resistencia legal y ecológica para el modelado de la conectividad. Después, computamos los corredores de menor costo en todo el mapa integrado, enmascarando el paisaje terrestre para enfocarnos en las áreas adyacentes al cauce fluvial. Los corredores de menor costo adyacentes a los cauces dentro del modelo integrado de escala local difirieron (∼25 km) de los corredores de menor costo basados en la naturalidad a escala nacional. Las categorías espaciales que compararon los valores de resistencia basada en la legalidad y en la naturalidad por alcance del río resaltaron las localidades potenciales para la construcción o el uso de la capacidad existente por medio de la coordinación espacial de los mecanismos de política o de las acciones de restauración. Las agencias y organizaciones no gubernamentales con la intención de restaurar o mantener la conectividad del hábitat en un paisaje fragmentado pueden utilizar esta estrategia para informar la priorización espacial y construir la capacidad de coordinación.野生动物廊道旨在通过连接破碎景观中的栖息地斑块来提高物种的续存, 但其建设受限于土地所有制模式, 还会因管理土地的管辖及监管机构不同而更加复杂。陆地廊道保护需要多个司法管辖区和各地受到多种法定权威管制的部门之间的协调。将法定权威的空间格局与栖息地条件的分布地图相叠加, 将有利于开展廊道连接度保护的能力建设及利用。河流沿岸地区为现有的跨境河流及陆地栖息地连接度的相关政策机制的应用提供了实践机会。保护规划者和实施者可以利用这些机会协调多方行动以取得各方面的保护成效。我们制定了一个综合的、基于数据驱动的方法, 可以将协调河流沿岸陆地栖息地保护的能力作为权重来绘制多个法定权威来源的地图。为了演示这个方法, 我们绘制了一张协调跨越野生动物栖息地空缺地带的河流沿岸廊道保护力地图。我们将代表协调能力和自然特性的数值相结合, 生成了一张用于连接度建模的法律-生态抵抗力综合地图。随后, 我们忽略陆地景观, 将重点放在河流沿岸地区, 计算了整个综合地图的最低成本廊道。结果显示, 由局部尺度的综合模型得到的河流沿岸最低成本廊道与基于自然特性的国家尺度最低成本廊道偏离约 25 公里。河流沿岸基于法律和自然特性抵抗力比较的空间分类进一步展示了可以通过政策机制或恢复行动的空间协调来建设和利用现有能力的潜在地点。计划恢复或维持破碎景观之间的栖息地连接度的机构或非政府组织可以应用这种方法确定优先保护的空间并建立协调力。【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】.

Conservationists are calling for bold strategies to connect wildlands and halt extinctions. A growing number of scientists recommend that 50% of all land must be held in a protected area network to maintain biodiversity. We assessed lands adjacent to the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and Continental Divide Trail (CDT) as possible wildlife corridors connecting protected areas in the American West. We evaluated the connectivity, wildness, and biodiversity values of the lands of each corridor and determined the conservation and land management status. We found that our corridors connect 95 protected areas creating two linear protected area chains from Mexico to Canada. Both the PCT and CDT corridors follow many of the best corridor routes previously found in the literature and hold high wildland conservation values. The American public already owns the majority of land units around the modeled PCT (88%) and CDT (90%) corridor. Therefore, we recommend further analysis of the lands adjacent to recreational trails as wildlife corridors. Employing our methodology on multiple scales could reveal that other recreational trails should be buffered and conserved for wildlife movement.

Well-managed and connected protected area networks are needed to combat the 6th mass extinction, yet the implementation of plans intended to secure landscape connectivity remains insufficient. The failure to translate planning efforts into effective action (i.e., the research-implementation gap) hinders our ability to conserve biodiversity threatened by ongoing climate change and habitat fragmentation. Sustained collaboration between researchers and practitioners to co-produce conservation strategies can bridge this gap by providing end-users with implementation guidance based on legitimate, relevant, and trusted information. However, few case studies capture methods for the co-production and use of climate-wise connectivity knowledge. Here we describe the framework for sustained engagement used by a multi-jurisdictional practitioner network to co-produce climate-wise linkages for the interior coastal ranges in Northern California. We found iterative co-production shaped ecological objectives, input data, analytical methods, and implementation priorities. Stakeholders used both co-produced and local socio-ecological (e.g., development threat, management priorities) knowledge to finalize corridor implementation plans. Priority corridors afforded greater climate benefit and were more likely to connect lands managed by participant organizations. Our results demonstrate how collaborative partnerships can bridge the gap between connectivity research and implementation. Lessons learned, outcomes, and future plans provide insights to advance landscape-scale resilience to climate change.

This study describes the 35-year progression of activities in the Pontal do Paranapanema region of São Paulo State, Brazil. These activities began as a research project on the conservation ecology of the highly endangered Black Lion Tamarin and broadened into a landscape-scale restoration and conservation project involving the active participation of hundreds of landless families that colonized the region. Rather than viewing these colonists as a threat, a non-governmental organization arose to address their needs, providing training and support livelihoods. Local communities were engaged in conservation and restoration activities focused on studying the movement patterns of endangered species, environmental education programmes, planting native trees along riparian corridors, establishing coffee agroforestry plantings and initiating community-managed nurseries for the production of local native seedlings and non-native fruit trees. Farmers gained knowledge, income and food security, and developed a sense of ownership and shared responsibility for protecting wildlife, conserving forest fragments and restoring forests. Land sharing and restoring forest functions within an agricultural landscape matrix created new opportunities for people and endangered wildlife. We explore how key factors and partnerships critically influenced the landscape trajectory and conclude with lessons learned that may be relevant to sustainable landscape initiatives in other contexts.

The presented article introduces methods and some results of a project aiming to improve the protection of landscape permeability for migration of large mammals. The main aim of the project was delimitation of migration corridors, representing an ecological network connecting areas of existing, or potential presence of focal species. Based on mapping of current and historical occurrence of selected species of large predators and ungulates, areas of potential presence of such species were defined, including further analysis of connectivity of these areas. At the same time, all categories of anthropogenic and natural barriers were described. Migration corridors were designed over detailed topographic datasets, according to the results of habitat analyses of both groups of animals, and subsequently were tested in the field. The project resulted in a coherent network of existing and proposed migration corridors, with sections categorised according to permeability, as well as methodical protection and a management plan

Background. Preserving connectivity, or the ability of a landscape to support species movement, is among the most commonly recommended strategies to reduce the negative effects of climate change and human land use development on species. Connectivity analyses have traditionally used a corridor-based approach and rely heavily on least cost path modeling and circuit theory to delineate corridors. Individual-based models are gaining popularity as a potentially more ecologically realistic method of estimating landscape connectivity. However, this remains a relatively unexplored approach. We sought to explore the utility of a simple, individual-based model as a land-use management support tool in identifying and implementing landscape connectivity.Methods. We created an individual-based model of bighorn sheep(Ovis canadensis)that simulates a bighorn sheep traversing a landscape by following simple movement rules. The model was calibrated for bighorn sheep in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, a region containing isolated herds that are vital to conservation of the species in its northern range. Simulations were run to determine baseline connectivity between subpopulations in the study area. We then applied the model to explore two land management scenarios on simulated connectivity: restoring natural fire regimes and identifying appropriate sites for interventions that would increase road permeability for bighorn sheep.Results.This model suggests there are no continuous areas of good habitat between current subpopulations of sheep in the study area; however, a series of stepping-stones or circuitous routes could facilitate movement between subpopulations and into currently unoccupied, yet suitable, bighorn habitat. Restoring natural fire regimes or mimicking fire with prescribed burns and tree removal could considerably increase bighorn connectivity in this area. Moreover, several key road crossing sites that could benefit from wildlife overpasses were identified.Discussion.By linking individual-scale movement rules to landscape-scale outcomes, our individual-based model of bighorn sheep allows for the exploration of how on-the-ground management or conservation scenarios may increase functional connectivity for the species in the study area. More generally, this study highlights the usefulness of individual-based models to identify how a species makes broad use of a landscape for movement. Application of this approach can provide effective quantitative support for decision makers seeking to incorporate wildlife conservation and connectivity into land use planning.

The role of corridors in mitigating the effects of landscape fragmentation on biodiversity is controversial. Recent studies have highlighted the need for new approaches in corridor design using long-term datasets. We present a method to identify transit corridors for elephant at a population scale over a large area and an extended period of time using long-term aerial surveys. We investigated environmental and anthropogenic factors directly and indirectly related to the wet versus dry season distribution of elephant and its transit corridors. Four environmental variables predicted the presence of elephant at the landscape scale in both seasons: distance from permanent water, protected areas and settlements and vegetation structure. Path analysis revealed that altitude and monthly average NDVI, and distance from temporary water had a significant indirect effect on elephant distribution at local scale in dry and wet seasons respectively. Five transit corridors connecting Tarangire National Park and the northern as well as south-eastern wet season dispersal areas were identified and matched the wildlife migration routes described in the 1960s. The corridors are stable over the decades, providing landscape connectivity for elephant. Our approach yielded insights how advanced spatial analysis can be integrated with biological data available from long-term datasets to identify actual transit corridors and predictors of species distribution.

The Eurasian badger Meles meles has a wide distribution area ranging from Japan to Ireland. In western Europe badger habitats are severely disturbed by anthropogenic factors, leading to fragmentation into subpopulations and formation of a metapopulation substructuring of once continuous panmictic populations. We have examined the genetic structure of Dutch and Danish badger populations on a relatively small scale (within countries) and a larger scale (between countries). The levels of genetic variation of populations were moderate and did not differ significantly among populations (overall HO=0.30, overall HE=0.34). Considerable genetic differentiation between the Dutch and Danish populations was found (overall FST=0.32, mean pairwise Dutch-Danish FST=0.42), indicating a large-scale substructuring of these western European badger populations. Further analysis showed that the Danish badger population can be substructured into three clusters [P(k=3)=0.99], but the Dutch populations cluster into one more or less panmictic population [P(k=1)=0.99] with little or no substructuring. The presence of migration barriers, such as roads, together with the peninsular geography of Denmark, may have led to this structuring of badger populations. In contrast, measures that improve migration and connection to other populations from neighboring countries may have prevented substructuring of the Dutch badger population.