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landscape ecology: corridors, Study notes of Geography

landscape ecology notes on corridor

Typology: Study notes

2021/2022

Uploaded on 07/28/2024

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Defdine and comment on the significance of landscape corridors.
Corridor is a measure of the ability of organisms to move amonf separated
patches of suitable habitat that may be variously arranged.
Benefits of Corridors
Corridors can serve many purposes for wildlife, including seasonal migration, finding
food and water, and access to mates to maintain genetic diversity. They can also
provide ecosystem services such as increased water quality, human benefits like
recreation, and advantages for agriculture such as pollination, pest control, and erosion
protection.
In addition, corridors can increase resilience to climate change. Animals
and plants react to the effects of climate change for example, the
drying up of a water source in only three ways: move, adapt, or die.
Corridors can allow species and natural communities to respond to
climatic changes and move to more suitable habitats.
What is a Well-Designed Corridor?
While many natural corridors still exist, the rapid increase in human development means
that, more and more, humans need to proactively design and protect corridors. Because
corridors can potentially serve so many purposes, the design of corridors must consider
many factors to increase the chance that connectivity goals will be achieved.
We want the corridor to provide both a “move-through” habitat and also be wide enough
for a “live-in” habitat for multiple species. The space should offer key resources like
edible plants, water, and host plants for butterflies.
If facilitating the movement of a specific species or community is the focus, their habitat
preferences, dispersal behavior, and other life-history features should be considered in
the design process.
Location, of course, is key. Corridors should be designed to buffer against edge effects
such as household pets, lighting, noise, nest predation, and invasive species. Upland
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Defdine and comment on the significance of landscape corridors.

Corridor is a measure of the ability of organisms to move amonf separated

patches of suitable habitat that may be variously arranged.

Benefits of Corridors

Corridors can serve many purposes for wildlife, including seasonal migration, finding food and water, and access to mates to maintain genetic diversity. They can also provide ecosystem services such as increased water quality, human benefits like recreation, and advantages for agriculture such as pollination, pest control, and erosion protection.

In addition, corridors can increase resilience to climate change. Animals

and plants react to the effects of climate change – for example, the

drying up of a water source – in only three ways: move, adapt, or die.

Corridors can allow species and natural communities to respond to

climatic changes and move to more suitable habitats.

What is a Well-Designed Corridor?

While many natural corridors still exist, the rapid increase in human development means that, more and more, humans need to proactively design and protect corridors. Because corridors can potentially serve so many purposes, the design of corridors must consider many factors to increase the chance that connectivity goals will be achieved. We want the corridor to provide both a “move-through” habitat and also be wide enough for a “live-in” habitat for multiple species. The space should offer key resources like edible plants, water, and host plants for butterflies. If facilitating the movement of a specific species or community is the focus, their habitat preferences, dispersal behavior, and other life-history features should be considered in the design process. Location, of course, is key. Corridors should be designed to buffer against edge effects such as household pets, lighting, noise, nest predation, and invasive species. Upland

buffer zones are needed along key riparian corridors to prevent aquatic habitat degradation and to reduce contaminants in streams. When considering the appropriateness of recreation within the corridor, seasonal use by wildlife should be understood. Because corridors may be needed for seasonal migrations, human activities may be incompatible with species during migration but are otherwise acceptable. A critical question is how wide corridors should be to meet conservation objectives. The rule of thumb is that a width of 2 km is appropriate when the corridor is intended to connect protected areas such as National Parks up to 80 km apart in a landscape likely to experience impact from development in the future (Beier

  1. Conservation Biology). However, place-based specifics are needed to help planners and managers decide on the appropriate corridor width in different scenarios.

Designing corridor with Climate Change in Mind

Importantly, the well-designed corridor should enable species to respond to climatic changes. A few different approaches to designing corridors can help species move or adapt. None of them are perfect, but they all offer some improvement over traditional approaches that ignore climate change. One popular approach is modeling current species distribution and their future distribution, using climate change projections, and then designing corridors linking current and future habitat patches. We want the corridor to provide both a “move-through” habitat and also be wide enough for a “live-in” habitat for multiple species. The space should offer key resources like edible plants, water, and host plants for butterflies. If facilitating the movement of a specific species or community is the focus, their habitat preferences, dispersal behavior, and other life-history features should be considered in the design process. Location, of course, is key. Corridors should be designed to buffer against edge effects such as household pets, lighting, noise, nest predation, and invasive species. Upland buffer zones are needed along key riparian corridors to prevent aquatic habitat degradation and to reduce contaminants in streams.