title: A Composite Network Approach for Assessing Multi-Species Connectivity: An Application to Road Defragmentation Prioritisation.
abstract: One of the biggest challenges in large-scale conservation is quantifying connectivity at broad geographic scales and for a large set of species. Because connectivity analyses can be computationally intensive, and the planning process quite complex when multiple taxa are involved, assessing connectivity at large spatial extents for many species turns to be often intractable. Such limitation results in that conducted assessments are often partial by focusing on a few key species only, or are generic by considering a range of dispersal distances and a fixed set of areas to connect that are not directly linked to the actual spatial distribution or mobility of particular species. By using a graph theory framework, here we propose an approach to reduce computational effort and effectively consider large assemblages of species in obtaining multi-species connectivity priorities. We demonstrate the potential of the approach by identifying defragmentation priorities in the Italian road network focusing on medium and large terrestrial mammals. We show that by combining probabilistic species graphs prior to conducting the network analysis (i) it is possible to analyse connectivity once for all species simultaneously, obtaining conservation or restoration priorities that apply for the entire species assemblage; and that (ii) those priorities are well aligned with the ones that would be obtained by aggregating the results of separate connectivity analysis for each of the individual species. This approach offers great opportunities to extend connectivity assessments to large assemblages of species and broad geographic scales.
authors: Department of Environmental Science, Institute for Wetland and Water Research, Faculty of Science, Radboud University, P.O. Box 9010, NL-6500 GL, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.|Global Mammal Assessment Program, Department of Biology and Biotechnologies, Sapienza Università di Roma, Viale dell'Università 32, 00185, Rome, Italy.
authors: Luca
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5418-3688
authors: L
authors: Santini
authors: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Directorate for Sustainable Resources, Land Resources Unit, Via Enrico Fermi 2749, I-21027, Ispra (VA), Italy.
authors: Santiago
authors: S
authors: Saura
authors: Global Mammal Assessment Program, Department of Biology and Biotechnologies, Sapienza Università di Roma, Viale dell'Università 32, 00185, Rome, Italy.
authors: Carlo
authors: C
authors: Rondinini
mesh_terms: D007558:Italy; D013045:Species Specificity; D014186:Transportation