Talk given at 2016 US-IALE (Landscape Ecology) meeting in Asheville, NC.

1. Toward a general measure of landscape
connectivity for climate change
Jennifer Costanza
Curtis Belyea, James Watling, Ron Sutherland, Nick Haddad

2. Biological Conservation 142 (2009) 14-32
Increasing connectivity consistently ranks as the
most popular strategy for climate change
2009, Biological Conservation

3. Big, bold plans for landscape
connectivity are emerging
Theobald et al. 2012 Conserv.Lett.WA Connected Landscapes Project

4. Courtesy of Ron SutherlandFrom the Wildlands Network
Connectivity planning in the Southeast

5. Black bear
(Ursus americanus)
Rafinesque’s big-eared bat
(Corynorhinus rafinesquii)
Timber rattlesnake
(Crotalus horridus)
Approach: connectivity for multiple species

6. Research questions
• Where are the most and least threatened connections
for each species?
• Do species vary in the climate change threat to their
connectivity?

7. Alternative resistance surfaces
Niche model Empirical (literature)
Red High resistance
Blue Low resistance
Expert opinion
(surveys)
Black bear

8. Mapping connectivity
Resistance surface Habitat nodes Connections
Linkage Mapper software: least-cost paths between nodes

9. Future threat is change in suitability
Black bear
percent change in suitability
recent to 2050, A2 scenario
Red Decrease
Blue Increase

10. Red Large decrease
Orange Moderate decrease
Blue Increase
Black bear
niche resistance, Linkage Mapper
Change in habitat suitability

12. BatSnake Bear
Changes in suitability by ecoregion
Red = largest decrease
Blue = increase

13. Which links connect to important nodes?
Change in Integral Index of Connectivity for nodes
(Pascual-Hortal and Saura 2006)
Dark blue =
10% most
important
nodes
Black bear

14. Where are the important links that are most
and least threatened?
BatSnake Bear
Red = 10% most threat
Blue = 10% least threat

15. Summary
• We mapped climate change threat to habitat connections for
three species in the Southeast
• On average, suitability decreased within mapped
connections, and species were similar in average amount of
climate change threat
• The geography of climate change threat varied by species
• We are doing parallel work to examine effects of future land
use change on connections