Collaborative Research LTREB: Understanding the strength, duration, and stability of connectivity effects on community diversity

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

Habitat loss is the greatest cause of biodiversity loss, as it isolates small patches of habitat along with the populations in these fragments. This project examines landscape connectivity, which is the inverse of fragmentation, and the degree to which corridors among fragments facilitate the movement of organisms and thus alleviate the effects of fragmentation. Although habitat connectivity is considered to be fundamental to the maintenance of species diversity, there is remarkably little empirical evidence documenting the effects of corridors. The investigators will extend an ongoing experiment explicitly designed to test the effects of habitat connectivity. Results to date show that species diversity increases when fragments are connected by corridors, but the question remains whether these responses are short-term or persistent. The project will generate long-term data to resolve the mechanisms underlying the relationship between connectivity, diversity, and time, and to determine whether connectivity effects are long-lasting or transient. This experiment provides a direct link to conservation by manipulating connectivity through landscape corridors. Strategies to reconnect landscapes through landscape corridors have dominated land acquisitions in conservation. Results of this project will provide some of the first evidence for land managers of the value of landscape connections for protecting biological diversity. The project will develop a solutions-oriented workshop with scientists and land managers to catalyze the translation of science to practical long-term land conservation in the southeastern United States study region. A website dedicated to bridging the science and practice of conservation corridors will contribute to these efforts. Both graduate and undergraduate students will be engaged in and trained through participation in the research, continuing a successful collaboration with the US Forest Service to train and mentor women and students from underrepresented groups.