Context: Many connectivity metrics have been used to measure the connectivity of a landscape and to evaluate the effects of land-use changes and potential mitigation measures. However, there are still gaps in our understanding of how to accurately quantify landscape connectivity. Objectives: A number of metrics only measure between-patch connectivity, i.e. the connectivity between different habitat patches, which can produce misleading results. This paper demonstrates that the inclusion of within-patch connectivity is important for accurate results. Methods: The behavior of two metrics is compared: the Connectance Index (CONNECT), which measures only between-patch connectivity, and the effective mesh size (meff), which includes both within-patch and between-patch connectivity. The connectivity values of both metrics were calculated on a set of simulated landscapes. Twenty cities were then added to these landscapes to calculate the resulting changes in connectivity. Results: We found that when using CONNECT counter-intuitive results occurred due to not including within-patch connectivity, such as scenarios where connectivity increased with increasing habitat loss and fragmentation. These counter-intuitive results were resolved when using meff. For example, landscapes with low habitat amount may be particularly sensitive to urban development, but this is not reflected by CONNECT. Conclusions: Applying misleading results from metrics like CONNECT can have detrimental effects on natural ecosystems, because reductions in within-patch connectivity by human activities are neglected. Therefore, this paper provides evidence for the crucial need to consider the balance between within-patch connectivity and between-patch connectivity when calculating the connectivity of landscapes.
CITATION STYLE
Spanowicz, A. G., & Jaeger, J. A. G. (2019). Measuring landscape connectivity: On the importance of within-patch connectivity. Landscape Ecology, 34(10), 2261–2278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-019-00881-0
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