The Washington Connected Landscapes Project: Providing Analysis Tools for Regional Connectivity and Climate Adaptation Planning - Interim Project Report
Interim Project Report
Dates
Acquisition
2013-06
Summary
Managing for well-connected landscapes is a key strategy to enhance resilience and ensure the long-term viability of plant and animal populations. Connectivity conservation is also the single most frequently cited climate adaptation strategy (Heller & Zavaleta 2009); many species will require highly permeable, well-connected landscapes both to maintain dispersal and gene flow as vegetation patterns and disturbance regimes change and to allow adaptive range shifts. Despite these needs, only a handful of regional conservation planning efforts have included connectivity. Moreover, despite numerous calls to increase connectivity across climatic gradients to accommodate climate-drive range shifts, there has been a lack of approaches proposed [...]
Summary
Managing for well-connected landscapes is a key strategy to enhance resilience and ensure the long-term viability of plant and animal populations. Connectivity conservation is also the single most frequently cited climate adaptation strategy (Heller & Zavaleta 2009); many species will require highly permeable, well-connected landscapes both to maintain dispersal and gene flow as vegetation patterns and disturbance regimes change and to allow adaptive range shifts. Despite these needs, only a handful of regional conservation planning efforts have included connectivity. Moreover, despite numerous calls to increase connectivity across climatic gradients to accommodate climate-drive range shifts, there has been a lack of approaches proposed to rigorously map the areas needed to accomplish this (Beier et al. in 2011). The WHCWG statewide connectivity analysis identified broad-scale priority areas for connectivity conservation (WHCWG 2010).
