Coexistence in ecological corridors: understanding tolerance of wolves in the Northwestern Apennines, Italy

Habitat destruction and declining ecosystem service levels caused by urban expansion have led to increased ecological risks in cities, and ecological network optimization has become the main way to resolve this contradiction. Here, we used landscape patterns, meteorological and hydrological data as data sources, applied the complex network theory, landscape ecology, and spatial analysis technology, a quantitative analysis of the current state of landscape pattern characteristics in the central district of Harbin was conducted. The minimum cumulative resistance was used to extract the ecological network of the study area. Optimized the ecological network by edge-adding of the complex network theory, compared the optimizing effects of different edge-adding strategies by using robustness analysis, and put forward an effective way to optimize the ecological network of the study area. The results demonstrate that: The ecological patches of Daowai, Xiangfang, Nangang, and other old districts in the study area are small in size, fewer in number, strongly fragmented, with a single external morphology, and high internal porosity. While the ecological patches in the new districts of Songbei, Hulan, and Acheng have a relatively good foundation. And ecological network connectivity in the study area is generally poor, the ecological corridors are relatively sparse and scattered, the connections between various ecological sources of the corridors are not close. Comparing different edge-adding strategies of complex network theory, the low-degree-first strategy has the most outstanding performance in the robustness test. The low-degree-first strategy was used to optimize the ecological network of the study area, 43 ecological corridors are added. After the optimization, the large and the small ecological corridors are evenly distributed to form a complete network, the optimized ecological network will be significantly more connected, resilient, and resistant to interference, the ecological flow transmission will be more efficient.

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The Construction and Optimization of Ecological Security Pattern in the Harbin-Changchun Urban Agglomeration, China

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph16071190 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (7) ◽

pp. 1190 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Rong Guo ◽

Tong Wu ◽

Mengran Liu ◽

Mengshi Huang ◽

Luigi Stendardo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Agglomeration ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Ecological Security ◽

Least Cost Path ◽

Rapid Urbanization ◽

Songhua River ◽

Urban Agglomerations ◽

Ecological Corridors ◽

Ecological Protection ◽

Security Pattern

Urban agglomerations have become a new geographical unit in China, breaking the administrative fortresses between cities, which means that the population and economic activities between cities will become more intensive in the future. Constructing and optimizing the ecological security pattern of urban agglomerations is important for promoting harmonious social-economic development and ecological protection. Using the Harbin-Changchun urban agglomeration as a case study, we have identified ecological sources based on the evaluation of ecosystem functions. Based on the resistance surface modified by nighttime light (NTL) data, the potential ecological corridors were identified using the least-cost path method, and key ecological corridors were extracted using the gravity model. By combining 15 ecological sources, 119 corridors, 3 buffer zones, and 77 ecological nodes, the ecological security pattern (ESP) was constructed. The main land-use types composed of ecological sources and corridors are forest land, cultivated land, grassland, and water areas. Some ecological sources are occupied by construction, while unused land has the potential for ecological development. The ecological corridors in the central region are distributed circularly and extend to southeast side in the form of tree branches with the Songhua River as the central axis. Finally, this study proposes an optimizing pattern with "four belts, four zones, one axis, nine corridors, ten clusters and multi-centers" to provide decision makers with spatial strategies with respect to the conflicts between urban development and ecological protection during rapid urbanization.

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Construction of a Landscape Ecological Network for a Large-Scale Energy and Chemical Industrial Base: A Case Study of Ningdong, China

Land ◽

10.3390/land10040344 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 344

Author(s):

Haochen Yu ◽

Jiu Huang ◽

Chuning Ji ◽

Zi’ao Li

Keyword(s):

Ecological Restoration ◽

Large Scale ◽

Ecological Environment ◽

Ecological Network ◽

High Importance ◽

Fractional Coverage ◽

Industrial Base ◽

Ecological Corridors ◽

Vegetation Fractional Coverage

A large-scale energy and chemical industry base is an important step in the promotion of the integrated and coordinated development of coal and its downstream coal-based industry. A number of large-scale energy and chemical industrial bases have been built in the Yellow River Basin that rely on its rich coal resources. However, the ecological environment is fragile in this region. Once the eco-environment is destroyed, the wildlife would lose its habitat. Therefore, this area has attracted wide attention regarding the development of the coal-based industry while also protecting the ecological environment. An ecological network could improve landscape connectivity and provide ideas for ecological restoration. This study took the Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industrial Base as a case study. Morphological spatial pattern analysis was applied to extract core patches. The connectivity of the core patches was evaluated, and then the ecological source patches were recognized. The minimum cumulative resistance model, hydrologic analysis and circuit theory were used to simulate the ecological network. Then, ecological corridors and ecological nodes were classified. The results were as follows: (1) The vegetation fractional coverage has recently been significantly improved. The area of core patches was 22,433.30 ha. In addition, 18 patches were extracted as source patches, with a total area of 9455.88 ha; (2) Fifty-eight potential ecological corridors were simulated. In addition, it was difficult to form a natural ecological corridor because of the area’s great resistance. Moreover, the connectivity was poor between the east and west; (3) A total of 52 potential ecological nodes were simulated and classified. The high-importance nodes were concentrated in the western grassland and Gobi Desert. This analysis indicated that restoration would be conducive to the ecological landscape in this area. Furthermore, five nodes with high importance but low vegetation fractional coverage should be given priority in later construction. In summary, optimizing the ecological network to achieve ecological restoration was suggested in the study area. The severe eco-environmental challenges urgently need more appropriate policy guidance in the large energy and chemical bases. Thus, the ecological restoration and ecological network construction should be combined, the effectiveness of ecological restoration could be effectively achieved, and the cost could also be reduced.

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The impact of onshore wind power projects on ecological corridors and landscape connectivity in Shanxi, China

Journal of Cleaner Production ◽

10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120075 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 254 ◽

pp. 120075 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Xinya Guo ◽

Xingqi Zhang ◽

Shixun Du ◽

Chao Li ◽

Yim Ling Siu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Wind Power ◽

Landscape Connectivity ◽

Onshore Wind ◽

Ecological Corridors ◽

The Impact

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Occurrence and Abundance of Dermacentor reticulatus in the Habitats of the Ecological Corridor of the Wieprz River, Eastern Poland

Insects ◽

10.3390/insects12020096 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 96

Author(s):

Zbigniew Zając ◽

Aleksandra Sędzikowska ◽

Weronika Maślanko ◽

Aneta Woźniak ◽

Joanna Kulisz

Keyword(s):

Relative Abundance ◽

Tick Species ◽

Dermacentor Reticulatus ◽

Natural Vegetation ◽

High Abundance ◽

Migration Routes ◽

Ecological Corridors ◽

Tick Activity ◽

Ecological Corridor

Ecological corridors are zones of natural vegetation, which connect with other vegetation strips to create migration routes for animals and plants. The aim of our study was to investigate the occurrence and relative abundance of Dermacentor reticulatus in various habitats of the ecological corridor of the Wieprz River in eastern Poland. Ticks were collected using the flagging method in seven sites within the ecological corridor of the Wieprz River, i.e., one of the longest uninterrupted vegetation strips in eastern Poland. The presence of D. reticulatus adults was confirmed in each of the examined sites. The autumn peak of tick activity dominated in most plots. During this period, on average up to 309.7 individuals were collected within 30-min. The results of our study show that, due to the high abundance of local D. reticulatus populations, the habitats located in the ecological corridor of the Wieprz River can be regarded as preferred habitats of this tick species.

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Construction of the Ecological Security Pattern of Urban Agglomeration under the Framework of Supply and Demand of Ecosystem Services Using Bayesian Network Machine Learning: Case Study of the Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan Urban Agglomeration, China

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11226416 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (22) ◽

pp. 6416 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ouyang ◽

Wang ◽

Zhu

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Bayesian Network ◽

Supply And Demand ◽

Urban Agglomeration ◽

Ecological Security ◽

Ecological Strategy ◽

Ecological Corridors ◽

Ecological Corridor ◽

Security Pattern

Coordinating ecosystem service supply and demand equilibrium and utilizing machine learning to dynamically construct an ecological security pattern (ESP) can help better understand the impact of urban development on ecological processes, which can be used as a theoretical reference in coupling economic growth and environmental protection. Here, the ESP of the Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan urban agglomeration was constructed, which made use of the Bayesian network model to dynamically identify the ecological sources. The ecological corridor and ecological strategy points were identified using the minimum cumulative resistance model and circuit theory. The ESP was constructed by combining seven ecological sources, “two horizontal and three vertical” ecological corridors, and 37 ecological strategy points. Our results found spatial decoupling between the supply and demand of ecosystem services (ES) and the degradation in areas with high demand for ES. The ecological sources and ecological corridors of the urban agglomeration were mainly situated in forestlands and water areas. The terrestrial ecological corridor was distributed along the outer periphery of the urban agglomeration, while the aquatic ecological corridor ran from north to south throughout the entire region. The ecological strategic points were mainly concentrated along the boundaries of the built-up area and the intersection between construction land and ecological land. Finally, the ecological sources were found primarily on existing ecological protection zones, which supports the usefulness of machine learning in predicting ecological sources and may provide new insights in developing urban ESP.

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