NSNF - Wildlife Linkages - CDFW [ds1005]

Many species corridors were overlapping despite diverse habitat needs and the use of species specific data to build the habitat suitability models. Habitat areas for corridor dwellers, based on habitat suitability modeling and patch analysis, was added to the least-cost union: We identified all habitat patches within the corridor union, measured distance between each habitat patch to make sure it was within the maximum dispersal distance for that corridor dweller, and when needed added habitat near the corridor edge to meet the species dispersal needs.

Redundant corridors were deleted to provide cleaner linkage areas. This analysis identified multiple swaths of habitat that species have the potential to reside in or move through. To ensure that ecological processes were protected in each linkage, we imposed a minimum width of 1 km for linkages.

For more information see the project report at [nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=85358].