WRDS Research Team
- Jeff Bowman, Research Scientist
- Carrie Sadowski, Biologist
- Laura Bruce, Research Technician
Project Objectives/Overview
Connectivity is an important landscape feature for animals, because a lack of connectivity can increase extinction risk. We have been using a cost surface approach to estimate functional landscape connectivity for a variety of wildlife species in Ontario. Some applications of this work are species specific (for example, estimates of lynx and marten connectivity have been published), whereas other applications attempt to be more general, or community-based. Recently we have been working on adding connectivity measures to Natural Heritage System plans in various parts of southern Ontario.
Collaborators and Participants
- Stephen Mills, NESI, MNR
- Sylvia Strobl, SESI, MNR
- Aaron Walpole, WRDS, MNR
- Steve Voros, SRPU,MNR
- Erin Koen, Trent University
- Colin Garroway, Oxford University
- Dennis Murray, Trent University
- Paul Wilson, Trent University
Funding Partners
Aspects of this work have been funded by an NSERC Strategic Projects grant, an NSERC Discovery Grant, Trent University and the Applied Research and Development Branch of MNR.
Interesting Fact! A recent study by Koen et al. (2012) of marten gene flow has shown that forest landscapes in Ontario are well connected for martens.
For more information, and copies of publications, see http://people.trentu.ca/jebowman
