Niebuhr Bernardo B S, Wosniack Marina E, Santos Marcos C, Raposo Ernesto P, Viswanathan Gandhimohan M, da Luz Marcos G E, Pie Marcio R
Laboratório de Dinâmica Evolutiva e Sistemas Complexos, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná, CP 19020, 81531-980, Curitiba-PR, Brazil.
Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Paraná, CP 19044, 81531-980, Curitiba-PR, Brazil.
Sci Rep. 2015 Jul 7;5:11898. doi: 10.1038/srep11898.
Habitat loss and fragmentation are important factors determining animal population dynamics and spatial distribution. Such landscape changes can lead to the deleterious impact of a significant drop in the number of species, caused by critically reduced survival rates for organisms. In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the threeway interplay between habitat loss, fragmentation and survival rates, we propose here a spatially explicit multi-scaled movement model of individuals that search for habitat. By considering basic ecological processes, such as predation, starvation (outside the habitat area), and competition, together with dispersal movement as a link among habitat areas, we show that a higher survival rate is achieved in instances with a lower number of patches of larger areas. Our results demonstrate how movement may counterbalance the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation in altered landscapes. In particular, they have important implications for conservation planning and ecosystem management, including the design of specific features of conservation areas in order to enhance landscape connectivity and population viability.
栖息地丧失和破碎化是决定动物种群动态和空间分布的重要因素。这种景观变化可能导致物种数量大幅下降的有害影响，这是由生物存活率严重降低所致。为了更深入地理解栖息地丧失、破碎化和存活率之间的三方相互作用，我们在此提出一个空间明确的多尺度个体运动模型，该模型用于搜索栖息地。通过考虑诸如捕食、饥饿（在栖息地范围之外）和竞争等基本生态过程，以及作为栖息地之间联系的扩散运动，我们表明，在大面积斑块数量较少的情况下能实现更高的存活率。我们的研究结果表明运动如何能够抵消景观改变中栖息地丧失和破碎化的影响。特别是，它们对保护规划和生态系统管理具有重要意义，包括设计保护区的特定特征以增强景观连通性和种群生存能力。
