Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
PLoS One. 2020 Feb 24;15(2):e0229261. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229261. eCollection 2020.
The Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) population has remained isolated South of the Alps for the last few thousand years. After a strong decline, the species has recolonized the Apennines and the Western Alps, while it is currently struggling to colonize the Eastern Alps. Recently, the species was detected in a lowland park connecting the Northern Apennines to the Central Alps. If the park was able to sustain a net wolf dispersal flow, this could significantly boost the connection with the Eastern Alps and the Dinaric-Balkan population. We investigated the suitability of the park as a functional ecological corridor for the wolf through the unhospitable lowland of Northern Italy. We collected wolf occurrence data in two study areas. We modeled species distribution running a separate ensemble model for each study area and then merging the output of the models to obtain an integrated suitability map. We used this map to identify corridors for the wolf adopting a factorial least-cost path and a cumulative resistant kernel approach. The connectivity models showed that only two corridors exist in the lowland areas between the Northern Apennines and the Central Alps. The Western corridor is a blind route, while the eastern corridor passes through the park and has a continuous course. However, the models also revealed a scarce resilience of corridor connectivity in the passageways between the park and the Apennines and the Prealps, which suggests that urgent management actions are necessary to ensure the future functionality of this important corridor.
意大利狼（Canis lupus italicus）种群在过去几千年中一直被隔离在阿尔卑斯山脉以南。在经历了强烈的衰退后，该物种重新在亚平宁山脉和阿尔卑斯山西部地区繁衍生息，而目前正努力在阿尔卑斯山东部地区扎根。最近，该物种在连接北亚平宁山脉和中阿尔卑斯山脉的一个低地公园中被发现。如果该公园能够维持净狼群扩散流，这将极大地促进与阿尔卑斯山东部和迪纳里克-巴尔干地区种群的联系。我们通过意大利北部不适合居住的低地，研究了该公园作为狼功能性生态走廊的适宜性。我们在两个研究区域收集了狼的出现数据。我们为每个研究区域运行了一个单独的集合模型来模拟物种分布，然后合并模型的输出，以获得一个综合适宜性地图。我们使用该地图通过因子最小成本路径和累积阻力核方法来确定狼的走廊。连通性模型表明，在北亚平宁山脉和中阿尔卑斯山脉之间的低地地区，只有两条走廊存在。西部走廊是一条盲道，而东部走廊穿过公园，并有一个连续的路线。然而，这些模型还揭示了公园与亚平宁山脉和前阿尔卑斯山之间的通道的走廊连通性的稀缺弹性，这表明需要采取紧急的管理行动来确保这条重要走廊未来的功能。
