Identifying restoration priorities for habitat defragmentation: a case study in Alberta's oil sands.

ABSTRACT:

Context

Anthropogenic habitat loss and fragmentation are major threats to ecosystems and a focus in conservation. However, conservation is often limited to considerations of site-level processes neglecting the effect of the surrounding landscape that might limit the effectiveness of restoration efforts.

Objectives

Using seismic lines in Alberta's oil sands as a case study, we demonstrate an approach that integrates spatial configuration of anthropogenic footprints to prioritize habitat defragmentation.

Methods

We quantified the effects of seismic line density and configuration on functional footprints for caribou, butterfly diversity, and vascular plant diversity, to predict whether edge effects are more pronounced under different line densities and configurations. We

SUBMITTER: Viliani L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11457709 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature