Testing the benefits of conservation set-asides for improved habitat connectivity in tropical agricultural landscapes.

ABSTRACT: Habitat connectivity is important for tropical biodiversity conservation. Expansion of commodity crops, such as oil palm, fragments natural habitat areas, and strategies are needed to improve habitat connectivity in agricultural landscapes. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) voluntary certification system requires that growers identify and conserve forest patches identified as High Conservation Value Areas (HCVAs) before oil palm plantations can be certified as sustainable. We assessed the potential benefits of these conservation set-asides for forest connectivity.We mapped HCVAs and quantified their forest cover in 2015. To assess their contribution to forest connectivity, we modelled range expansion of forest-dependent populations with five dispersal abilities spanning those r

SUBMITTER: Scriven SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6853203 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature