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Corridors

The theory of island biogeography was the primary ecological theory from which conservation lessons were drawn in the 1980's. In the 1990s, island biogeography theory was replaced by metapopulation dynamics.5. Metapopulations, recall, are sets of interacting populations, populations connected by migration, extinction, recolonization. Not surprisingly, the degree of connectedness among populations within a metapopulation play an important role6 in determining whether and how long a metapopulation is likely to persist. This has led to the widespread belief that it is important and desirable to provide corridors that connect remaining fragments. There are, however, several questions to be addressed (see [1] for a recent review and critique):

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to address these questions experimentally.

What to do? Well, I think that we don't trust our biological intuition as much as we should. Neither do we remember how severe are the constraints affecting those involved in conservation ``on the ground'', nor how different each situation is from the next. I suspect that in most circumstances it will be fairly easy to determine whether corridors are worthwhile based on the elements about which we are concerned in a particular place and what we know about their biology. And if we adopt an adaptive management approach, we can learn from our mistakes.


next up previous
Next: Fragmentation effects versus area Up: Dynamics and impacts of Previous: Edge effects
Kent Holsinger 2009-11-03