Connectivity of Naturalness in Western Washington

This gallery includes outputs showing the structural connectivity (i.e. naturalness connectivity) for Western Washington.

These data can be used to help guide connectivity conservation efforts. They are the results from the pilot project comparing Omniscape (coreless) and Linkage Mapper (core areas) modeling methods. Extra attention was made to the data inputs and the rigor of the analyses so that the results can be applied, in addition to answering the driving research question.

The driving research question for this project was as follows: should future species for the coastal WA connectivity project use Omniscape or Linkage Mapper or a combination of the two? To answer this, we modeled and mapped the naturalness (i.e. structural) connectivity of the region using the two methods, then combing the two methods to highlight each techniques strengths. The Linkage Mapper method was chosen for the path forward at a workshop of the Washington Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Working Group.

Details are in the associated report:

Gallo, J.A., E. Butts, T. Miewald, K. Foster. 2019. Comparing and Combining Omniscape and Linkage Mapper Connectivity Analyses in Western Washington. Conservation Biology Institute. Corvallis, OR, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8120924

Additional data are available from the ScienceBase page.