Alaska Landscape Connectivity Article Published

NWB LCC collaborators have published an article about connectivity modelling across Alaska, focused on the BLM’s Central Yukon Planning area. The article, Using topographic geodiversity to connect conservation lands in the Central Yukon, Alaska, is published in the journal Landscape Ecology. The analysis models climate-resilient landscape linkages between conservation lands within and adjacent to a 59-million-acre planning area. The authors found that using as little as 1% of the planning area linkages can connect over 64 million acres of conservation land.“Once connectivity is lost, it is politically and financially difficult to restore (Forman 1995). Alaska has > 120 million acres of land in the federal conservation estate. Proactively linking these conservation units will allow for wildlife movement even as the region develops and land use changes (Beier et al. 2008).

The connectivity analysis explores using “enduring features” to understand potential connectivity in the future.

We used geodiversity to design structural connectivity between approximately 55 million acres of National Park Service (NPS) and National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) lands in Northern Alaska. We use the term landscape linkage to describe structural corridors between the conservation units. The term linkage has been defined as specific lands that maintain the ability of multiple species to move between wildland blocks (Beier et al. 2008).”
You can read the article here.
Authors: Dawn R. Magness Amanda L. Sesser Tim Hammond