Estimating Fragmentation and Connectivity Patterns of the Temperate Forest in an Avocado-Dominated Landscape to Propose Conservation Strategies

María Camila Latorre-Cárdenas (), Antonio González-Rodríguez (), Oscar Godínez-Gómez, Eugenio Y. Arima, Kenneth R. Young, Audrey Denvir, Felipe García-Oliva and Adrián Ghilardi
Additional contact information
María Camila Latorre-Cárdenas: Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia 58190, Mexico
Antonio González-Rodríguez: Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia 58190, Mexico
Oscar Godínez-Gómez: Comisión Nacional Para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad (CONABIO), Ciudad de México 14010, Mexico
Eugenio Y. Arima: Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Kenneth R. Young: Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Audrey Denvir: Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Felipe García-Oliva: Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia 58190, Mexico
Adrián Ghilardi: Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia 58190, Mexico

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: The rapid expansion of avocado cultivation in Michoacán, Mexico, is one of the drivers of deforestation. We assessed the degree of fragmentation and functional connectivity of the remaining temperate forest within the Avocado Belt and prioritized patches that contribute the most to connectivity using a network-based approach and modelling different seed and pollen dispersal scenarios, including two types of patch attributes (size and degree of conservation). As landscape transformation in the region is rapid and ongoing, we updated the land-use and land-cover maps through a supervised classification of Sentinel-2 imagery, improving the reliability of our analyses. Temperate forest is highly fragmented within the region: most patches are small (<30 ha), have a reduced core-area (28%), and irregular shapes. The degree of connectivity is very low (0.06), dropping to 0.019 when the degree of conservation of patches was considered. The top 100 ranked patches of forest that support the connectivity of seeds and pollen have different characteristics (i.e., size and topology) that may be considered for implementing conservation and management strategies. Seed dispersal seems to be more threatened by fragmentation than pollen dispersal, and patches that are important for maintaining seed connectivity are embedded in the denser zone of avocado orchards.

Keywords: structural and functional connectivity; habitat-quality; degree of connectivity; supervised classification; seed and pollen dispersal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/3/631/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/3/631/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:3:p:631-:d:1089805

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().