基于物种运动路径识别的动物通道选址——以武深高速为例

Location design of wildlife corridors based on animal movement path identification: a case study of the Wuhan-Shenzhen Highway

动物通道是缓解高速公路对其周边野生动物生境隔离的有效措施,通道的位置是影响其使用效率的关键因素,然而现有研究对通道的选址却甚少涉及。以武深高速为例,推荐一种基于物种运动路径识别的通道选址方法,选取影响动物生境选择的环境因子构建评价体系,借助GIS手段对公路周边野生动物生境适宜性进行分析,在此基础上借鉴水文分析原理快速准确地刻画出物种在生境中的潜在活动路径,从而确定了5处高速公路上建设动物通道的理想位置。结果表明,该方法能定量地反映出生境的质量格局对于物种运动的影响,准确定位出物种运动受到阻碍的关键区域,在景观层次上,提出的通道位置能有效地缓解栖息地破碎化造成的生态压力;研究不但能弥补目前研究的不足,同时亦为道路网设计、城市生态规划等相关领域研究提供科学参考。

Highways are an important landscape type and have brought significant economic benefits to communities. However, highway construction may adversely affect wildlife survival through habitat fragmentation, degradation, loss, and reduced connectivity. This can then lead to declines in wildlife populations and to the loss of biodiversity. Wildlife corridors are thought to be an efficient way to mitigate the isolation and fragmentation of habitat caused by highway construction and can provide safety avenues for wildlife movement between habitat patches, which facilitates gene dispersal and interflow. However, there has been little research on wildlife corridor design in China, compared to the western, developed countries. Most previous studies have focused on theoretical discussions on the types, size, design principles, and procedures for corridor construction, but the location, which is the key factor affecting corridor use by wildlife, has rarely been discussed. We propose a new method, based on animal movement path identification, for wildlife corridor design, and have undertaken a case study of the Wuhan-Shenzhen Highway. Based on previous studies and wildlife resources of the study area, six indicators, which have been shown to significantly affect wildlife habitat selection, were chosen for our habitat suitability model. We used the model and GIS to assess the suitability of wildlife habitat around the highway and then identified the potential movement path of wildlife by using hydrologic analysis. According to that, five ideal locations were suggested by overlaying the movement paths on the highway, and landscape pattern indices were used to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed corridor location at the landscape level. Our proposed method could quantitatively reflect the ecological relationship between habitat characteristics and wildlife movement, and the critical areas used by wildlife to cross the highway could be precisely identified. Hence, the proposed corridor location could improve wildlife movement connectivity among spatially separated habitats and effectively alleviate the ecological pressure of habitat fragmentation caused by highway construction. Our proposed method could reduce the influence of subjective factors in the decision-making process, and make it possible to acquire and analyze a large amount of environmental data rapidly by using GIS and Analytic Hierarchy Process （AHP）. Moreover, by analyzing the landscape patterns of suitable habitats, we could effectively assess the ecological function of the proposed corridor, which was often overlooked in previous studies. Thus, our study could fill a gap in wildlife corridor design, and provide insights for further research related areas, such as urban ecological planning and road network design.