Connectivity in a real fragmented landscape: distance vs movement model based approaches

Graph theory derived models and measures are increasingly being used to quantify landscape connectivity in order to contribute to conservation biology and management. This is particularly relevant in the case of real landscapes in which local actions may have crucial consequences for maintaining biodiversity on large scale. A number of graphs were compared sharing an identical node weight definition and whose link weights representing functional patch-connectivity, were derived from conceptually different approaches. Habitat suitability was taken into account. Calculated patch-connectivity was compared between all the graphs and these differences, evaluated by a set of indices describing network properties at the element structure level, were investigated.