MOMENI DEHAGHI I., SAFIANIAN A., HEMAMI M., POURMANAFI S., SALMANMAHINY A., WU G., JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS, Vol. 156, PP. 27_33, 2018.

Abstract: Although corridors have been the subject of extensive research in the recent years, the probable correlationbetween structural and functional corridors have not been addressed to date. Tofill this scientific gap, wecompared structural and functional corridors of wild sheep (Ovis orientalis) as a threatened species in a semi-aridarea of central Iran. Wefirst used Maximum-Entropy to develop wild sheep habitat suitability map. We then usedMorphological-Spatial-Pattern-Analysis (MSPA) and circuit theory to map structural and functional corridors ofwild sheep respectively. Bootstrapping techniques then were used to compare structural and functional corri-dors. We found that structural corridor is a concept which is dependent on the scale of observation. By changingedge-width from 600 to 1200 m, the total area of structural corridors increased by 63%. We also only found verysmall differences in the functional connectivity role of different MSPA categories (including structural corridors).All MSPA categories together accounted for only 20% of the functional connectivity. Although, in some casesfunctional corridors had a better performance in showing migration path of wild sheep between reserves, othercases showed that for effective conservation, both structural and functional corridors should be identified andconsidered in the planning step.