Mapping the way: identifying priority potential corridors for protected areas connectivity in Colombia

Colombia has experienced alarming rates of deforestation, posing a threat to forest biodiversity both inside and outside protected areas. Furthermore, a decline in ecological connectivity can potentially disrupt vital ecological processes such as pollination, gene flow, breeding, seed dispersal, among others. To address this issue at a national scale, it is crucial to identify and conserve a comprehensive network of ecological corridors. In this study, we identified high priority potential ecological corridors linking protected areas in Colombia. We categorized a representative set of 16 threatened mammal species into four ecological profiles. Then, we used Least Cost Path (LCP) analysis to model potential corridors between protected areas as those that minimized resistance for forest species dispersal. To prioritize conservation efforts, we applied the decrease in the Probability of Connectivity index (dPC) to identify corridors with the highest priority. Our findings emphasize the importance of preserving large forest patches within protected areas for species inhabiting lowland and sub-Andean forests. However, for species residing in Andean and high Andean forests, restoration measures (e.g., increasing forest cover) between protected areas are needed to enhance landscape permeability and facilitate their dispersal, thereby contributing to their conservation. Our results have practical implications for decision-makers involved in conservation efforts. These findings can aid in identifying conservation priorities for existing protected areas and their surrounding forest habitats in Colombia. Additionally, we provided expert-based resistance values for different forest mammals that can be further used in other large scale connectivity analyses, including other countries where these species inhabit.