Landscape connectivity in R

Hi Manuel,

Probably you know  better than me that there are tons of papers dealing 
with this question out there. Unfortunately up to my mind your question 
focus a more a conceptual  (as described e.g. by Rudnick et al 2012  
Meiklejohn et al. 2012 or Kindlmann & Burel 2008) than a technical 
problem.  You can easily calculate this suggested metrics and measures  
with some R packages e.g. as the suggested ones. But as far as I got it 
you are looking for R-tools that magically ;-) connect these 
metrics/locations. Technically this is done by network analysis on 
graphs or cost analysis  on raster data.  If you want to do derive 
corridors the raster concept seems to be advantageous  because it 
provides zones or something like real areas (corridors).

If you want to to it on a data set that is bigger than about 700*700 
pixels  and you do not want to rely on grainscape you should risk a 
glimpse on fully developed GIS Software packages like GRASS GIS. It 
provides powerful support for all kind of cost analysis . Your corridor 
problem is a a typical least cost path problem that needs a solid 
parametrization of the friction datasets and and landscape patterns as 
derived from the typical metrics. After this you can define your 
corridor analysis. If you are interested in an applied example you may 
have a look at github (https://github.com/gisma/robubu)  where you find  
(among other stuff)  a simple example of an R-driven implemetation of a 
GRASS cost analysis to estimate the movement patterns and connectivity 
corridors of running beetle occurrences in high asia.

cheers Chris

Landscape connectivity in R

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