A framework to analyze biodiversity capacity at landscape level and identify areas of high ecological importance

Biodiversity is highly affected by ecological processes at the landscape level. To facilitate management decisions at a landscape level, we present an end-user-oriented framework that assesses the biodiversity capacity of individual biotopes in a fragmented landscape and ranks the importance of the biotope patches. The framework can be applied to any biotope and landscape. Analyses can further be done on planned or predicted future scenarios and changes in the landscape structure. There has been continuous exchange with stakeholders and case study testing with the purpose to build a tool that answers the important questions of end users, and provides results that are useful for decision-makers and environmental managers in environmental management and land use planning. The framework is novel in its calculations of the combined effects of connectivity and survival of biodiversity in the biotope patches. It uses land cover data and the concept of umbrella focal species as input. The framework strongly builds on ecological theory and ecological modeling, and produces three outputs of interest: a heatmap visualizing individual patch importance for upholding landscape biodiversity, an indicator metric of the ability of a biotope landscape to support biodiversity, and the number of unsustainable individual patches. The theoretical foundation and structure of the framework are thoroughly explained. The use of its output is further demonstrated by one selected case study where the calculations are applied to a biotope of fragmented old coniferous forest in Sweden. We additionally examine and show how the overall biodiversity potential of the biotope landscape is dependent on which types of species communities are in focus by applying different umbrella focal species. The case study demonstrates the importance of landscape structure for sustainable biodiversity. Results further demonstrate that it is essential to consider the type of species community that is the primary biodiversity conservation target.