Ana Luisa Gomes
Researcher
Directorate-General for Territorial Development
Portugal

Biography
As a researcher in Environmental Engineering at Directorate General for Territorial Development (DGT), has worked in several European projects related to the INSPIRE Directive such as GIS4EU, HUMBOLDT and NATURE_SDI. Currently, as the coordinator of the research project "Wildlife corridors: Spatial modeling of human pressure and its usefulness for Iberian Wolf ", funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), is developing research in geographic modeling of human disturbances in the national territory applied to nature conservation and simultaneously cooperates with Portuguese SDI (SNIG) and INSPIRE Directive implementation, mainly in the monitoring working group.

Abstract
Wildlife Corridors Network Based on Spatial Modeling of Human Disturbance and its Usefulness for Iberian Wolf

Co-Authors:
Alexandra Fonseca, Researcher, Directorate-General for Territorial Development (DGT)
Francisco Petrucci-Fonseca, Researcher, Centre for Environmental Biology (CBA)
Gonzalo Costa, Researcher, Grupo Lobo
Clara Grilo, Researcher, Centre for Environmental Biology (CBA)
Lara Nunes, Research Fellowship, Directorate-General for Territorial Development (DGT)

Human activities have led to habitat degradation, loss and fragmentation, reducing or even extinguishing connectivity, contributing to biodiversity loss. Improvement of connectivity between protected areas was identified as a global priority for conservation. This research project aims to contribute to reduce the isolation between fragmented habitats by identifying corridors between protected areas, in Portuguese mainland territory. To achieve this goal, an innovative approach has been developed based on spatial modeling of anthropogenic influence in the territory, that generates a gradient of environmental disturbances derived from human presence and activities. A multi-criteria expert system was created for spatial modeling of environmental disturbances based on three major themes: human presence, habitat pollution and land cover. Each of these themes is constituted by a set of spatial variables that are intend to represent the various impacts from human activities, creating a gradient of environmental perturbations. 51 experts' answers were used to create a single spatial gradient of human disturbance to wildlife. This gradient constitutes the basis for the identification of preferred corridors between protected areas, following the areas with lower anthropogenic disturbance to the movement of wildlife. The study of presence and spread of Iberian wolf, as an endangered wild top predator considered sensitive to human presence and activities, was used to validate this new strategy for identifying corridors for wildlife. The surveys for assessing the presence and distribution of wolf includes: 1) modeling potential wolf distribution, based on confirmed points of presence and developing a model of habitat suitability to wolf; 2) wolf monitoring in the proposed corridors, through detection of wolf presence signs, such as scats, tracks or field cameras pictures; 3) study public opinion on the wolf, conducted by 273 surveys in order to identify potential areas of conflict. Crossing the gradient of environmental disturbances with wolf distribution, it is verified that the most appropriate locations for the wolf match the areas of least disturbance. So, as connecting paths allows the migration of the existing wild species which favors the persistence of the endangered species and simultaneously contribute to increase the biodiversity within and outside protected areas.