geohabnet: An R package for mapping habitat connectivity for biosecurity and conservation

TL;DR

The paper introduces geohabnet, an R package that models habitat connectivity to aid in biosecurity, conservation, and invasion science by evaluating the importance of locations in species spread using network analysis.

Contribution

geohabnet is a novel R package that integrates habitat suitability, dispersal, and network metrics to assess habitat connectivity for species spread at various geographic scales.

Findings

Enables prioritization of surveillance for plant pests in Africa and the Americas.

Provides a reproducible, open-source tool for habitat connectivity analysis.

Supports decision-making in biosecurity and conservation efforts.

Abstract

Mapping habitat suitability, based on factors like host availability and environmental suitability, is a common approach to determining which locations are important for the spread of a species. Mapping habitat connectivity takes geographic analyses a step further, evaluating the potential roles of locations in biological invasions, pandemics, or species conservation. Locations with high habitat suitability may play a minor role in species spread if they are geographically isolated. Yet, a location with lower habitat suitability may play a major role in a species' spread if it acts as a bridge between regions that would otherwise be physically fragmented. Here we introduce the geohabnet R package, which evaluates the potential importance of locations for the spread of species through habitat landscapes. geohabnet incorporates key factors such as dispersal probabilities and habitat suitability in a network framework, for better understanding habitat connectivity for host-dependent species, such as pathogens, arthropod pests, or pollinators. geohabnet uses publicly available or user-provided datasets, six network centrality metrics, and a user-selected geographic scale. We provide examples using geohabnet for surveillance prioritization of emerging plant pests in Africa and the Americas. These examples illustrate how users can apply geohabnet for their species of interest and generate maps of the estimated importance of geographic locations for species spread. geohabnet provides a quick, open-source, and reproducible baseline to quantify a species' habitat connectivity across a wide range of geographic scales and evaluates potential scenarios for the expansion of a species through habitat landscapes. geohabnet supports biosecurity programs, invasion science, and conservation biology when prioritizing management efforts for transboundary pathogens, pests, or endangered species.