Coupling landscape graph modeling and biological data: a review

Context Landscape graphs are widely used to model networks of habitat patches. As they require little input data, they are particularly suitable for supporting conservation decisions (and decisions about other issues as e.g. disease spread) taken by land planners. However, it may be problematic to use these methods in operational contexts without validating them with empirical data on species or communities. Objectives Since little is known about methodological alternatives for coupling landscape graphs with biological data, we have made an exhaustive review of these methods to analyze links between the main purposes of the studies, the way landscape graphs are constructed and used, the type of field data, and the way these data are integrated into the analysis. Methods We systematically describe a corpus of 71 scientific papers dealing with terrestrial species, with particular emphasis on methodological choices and contexts of the studies. Results Despite a great variability of types of biological data and coupling strategies, our analyses reveal a dichotomy according to the objective of the studies, between (i) approaches aimed at improving ecological knowledge, mainly based on land-cover maps and using biological data to test the influence of landscape connectivity on biological responses, and (ii) approaches with an operational aim, in which biological data are directly integrated into the graph construction and assuming a positive effect of connectivity. Conclusions Beyond these main contrasts, the review shows that landscape graphs can benefit from field data of different types at varying scales. The great variability of approaches adopted reveals the flexible nature of these tools.