Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Anticipating The Impacts Of The Social, Political, And Biophysical Landscape On Long-Term Connectivity For Reintroduced Plains Bison, Jamie Ann Faselt

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Intense anthropogenic pressures on the natural environment have created the need for implementing strategies that promote or restore habitat connectivity. The ability for animals to move between habitat patches allows animals to find mates, access resources, and shift their range in response to the changing climate and ensures that ecological and evolutionary processes persist. Connectivity conservation typically focuses on biophysical barriers to animal movement, but for many species reintroductions, establishing and maintaining connectivity often requires overcoming both ecological and socio-political barriers. Despite the need to navigate complex socio-political landscapes to implement connectivity conservation plans, datasets depicting those conditions are rarely …