Green spaces are critical for connecting urban habitat in the tropics

Abstract

Tropical Southeast Asia is a hotspot for global biodiversity, and also a hotspot for rapidly expanding urbanisation. There is a need to identify, protect, restore, and connect remaining green spaces in the urban matrix before this opportunity is lost to urban development. The objective of this study is to characterise ecological connectivity for mammals and identify important patches and linkages for connecting urban green spaces for Greater Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. We first map land cover across the region using linear mixture model with preprocessed multi-date cloud free mosaics derived from Sentinel 2 remote sensing data in Google Earth Engine. We then model connectivity using the land cover maps, expert-based parameterisation of Euclidian distance, and graph-based connectivity models for a range of dispersal guilds representing small and medium terrestrial and arboreal mammals. Our analysis showed large differences in the effects of fragmentation within Greater KL on the different dispersal groups, with some groups perceiving the landscape as disconnected. However, our analysis identified a network of green patches and pathways which potentially could support connectivity in the urban landscape. Our results demonstrate the potential for Southeast Asian mega cities to support biodiversity in the urban context, and the potential for a different kind of urban development, which supports biodiversity in its urban fabric.