Least‐cost path analysis for urban greenways planning: a test with moths and birds across two habitats and two cities

1. One of the major planning tools to respond to urban landscape fragmentation is the development of ecological corridors, i.e. interconnected networks of urban green and blue spaces. Least-cost paths (LCP) appear to be an easy and appropriate resistance-based modeling method to respond to urban planners’ needs. However, the ecological validation of urban corridors using LCP is rarely performed and needs to be generalized to different species, habitats and cities.

2. We developed an experimental design to test the efficiency of LCP predictions to detect highly connecting landscape contexts that facilitate individual movements compared to movements in less connecting landscape contexts. We deliberately assigned LCP analysis parameters based on the scientific literature and expert knowledge to test a method potentially easy to use for urban stakeholders. To extend the validation, we applied our LCP model to two biological taxa with different habitat requirements: grassland-dwelling mot...