Abstract Habitat connectivity is essential to facilitate species movement across fragmented landscapes, but hard to achieve at broad scales. The enforcement of existing land use policies could improve habitat connectivity, while providing legal support for implementation. Our goal was to evaluate how forest connectivity is affected if forests are restored according to existing riparian buffer regulations in Chile. We simulated forest restoration within 30 and 200 m of rivers in 99 large watersheds, following two sections of the forest regulation. We mapped habitat for two model forest species that have different minimum habitat sizes (15 and 30 ha), and for each we identified forest habitats and corridors using image morphology analysis. To quantify change in connectivity, we used a network graph index, the Relative Equivalent Connected Area. We found that both 30- and 200-m riparian buffers could have a positive effect on habitat connectivity. The 200-m buffers increased connectivity the most where forest cover was 20–40% (40% mean increase in connectivity index), while the 30-m buffers increased connectivity the most where forest cover was 40–60% (30% mean increase in connectivity index). The effect of riparian restoration scenarios was similar for both model species, suggesting that effective implementation of existing forest regulation could improve connectivity for fauna with a range of minimum habitat size requirements. Our findings also suggest that there is some flexibility in the buffer sizes that, if restored, would increase habitat connectivity. This flexibility could help ease the social and economic cost of implementing habitat restoration in productive lands.

中文翻译：

---

根据现有法规恢复河岸森林可以大大改善智利森林动物群的连通性

摘要 栖息地连通性对于促进物种跨越支离破碎的景观至关重要，但很难在广泛的范围内实现。现有土地使用政策的执行可以改善栖息地的连通性，同时为实施提供法律支持。我们的目标是评估如果根据智利现有的河岸缓冲法规恢复森林，森林连通性会受到怎样的影响。我们在 99 个大流域的河流 30 和 200 m 范围内模拟森林恢复，遵循森林调节的两个部分。我们为具有不同最小栖息地大小（15 公顷和 30 公顷）的两种模式森林物种绘制了栖息地图，并使用图像形态分析为每个物种确定了森林栖息地和走廊。为了量化连通性的变化，我们使用了网络图索引，即相对等效连接区域。我们发现 30 米和 200 米的河岸缓冲区都可能对栖息地连通性产生积极影响。200 米缓冲区在森林覆盖率为 20-40%（连通性指数平均增加 40%）的情况下增加了最多的连通性，而 30 米缓冲区在森林覆盖率为 40-60%（平均增加 30%）的情况下增加了最多的连通性在连通性指数中）。河岸恢复情景对两种模式物种的影响相似，表明有效实施现有森林监管可以改善动物群的连通性，满足一系列最低栖息地大小要求。我们的研究结果还表明，缓冲区大小具有一定的灵活性，如果恢复，将增加栖息地的连通性。这种灵活性有助于减轻在生产性土地上实施栖息地恢复的社会和经济成本。