DISTRIBUTION, HABITAT SUITABILITY, AND CONNECTIVITY OF WOLVES (CANIS LUPUS) IN THE ALPS Workpackage 5: "Corridors and Barriers"

The main goals of this work were defined in the framework of the "ECONNECT Project", and the analysis were conducted following these guidelines: 1) Analysis of species habitat needs in terms of habitat connectivity (e.g. maxi-mum distances, characteristics of corridors/stepping stones). 2) Spatial analysis of current and potential habitats, their lack of connectivity and its reasons (qualitative and quantitative assessment). 3) Characterisation of the barriers by their origin, size, shape and degree of permeability and assessment of possibilities to diminish them. Spatial analysis of current and potential habitats, and the development of a habitat suitability model for wolves over the Alps, were developed following the work published by Marucco (2009) and Marucco & McIntire (2010).