Connectivity modelling in conservation science: a comparative evaluation.

Landscape connectivity, the extent to which a landscape facilitates the flow of ecological processes such as organism movement, has grown to become a central focus of applied ecology and conservation science. Several computational algorithms have been developed to understand and map connectivity, and many studies have validated their predictions using empirical data. Yet at present, there is no published comparative analysis which uses a comprehensive simulation framework to measure the accuracy and performance of the dominant methods in connectivity modelling.