Biological Corridor

The expression “ biological corridor ” (or Biocorridor ) indicates mediums functionally connecting between them various vital habitats for a species or a group of species (habitats, sites of reproduction, nourrissage, rest, of migration, etc).

These structures écopaysagères make it possible to connect or reconnecter between them several subpopulations (patchs). They allow the migration of individuals and the gene circulation (animal, vegetable or fungic) of one subpopulation the other.

The restoration of a network of biological corridors (grid or ecological screen) is one of the two great strategies of management restauratoire or academy for the many species threatened by fragmentation of their habitat). The other, complementary, being the protection or restoration of habitats.

Definitions

Corridor : In a general way, in the field of the Ecology of the landscape , the word corridor indicates any working joint between ecosystems or various habitats of a species (or a group of interdependent species), allowing its dispersion and its migration. The corridors ensure or restore flows of species and genes which are vital for the survival of the species and their adaptive evolution. They are thus vital for the maintenance of the Biodiversité animal and vegetable and for the long term survival of the majority of the species.

The animals, the plants or the genes must move to remain. For each species and sometimes for certain communities of species, it is vital that the individuals who compose them (and/or their Propagule S) can move. Even fixed species, such as the moulds need at certain times for their life to migrate or to move (larvae). Many species, vegetable in particular, are made transport by others to the state of seed or propagule. These displacements and migratory displacements make it possible to the individuals to evolve/move in space with the sandstone of the seasons or the availability in food. They are vital for survival, the development and the evolution of the species. But displacements of Alive require specific conditions to each species or groups species. It is possible that in a context of climatic modifications the availability in corridors is even more crucial for the survival of many species species.

The concepts of biological corridor and ecological corridor are recent concepts and in evolution, rising from the ecology of the landscape, one of the branches of the Biogéographie. They indicate the éco-landscape structures (sites and networks of sites) meeting the conditions of displacement of a species (animal, vegetable or fungic.) or of a community of species, or their genes. The tangled up whole of these corridors constitutes the screen of a ecological Maillage; Network complex room and planet gear.

One tends to distinguish:

the biological corridor , indicating any corridor specific to a given species, including from the point of view of the genetic exchanges,
the ecological corridor , broader space structure not engaging necessarily of genetic concept. An ecological corridor can gather various biological under-corridors (one then speaks about biological Zone of connection (ZoCoB)).
the ecological network ; the functional whole of the corridors, on landscape and supra-landscape scales.

However, the impacts of the human activities develop in an exponential way since the 19th century. They physically or functionally stopped or parcelled out a great number of the ecological corridors, by ecological Barrières or bottlenecks built through the natural infrastructures. Thus industrial agriculture, the urbanization, the industrialization and the development of the infrastructures built, especially since the XIXe century, lead to a ecological fragmentation increasing of the landscapes and ecosystems. Even the large rivers almost all are today divided into sections by hydroelectric stoppings and water reserves which obstruct or prohibit the increase of the watery species.

This ecological fragmentation seems to be become one of the first causes of regression of the Biodiversité. The Roadkill is one of the most known aspects. Certain pollutants from now on are also considered for their capacity to split up space, it is the case of the pesticides which are épandus on considerable and increasing surfaces, transforming these spaces into barriers for many species.

To measure and compensate for the impacts of fragmentation écopaysagère by the infrastructures, and to follow and/or restore the biological corridors, it is necessary to be able to chart them: the Cartographie of the biological corridors is a recent, complex discipline and in full evolution. See the detailed article: Cartography of the biological corridors.

Remarks on the definitions

the biological corridor is often a medium living as much constituted by the species which compose it than by its geomorphological characteristics: it is fixed neither in time nor in space. Only the function of connection is durable.
It can be immaterial in our eyes (odor of water guiding salmon in the sea towards the source of its native river)
a corridor for a species can be a barrier for another species. (Ex: river)
It is distinguished from the elements adjacent, of the matrix écopaysagère by particular characteristics (aspect, characteristics pedogeologic, orientation, thermo-hygrometrical Couple, odors, etc).

General typology of the corridors

Dice 1986, FORMAN and GADROON established a typology based on their structure. Other typologies were based on land aspects, or the character " open " or " closed " mediums or on the habitats which they shelter.
On now generally distinguishes:

linear structure (narrow; these corridors shelter especially species of forest edges and water). They are for example hedges, ditches, slope, ripisylves, etc…,
broader structures accommodating at the same time species of edge and those living only in the " coeurs" habitats (ex: forests);
structure Ford (continuations of small island-refuges (“stepping zones” for the english-speaking)
secondary Zone-plug or zones;

According to the context and the scale of the “ landscape matrix ” considered, the word corridor is used with variable directions.

the elements of the landscape which constitute a corridor ;

They are spaces not presenting obstacles to the displacement of the species considered (material or immaterial obstacles). They must thus be also free from disturbance harmful Perturbation and pollution with these species. They are generally natural, but sometimes artificial elements having a functional value of substitution. (A Haie lives agricultural, especially if it is bordered of a enherbée Bande and/or of a ditch or river can to some extent fulfill the functions of conduction of a timbered band, a Ripisylve or a natural edge).

what are not the corridors ;

Any installation landscape forming continuity (way of walk, cycle track, timbered band, etc) does not constitute necessarily a corridor.

The aspect or forms spots of the landscape is not enough to make of them corridors, it is the reality of the function of ecological conduction which defines them.

Scientific theoretical base

biogeographic Theory of the islands (MacArthur and Wilson 1967; Brown & Kodric-Brown 1977) (more important insularisation when the island small and is insulated)
Théorie of operation in Métapopulation S.
Théorie of the percolation

History

The concept appears following the theories of the ecology of the landscape, and in particular of the ecological Fragmentation or theory of the ecological Insularisation. It calls also upon the Théorie of the percolation, applied to the landscape and the ecosystems.
Des enquiring and sometimes of the Anglo-Saxon communities or the ex-countries of the East, as of the years 1990, produced first charts approaching these concepts, generally for continental environments. The concept is diffused, even encouraged by UICN, and certain promoters of project MAB ( Programme Man and Biosphere ) of UNO.
L' urban ecology quickly seized of the concept of corridor through projects of the type '' green Trames ''. Certain German cities like Berlin or Stuttgart have since more than 20 very precise year a cartography of useful data identifying the ecological fragmentation whose certain aspects were approximate, including the fragmentation of the thermo-hygrometrical Continuums.
Dès the years 1990, Australia develops projects of corridors with continental scale. In Switzerland, the Research department ECONAT around Guy Bertoux contributed to improve and popularize the principle and the cartography.
En France in the years 1990 and 2000, a innovating work of sensitizing accompanied by actions of ground developed in Area Nord/Pas-de-Calais initially within the framework of the experiments of biological Contrats of corridors (as from 1995) then of the green Trame and the green and blue Trame, but of other approaches were developed in Isere, in Alsace, in edge of the Loire, Paris region, or by certain agglomerations (Dunkirk, Brest.). Within this framework of many modes of cartography were tested and implemented; Under the impulse of the DIREN, and sometimes of the DDE, the impact studies or landscape integrated this type of cartography little by little, with a delay compared to the Scandinavian countries, and in particular compared to the Netherlands which implement impact studies and compensatory measures pushed for their new infrastructures.
IENE thanks to the European program COST 341, allowed 3 international symposiums on the topic of fragmentation écopaysagère by the infrastructures (highway primarily, although the network treats theoretically also channels and railways). In parallel a network of scientifiqiues (IALE) developed. One of the objectives of these networks and to contribute to the installation of the European ecological network (Infra Eco network Europe).
En France, the university of Rennes and Montpellier constituted of the poles of research on the topic of the ecology of the landscape starting from work of some pioneers of which Francoise Burel and Jacques Baudry at the university of Rennes.
Avec the support of Europe, the work groups INTERREG on the indicators of sustainable development, the biodiversity and the green screen project CBNI " Cross-country race To border Natural Project" Infrastructure; or " Project; cartography of the natural infrastructure transfrontalière" (CINT). In 1998, FNE launched in an operation " Cord of Vie" to incite the communes to create biological corridors and buffer zones around protected spaces, while asking, as the WWF that the forests are managed in a network, integrating a network of forests old and protected for their biodiversity.
En 2007, after a particularly dry and hot summer, Australia creates the first climatic, transcontinental Corridor, 2.800 km length, posting a double will to protect the biodiversity and to take into account the Climate warming.

The problem: fragmentation écopaysagère

The natural environments are more and more parcelled out and reduced, and the biological corridors are it also. Various brakes, barriers, bolts or necks of curiously - because they split up the ecosystems abnormally - limit or prohibit the displacement normal and necessary of fauna and the flora, genes within the species and their habitats, particularly for the migrating ones. The effects of the Fragmentation écopaysagère are complex and badly known. The “opaque” infrastructures more with animal and vegetable or high-risk displacements of road-kill (animal mortality by collision with vehicles) seem to remain the network of road transport, highway and railway (line TGV), but the data accumulated for 20 years have shown that the diffuse pollution as induced by the pesticides and manures has an impact which could be very underestimated. Certain species are recognized like particularly useful or important for the operation of the ecosystems and for this reason protected by the law. For example, the hedgehog and the Amphibians, of which respectively more than one million and several million of individuals are still each year victims of circulation in a country like France, although their number does not cease being reduced. It is to allow the survival of the biodiversity that certain communities and organizations develop strategies of ecological Remaillage of the territory.

Roles of the biological corridor

The biological corridors are necessary to the biodiversity, on some scale that it is. They can have various functions with respect to the species which use them:

Led : It can serve of simple corridor of dissemination of the animal species, vegetable or fungic
Habitat : The corridor can be a habitat or a refuge where the species carry out the whole of their biological cycles
Filtre : What is favorable to a species will not be it inevitably for others. A corridor can lead a species and block another of them.
Source: The corridor can itself constitute a tank of colonizing individuals…
Puits : … or contrary, to constitute for certain species one of spaces colonized by one (of) population (S) source (S) with the periphery of spaces sources or the landscape matrix

Nature of the biological corridor

The scientific theory is unifying, but each biological corridor is a particular case, which will meet only the needs for certain communities of species, and sometimes for a given time or part of the year (cf seasonal migrations). Its nature is thus intrinsically related to that of the species which use it, and conversely. It differs according to the size, the needs trophic and the mode of displacement of the species (race, flight, stroke, snaking or passive displacement for many organizations (vegetable in particular, with for example the transport of pollen by the bees, seeds by granivores, passive floatation, etc).

In reality;
Les corridors is complex and often accommodates many species, which themselves modify the characteristics of the corridor (which they are plants, mushrooms or animals, for example large herbivores, beaver S, etc).
La natural and the appearance of the corridor also depends on the space and temporal scale of the observer.

Homogeneous functionally, a corridor proves nevertheless to constitute with local scales a heterogeneous mosaic of mediums, often complex.
In order to guarantee the compatibility of the corridors with a maximum of animal species, vegetable or fungic, and to reform a total ecological network, obtained by superposition of the specific networks, it is important that the corridors are inter-connected better, but also that they preserve or find a certain level of complexity.
Without being really fractale, the ecological screen is multi-scalar (multi-scale): it fits necessarily at the same time in the lan, regional, national, European, paneuropéen and planet gear.

Artificially reconstituted corridors

Whereas the European ex-countries of the East protected or restored already corridors for many species, the French-speaking countries directed their first experiments (écoduc S) towards some species-game of the large fauna (stag, roe-deer, wild boar.). It acted, exclusively within the framework of compensatory measures to enable them to cross the highways or railways which split up their territories or those of the hunters. A corridor intended for reconnecter two solid masses timbered for roe-deers will not have the same functionalities nor the same aspect as a corridor of migration for the storks, a passage for the batrachians (Batrachoduc) under a road or a corridor ensuring the migration of such threatened butterfly, or supporting the dispersion of seeds of such or such plant specie. Nevertheless all take part of the same project; the ecological mending of meshes of the territory, the local scales with planet gear. In all the cases, the creation of a corridor should generate an added-value in favor of the environment and not be carried out at the expense of ecosystems relictuels. It would be contradictory to drain a wetland with the pretext of there make pass a timbered corridor, or to remove trees died by pretexting the setting in safety of a biological corridor which is also a way of walk.

Types of corridors

The corridors easiest to apprehend are Continuum S écopaysagers functional, beginning again often, but not necessarily the vegetable characteristics of the mediums which they unite;

forest continuum: forest, wood, raised zones or buissonnantes, and their edges écotone S if necessary
extensive agricultural continuum: scrap-metals, pasture, meadows and zones of agriculture bio being appropriate for certain species
meadow continuum: meadows, scrap-metal, isolated cultures, orchards
paludic continuum (wetlands): meadows of mowings and meadows easily flooded, cultures in alluvial zones, mangroves.
watery continuum: network of the rivers, ponds and water levels of the hydrographic network (sometimes qualified blue Screen )
geomorphological continuum: corridors avalanches, run remains or torrential (in the mountainous areas)

These continuums are articulated around specific elements such as:

mountainous barriers and their collars, which concentrates and directs certain migratory flux and of genes
the littorals, rivers, ditches and cords wooded which structure in particular the watery and paludic continuums.
seamen circles, including the Network complex and still badly known of the underwater biological corridors?
scrap-metal of quickset hedges which supplements and extends considerably the forest continuum for many species
the hedges, ways agricultural for the extensive agricultural continuum
littoral dunes, etc

Across its morphological characteristics, a corridor is initially defined by a whole of “favorable conditions” in the life and the circulation of the species, and thus in the maintenance of the biodiversity. Certain factors a long time considered as secondaries, have nevertheless a great importance:

Continuum thermo-hygrometrical

Joint measurements of temperature and moisture show that the effect of distinct (created for example by a road crossing a forest or a meadow) or simple effects of edges (ex: in edge of a white cut) can result in falls important and durable of the hygroscopy and a strong increase in the variations in temperature (as well as luminosity and of wind), with impacts which a long time were very underestimated. However, the thermo-hygrometrical, invisible continuums in our eyes are of paramount importance for many species very sensitive to these parameters.

Corridor “of black” (i.e free from luminous Pollution)

Since 3,7 billion years, the biological activity of the flora and fauna are controlled by a hormonal internal clock fixed on the alternation of the day and the night (nychthemeral rate/rhythm). To clarify certain species at times when they are normally not it involves deep modifications of their behavior (ex: the poultries lay in full winter). Most of the species living or moving of night are lucifugous (flee the light), in particular in the invertebrates. For other the lamps are on the contrary a fatal source of attraction. One can speak for these species about need for integrity for the night Environnement. In both cases the light is a factor (immaterial) of fragmentation of their habitat. These species need ecological corridors plunged in the darkness the night. Moreover, because of their more sensitive eyes, the night species are often very sensitive to the dazzling. Let us note that these species generally do not move at the time of the strong rains, storms, gel. In these cases the emergency lighting, of a close road for example, does not seem to pose problem a priori, but the control of lighting in the conditions weather is practically never implemented. The luminaries and in particular the lines of standard lamps then constitute luminous barriers which push back or produce an often fatal attraction for these species.

clean Corridor of air

The quality of the air, with respect to the pesticides in particular, is an even major determining factor for many species (invertebrates in particular). It is thus necessary to support corridors of clean air on the biological corridors. It is one of the assigned roles at the buffer zones, but in the cases of the pesticides and nitrates, or of ozone a basic pollution circulates on vast surfaces, which it is advisable to reduce to the source, as long as to make may be. If the corridor must pass in a zone which one knows polluted (by pesticides or other), one can try to attenuate the impacts as of these pollutants by widening the buffer zones and by supporting there the conditions of air-cleaning (by the plants, mushrooms in particular). As example, the propagule of lichens, although easily dispersed by the wind, did not manage to cross a simple ring road to be established side city (ex in Lille, cf work of C Vanhalluwyn, Faculté of pharmacy, Lille)

Corridor of calm

If some species commensales of the man are not very sensitive to the disturbance and in particular to the noise or the human presence, it is not always the case, in particular for the animals driven out for a long time.

Installation of a biological corridor

Legal framework

The biological corridors can be regional, but the ecological Réseau is created and/or protected in a context necessarily at the same time local, regional, national and international. Historically, the corridors initially were of the projects official in the ex-countries of the East of Europe, and primarily built on voluntariate, the partnership and écocitoyenneté, and mainly on the voluntary help in the European countries, with mixed solutions in the USA or in Australia.

Concerning the biology of the conservation, the total legal framework is that of the protection of the species and the Biodiversity, and thus of a sufficient network of natural habitats. He gradually became one of the priorities, so much with international scales (Convention on the Biological diversity (CDB) initiated by the conference of Rio, June 1992) that with the local scales, while passing by the European scale: Convention of Bern at the origin of the network Emerald (the Council of Europe, 1979), Directive Birds (European Union, 1979) and Directive Habitat (European Union, 1992) at the origin of the network Natura 2000 (European Union, 1992), Maastricht: establishment of an action plan aiming to the installation of a REFERENCE MARK (Ecological Network Paneuropéen, 1993)… For what concerns the installation and the management of the territory, it is the right of the land and buildings which constrained more work of the actors of ground. Multiple solutions of private public partnership or work with academies and managers of natural environments are in the course of experimentation, of the communal scale on supra-official scales.

In France Until the Law Voynet, the French State had envisaged neither comprehensive strategy, neither priority, nor financial means and human to repair the impacts of the parcelling out and the destruction of the natural habitats on the biodiversity. The Loi Voynet and its diagram of services Natural spaces and rural envisages a strategic device that the regional and local authorities have to decline on scales landscape and local with their managed. Only some areas and departments are engaged in this step, with few practical achievements, but a rise of the formations and documents of planning and installation. The compensatory measures are the first source of actions on the ground;

To carry out a corridor.

Each species requires a certain type of natural infrastructure and a certain scale of grid. The disappearance of the species taking place by unforeseeable and sometimes brutal stages, it is necessary to envisage a quality and a sufficient volume of grid to guarantee the good effectiveness of the natural infrastructure. Certain species can require a network of corridors with jointed mesh. Only one rupture can weaken the species and compromise its perenniality (ex: insuperable stopping in a river for salmon…) The general structure of an ecological corridor is based on the presence of various layers: mucinale, herbaceous, shrubby, raised. On the level of the vegetable composition, regional gasolines adapted to the medium are preferable. The presence of water (ditches, ponds, hydrographic network) multiplies the number of species which will use the corridor potentially. The orientation and the quality of the connection of the corridor with the nodal zones are also determining factors. The orientation must be selected according to the existing context and to come, room and total, and of the zones to be connected, the dominant winds, etc As for the connection of the corridor, it must offer pespective reassuring for the animals: the space of arrival should not be completely discovered nor completely closed.

Before concretizing on the ground the installation of biological corridors, one can put many questions:

which optimal size of the meshs according to the medium and which priorities to reach an effect of threshold or a car-stabilizing effect?
which relationship ideal between volume/width/length, maximum and minima of the natural infrastructures and which biological corridors for the maintenance of the ecological functions?
which relationship between various volumes and surfaces: peripheral protected areas, zones and buffer zones?
which choice of technique of reconquest to reconstitute with low costs a rich and alive substrate on polluted grounds or of intensive agriculture?
which target and indicating species?
which means of mobilization of the population (residents…) ?

Conditions of success

A biological corridor perhaps a system complexes long to set up. It requires prior studies on the ground in order to precisely determine the local needs for the species (impact study, to chart the corridors, and it is necessary sometimes time that the animals discover it and learn how to use it… (one can sometimes help there, by ex while dispersing on the corridor of the excrements of wild boars or deer tribe, of the species and the groups whom one would like to see there passing). Although one cannot “program” the success of such a system, the respect of the basic principles increases the chances of success.

The complexity of the ecosystems

The ecological network must respect the Complexité of the ecosystems. More one medium is complex (hollow, bumps, remote regions, sun, timbered medium, dry/wet, herbaceous layers, etc), more it is likely to accommodate a fauna and a flora rich person and diversified. Complexity is also temporal, the species pionnières need new mediums which should to sometimes be gotten them artificially. The alive one develops and is different according to a multitude from factors. One can thus offer a whole panel of biotopes, so that a great number of species can find refuge there or simply use these biotopes like biological corridors. The corridor must offer to its users a great heterogeneity of mediums, ecologically coherent, so that a great number of species can find the requirements with its life there, at least the time of displacement in the corridor (refuge, habitat, food…)

interventions and ecological Genius

. Nature with a capacity of impact strength and cicatrization which it is possible to use or support. However, when it was exposed too a long time, too frequently or in a too important way to the disturbances and/or pollution, the cicatrization can appear very slow or quasi-impossible. The ecological Génie is interested particularly in the mediums which are or which were affected by the human activity and proposes to implement techniques “of acceleration” of the natural processes, based on these same processes. That makes it possible to restore a medium without awaiting the natural processes of reconstitution. In the case of the biological corridors, they are in the majority the cases to restore natural environments which were deteriorated by the man. The ecological genius can thus appear particularly interesting for the installation of the corridors.

Scale effects or effect of threshold

When one considers the characteristics of the biological corridor to one (size, vegetation, pollution, etc), one notes that there exists a threshold in lower part or above which the corridor cannot fulfill its functions any more. To increase the probability of success, it is necessary to take into account these effects of threshold.

Importance of the buffer zones

The buffer zones are the zones located just near the corridors without being elect biological corridors. They make it possible to avoid the direct contacts between the places of life and passage of the species and those of the human ones. These zones are essential with the good performance of the corridor.

Compatibility with other functions

These corridors have, for some of them, vocation with being multipurpose and thus accommodating activities of leisure in particular. Perhaps possible cohabitation if a minimal threshold of natural zone is respected and if the division of space is clearly established. Indeed, the human odor on a corridor decreases its potentialities clearly.

Indicator of frequentation

In order to control the frequentation of a biological corridor, several methods are at our disposal:

Trap with traces
Photography
Counting

National characteristics

In Switzerland, ECONAT proposed the expressions “zones of extension” and “development area”. ((Final report “Swiss National Ecological (REN) Network”))

Benefit of the corridors

The ecological grid offers many assets for the future. It mitigates or, in best case, removes the effects of the parcelling out of the landscapes and the mediums. The first test results carried out in various countries testify to the interest of the actions of restoration (experiment Chico Mendes). It is observed an increase and a durable stabilization of the animal populations, in particular of game, and an improvement of their medical condition (partridge, hare, rabbit…). For the large mammals, the re-creation of a biological screen can play a part of “source” in spontaneous repopulations. The benefit are measured primarily in comparison with the biological enrichment of the medium, but the grid also produces benefit direct or indirect, financial or immaterial:

ecological Benefit

restoration of the potential of biodiversity and maintenance of the capital
restoration of the hydraulic and biological functions of the network surface, improvement of the purification of water, conservation of the water resource
regulation miro- and macro-climatic
maintenance of natural balances by the creation of spaces plugs and nonexposed continuums to the plant health products
reduction in the surfrequentation of the natural environments by an offer better left again
depollution of certain industrial waste lands
contribution to the fight integrated in agriculture

teaching Benefit

transformation of the approach of the landscapes and mediums by the public: action of education to the environment, building site-schools
improvement in the management of the inheritance: demonstration of new methods of reconstitution, maintenance and management of the mediums (forests and edges, rivers and banks, ways, waste lands…).

landscape Benefit

reintroduction of nature in the middle of the cities in a preoccupation with a more close integration of the environment in the urban development: green castings, vegetalisation of the walls and the terraces, becoming green of the riders in the field…

Benefit in research topic

reinforcement of the basic research and applied, improvement of knowledge and know-how to various programs: ecological genius, biological genius, ecotoxicology, integrated agriculture, restoration of the polluted waste lands, reconstitution of the ecosystems littoral, forest and of the woodlands, establishment of methods of bio-indication…

Benefit in term of safety and public health

reduction of air pollutions and of the water and improvement of health
reduction in the intensity and the impact of the drynesses and the floods, of the fires with the reintroduction of a specific diversity
falls of the road accidents implying of the mammals during their migrations with the adjustment of ecological corridors and passages to mammals and Amphibians

economic Bénéfices

creation of creative dies ofuses and of exportable know-how: maintenance and restoration of the mediums, monitoring, scientific follow-up and evaluation of the operations…
transformation of the framework of life at ends of establishment of new economic activities and the tourist of the territory

Benefit into term of brand image

improvement of brand image, useful valorization for a more vigorous and better shared tourist policy
answer to waitings of the populations in search of landscapes of quality and more “natural”
regulation of the conflicts of use by more respectful tourist installations of the environment

Precautions

The question of the potential role of certain biological corridors like being able to contribute to the propagation of invasive, undesirable species or genetically modified, or of microbes or parasite S transported by these species is put, as it was it in the natural environments, but with a different importance related to the fact that in an increasingly artificial landscape, the corridors, are often, at least initially bottlenecks which can reinforce the promiscuity of the species, like are naturally the collars of mountain preferentially used by the migratory birds. With regard to the invasive and undesirable species, the diversity of mediums and species, by multiplying in particular the Predatory S potentials, and by preserving the mosaic of ecosystems which constitute the majority of the corridors, suffices in theory for better containing their proliferation than in the absence of corridors. The circulation of genes of Genetically Modified Organizations was the subject of studies on dispersion around fields, from which the results are not always very accessible. The Pollen of Maïs proved to be able to contaminate fields much more distant than than announced the firms agrosemencières. The agricultural fields are generally rather regarded as “buffer zone” rather than like ecological corridor, whereas whole of meadows of mowing and extensive meadows are sometimes registered in the zones having fonctiond biological corridor. The term of corridor is rather reserved in mediums known as " natural ".

With not confusing with a biological corridor

Certain installations can point out the biological corridors without in being really. One should not confuse the artificial ways “renaturalized” with true biological corridors. As an indication, here some examples which are not biological corridors:

a simple footpath, attended by hundreds of walkers
a river channeled and cut by insuperable stoppings or whose banks were concreted

Close synonyms or expressions

The French-speaking people use the following terms: Corridor ecological, corridor of habitats, corridor of dispersion, corridor of displacement, corridors of migration, corridor of fauna or faunal, biological corridor, bio-corridor, landscape or éco-landscape connection.

A whole of ecological corridors forms a ecological Réseau also sometimes named ecological Infrastructure or natural infrastructure , even green casting, green Trame, etc

Associated vocabulary

biological Connectivity

Measure possibilities of movement of the organizations between the spots of the landscape mosaic. It is function of the composition of the landscape, its configuration (space arrangement of the elements of the landscape) and of the adaptation of the behavior of the organizations to these two variables. (Burel & Baudry ed.2003)

structural Connectivity

Measure space arrangement of the elements of the landscape which takes into account the adjacency between elements of comparable nature. It is a cartographic measurement. (Burel & Baudry ed.2003) Agricultural continuities ouvertes.
Forms what takes in space and time the sequences of open spaces of the cultures and the grazing grounds.

closed natural Continuities

Forms what takes in space and time the sequences of reasons for naturality. These sequences form potentially closed continuities currently or.

open Continuities

Continuities formed by open spaces either of the public space or of agriculture, and authorizing the landscape experiment.

Continuum

Together mediums favorable to a group ecological and composed of several continuous elements (without physical interruption), including zones marginal belonging to other continuums or simply accessible for temporary activities.
It includes consequently:

one or more nodal zones,
of the zones of extension of less quality that nodal zones but corresponding to the same generic type of medium, and
of the complementary margins partially or temporarily used by fauna characteristic of the continuum, but of another type of medium. This external envelope is important like zone of gagnage and displacement for the whole of fauna characteristic of the continuum. The use of this complementary margin depends on the capacity of the animals to move away from the zones from edges or the zones refuges. This margin of continuum is very general-purpose. It is used in particular as corridor for many species general practitioners, but also for some specialized species, during their phase of dispersion.

ecological Corridor

They constitute space structures not engaging any genetic concept (movements between the various seasonal habitats for a species for example).