Coastal Marten Habitat Connectivity Corridors from Least-Cost Path Analysis

Linkage Mapper software produced a continuous mosaic of least-cost corridors for the coastal marten (Martes caurina humboldtensis). The Department of the Interior created this landscape connectivity analysis, which models normalized corridors around single-pixel Least-Cost Paths (LCPs) between habitat cores. The dataset was last updated on March 4, 2026.

Use Cases

• Identify priority corridors for conservation based on modeled movement costs.
• Compare Euclidean distance and cost-weighted distance between habitat cores.
• Plan wildlife corridors that account for landscape resistance values.
• Visualize connectivity mosaics for the coastal marten across its range.

Strengths

• Modeled corridors are based on a 30-meter pixel resolution landscape resistance surface.
• The analysis provides three comparable metrics: Least-Cost Path length, Euclidean distance, and cost-weighted distance.
• Corridors are mosaicked and biologically realistic, a significant advance over simple LCP estimation.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to datagov.

Provenance

Source

Department of the Interior

Collection Method

Modeled using Linkage Mapper software on a coastal marten landscape resistance surface.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-04 08:18:54.282392; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Likely covers the range of the coastal marten (Martes caurina humboldtensis).