Construction and optimization of regional ecological security patterns based on MSPA-MCR-GA Model: A case study of Dongting Lake Basin in China

Ecological security pattern (ESP) represents a sound spatial arrangement of ecosystem occurring in landscape. The research on the optimization of ESP aims to improve and restore the ecosystem functions by rationally allocating and optimizing the ecological elements based on the key ecological issues. Constructing and optimizing ESP can enhance the connectivity of regional habitat patches, which is of great significance for protecting and restoring biodiversity, improving ecosystem stability and resilience, and achieving regional sustainable development. However, it is a challenging task to systematically improve the connectivity and resilience of regional ecological networks under attacks. Little research has been done on enhancing the resilience of ecological networks under edge-based attacks. Based on morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA), minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) and greedy algorithm (GA) models, this study presents a new method to construct and optimize ESP. The Dongting Lake Basin in China, which is a typical region with rich biodiversity, complex landscape patterns, and intensive human activities, is taken as an example. The results indicate that the optimization of the ecological network has improved its connectivity by 51.62%, its robustness against random edge-based attacks by 41.13%, and its robustness against targeted edge-based attacks by 43.41%, relative to the initial ecological network. Monte Carlo test verifies the reliability of the optimization solution. The proposed method can be used for finding the network structure with the best robustness for specific edge-based attacks, and it provides valuable decision-making reference for ecological land planning and biodiversity conservation.