Programs and Tools
Need a program or tool to help with modeling connectivity? Check out the many options below to determine which will work best for your goals and conservation plans.
Stand-alone Tools
R-based Tools
ArcGIS/QGIS Tools
Need help deciding which tool to use?
If you would like to see a tool added to our toolbox, email us at corridor@conservationcorridor.org.
For further details/citation: Dutta, T., Sharma, S., Meyer, N.F., Larroque, J. and Balkenhol, N. 2022. An overview of computational tools for preparing, constructing and using resistance surfaces in connectivity research. Landscape Ecology 37: 2195-2224.
Recent News
EcoCon: new mapping tool for smarter corridor conservation
Sarah Lockhart2026-05-14T15:59:45-04:00May 8th, 2026|
The EcoCon, developed through the UF Center for Landscape Conservation Planning and the GeoPlan Center, provides a template for how to bring diverse datasets together into a cohesive tool that supports connectivity conservation at scale.
Stand-alone
Uses circuit theory to predict patterns of movement, gene flow, and genetic differentiation among populations in heterogeneous landscapes
Faster version of Circuitscape that runs connectivity analysis using circuit theory on Julia computing platform
Identifies the best locations for habitat creation and restoration to enhance existing habitat networks and increase connectivity across landscapes
Allows for quantifying the importance of habitat areas and links for the maintenance or improvement of landscape connectivity, as well as evaluating the impacts on connectivity of habitat and landscape changes
Provides access to high-performance, scalable connectivity tools in a fully interactive GUI that can address trade-offs between economic development and biodiversity conservation scenarios
Facilitates calculation of ‘centrality’ metrics along with patch-to-patch linkage mapping
Computes metrics for connected habitat and movement flow on high-resolution landscapes
Decision support tool to evaluate current and future potential habitat value, ecological/development conflict, and landscape vulnerability to climate change
Computes a wide variety of landscape metrics for categorical map patterns by quantifying the spatial heterogeneity of the landscape
Optimizes landscape connectivity under budget constraints by identifying the best combination of conservation and restoration actions to maximize habitat network connectivity.
Models circuit theory-based connectivity to solve large ecological problems at any scale in a High Performance Computing environment
Models ecological networks from the framework of graph theory, including the construction and visualization of graphs, connectivity analyses, and links with external data
Contains a wide variety of generic raster image processing routines to investigate several spatial aspects of raster image objects such as pattern, connectivity, fragmentation, or cost
Evaluates landscape connectivity, the impacts of barriers such as roads, designs of restoration, mitigation strategies, and reintroduction strategies
Uses a resistance surface map to generate multiple corridors between multiple source-target locations inside the map using species habitat requirement information and a least-cost path algorithm
Assists conservation planners with the appropriate use of data on ecological connectivity in protected area network planning
Uses circuit theory to produce maps of omni-directional habitat connectivity by allowing the sources, destinations, and intensity of animal movement or ecological flow to be informed by continuous spatial data
Simulates individual movement pathways as a function of the landscape resistance, energetic cost, and mortality risk at multiple spatial scales
Individual-based model that integrates population dynamics and dispersal behavior to model functional connectivity
Estimates least cost paths with user-defined cost surface and sources
Identifies habitat fragmentation and landscape connectivity through a network simulation model
Operates on spatial data about biodiversity features (species, habitats, ecosystem services), costs and threats to conduct data-rich, large-scale, high resolution spatial conservation prioritization
R
Calculates various distance measures and routes, such as least cost path and random walk, in heterogeneous geographic spaces
Creates grains of connectivity and minimum planar graph models that can be used to calculate effective distances for landscape connectivity at multiple scales
Builds graphs for landscape genetics analysis
Quantifies the landscape structure (composition and configuration) and calculates landscape connectivity indices
Addresses basic research questions with methods to compute structural connectivity metrics and prioritize patches using only shapefile input/output
Models least cost pathways and movement potential using cost surfaces based on slope and other landscape features
Calculates fragmentation and landscape connectivity indices, allows scenarios under landscape connectivity changes, and includes landscape heterogeneity as a constraining factor
Calculates non-isotropic accumulated cost surface and least-cost paths using a number of human-movement-related cost functions
Optimizes resistance surfaces based on pairwise genetic data, and optimizes effective distances using circuit theory
Individual-based model that integrates population dynamics and dispersal behavior to model functional connectivity
Helps with reading, writing, manipulating, and analyzing raster data
Calculates metrics to determine the colonization potential of a riverscape by wind-dispersed plants
Uses a genetic algorithm to optimize resistance surfaces based on pairwise genetic data and effective distances using circuit theory, least cost path and random-walk commute times (depends on Circuitscape and/or gdistance)
Many functions to work with spatial data handling and manipulation, including projections, extents, resolutions, classification, etc. (search individual tools for links)
Quantifies landscape connectivity using spatial absorbing Markov chain and distinguishes between movement behavior and mortality in space and time
Simulates and analyzes spatially-explicit, individual-based multistate movement models in multiple spaces, based on resistance data as a raster input
Calculates distance along the shortest topographic path between points, and calculates distance along the least cost path
ArcGIS/QGIS
Produces habitat permeability and potential dispersal maps for one or several species using cumulative costs
Decision support tool to evaluate current and future potential habitat value, ecological/development conflict, and landscape vulnerability to climate change
Exports multiple ArcGIS vector and raster data into one or more ASCII rasters, with identical cell sizes, extents, and spatial reference
Includes tools for creating resistance and habitat layers and core area mapping
Consists of six tools that automate mapping and prioritization of wildlife habitat corridors to support regional wildlife habitat connectivity analyses
Generates the node and connection files required as an input for Conefor
Convert files, visualize genetic relatedness, and measure landscape connectivity using least‐cost path analysis
Create and map least cost paths and least cost corridors among all sites or among shared haplotypes