Análisis de la conectividad regional por cobertura vegetal entre el Cerro la Conejera, Quebrada la Salitrosa, el Humedal la Conejera y la Reserva Thomas van der Hammen.

Abstract

Cerro la Conejera, Quebrada la Salitrosa, Conejera Wetland and Thomas Van Der Hammen Reserve (RTvdH), are ecosystems located northwest of Bogotá, in the town of Suba; counting jointly with approximately 1,651 Ha; They are key ecosystems of the ecological structure of the city of Bogotá due to their high biological wealth, their importance lies in the diversity of species that they house in these habitats, with some species of fauna and flora that are threatened and endangered of extinction (District Secretary of the Environment, 2021). Despite its importance, in these ecosystems and their surroundings, anthropic economic activities such as agriculture and road and housing infrastructure have increased, generating the transformation of forests in such a way that forest's isolated fragments are produced, thus presenting an increase in the loss of connectivity, generating pressure on the fauna and flora that live there, altering the interactions between species and causing changes in the functionality of ecosystems.

For this reason, the goal of this project is analyze the ecological regional connectivity by plant cover among Cerro La Conejera, Quebrada La Salitrosa, Conejera Wetland and the Thomas Van Der Hammen Reserve; Initially, a compilation and review of secondary information was carried out, mainly on land uses, plant species present in the study area and the evaluation of satellite images of the Landsat 8 type, followed by field trips to identify the coverage of land and key tree species in connectivity following the Gentry methodology; with the information obtained from the field trips, the land cover map was constructed and the forest fragments were delimited, defining their areas and perimeters for the calculation of different indices and metrics of the landscape with which was determined the degree of connectivity and the fragmentation between the forests in the study area; subsequently, the least cost connectivity routes were identified, based on the execution of a species movement difficulty map.

A total of nine forest patches were identified, defined in the highest degree of fragmentation (insularized) and occupying the smallest space compared to the other coverages, representing only 13% of the total study area; successively, the Vogelmann index evidenced the discontinuity of the forest patches; likewise, the modeled lower-cost routes demonstrated the need to recover the ecosystems, with strategies such as the planting of the species identified in the routes such as Juglans neotropics, Quercus humboldtii and Cedrela montana in areas where the vegetation is scarce and makes it difficult for the species to move.