Best corridor manual out there?
Conservation Corridor Planning at the Landscape Level (CCPLL) is now part 613 of USDA NRCS National Biology Handbook. Overall, it is an excellent resource aimed at conservation practitioners. It is clearly written in a way that can be understood by laymen without sacrificing scientific content. It is suitable as a supplemental text in advanced undergraduate and perhaps graduate level courses. I have used it as a primary text in my Managing Wildlife in Agricultural Landscapes course.
After a brief introduction, the second chapter of CCPLL reviews the ecological effects of fragmentation. The third chapter describes the different types and functions of corridors. Together, these two chapters review the principles of landscape ecology most relevant to conservation in agricultural landscapes. The fourth chapter moves into ecologically-based design principles, although amount of real empirical verification for varies among them (i.e. some of them are better bets than others). The last two chapters move away from ecology and into area-wide planning process and conservation planning.
A major advantage of this document are the case studies sprinkled generously throughout each chapter. A second major advantage is that it is available free here (very large pdf).
