The impact of mining on animal movement and landscape connectivity revealed through simulations and scenarios

Movement is essential for animal life and significantly influences community dynamics. Landscape-scale disturbances, such as mining, alter habitat structure, introducing new stressors that can severely disrupt animal movement. Understanding how landscape modification impacts animal movement and landscape connectivity is vital for effective conservation in the Anthropocene. Here, we used movement simulations and landscape scenarios to evaluate how mining influences movement, using an endangered mesopredator as a focal species. We aimed to determine the effects of different configurations of mining on the movement costs, habitat accessibility, and landscape connectivity of this species. We used GPS data collected from a mining landscape in the Pilbara region of Western Australia to assess temporally dynamic habitat selection. This informed movement simulations across four landscape scenarios: current mining, dispersed mining, aggregated mining, and non-mining. We compared animal movements, energetic costs, and landscape connectivity across all landscape scenarios. The presence of mining habitats increased energetic movement costs through unfavorable habitats and led to significant changes in landscape connectivity. For example, simulated movements visited fewer favorable habitat patches in mining landscapes and required more steps between them. Mining configuration affected movement differently, with current mining conditions having the greatest impact on movement, increasing simulated home ranges and funneling movement through unfavorable habitats more than the other landscapes. Our study highlights the influence of disturbance configuration and altered habitat structure on animal movement. It also emphasizes that effective management and development planning must consider impacts on animal movement and landscape connectivity.