Abstract
Forest areas cover over 21% of the territory of the Avesnois Regional Nature Park, and form part of a continuum with the Belgian and Ardennes massifs. At a time when the Green and Blue Belt issues have been highlighted by communities, the effective functionality of the species conservation networks still receives little attention. From a fundamental point of view, the CONNECT-Avesnois research programme aims to define the nature and functionality of forest connection networks on the scale of the Park, in connection with the Ardennes massif and other Regional Nature Parks in Champagne-Ardenne. On an operational level, this projects aims to understand “where and how” to implement the necessary means to preserve and improve the connectivity of the forest subframe of the Avesnois. This programme is based on the areas of eco-ethology and landscape genetics. The choice concerns a range of species spread on a specificity gradient for forest habitats and variable moving capacities (bank vole, European marten, wildcat and roe deer). The quality of the genetic information flow between the sampled zones will be an opportunity to study the landscape permeability between those zones, through the use of various models of isolation through distance. This methodology will rely on rare DNA recovery techniques. This programme is forecast to last two years. The SMPNRA will coordinate the project, the URCA-CERFE will implement the research programme and will call on three service providers, and the CMNF will carry out the sample collection for the wildcat. This study will constitute, to our knowledge, the first regional functional analysis of a forest continuum with mammal biological indicators. The results will bring knowledge for the evaluation of breaking points and identified corridors in the SRCE-TVB and other local patterns, but also for the definition of nature and forest network functionality on an extra-regional scale.
France