There are several tools available for assessing connectivity, such as Conefor and Circuitscape. What other tools are out there? And based on their strengths/weaknesses, which tools are best for applications in developed areas with road networks and many land cover types?
Fragstats would be another software you could use. Fragstats is free software used to calculate landscape metrics on categorical maps (only works on raster data types). If your data is already in a GIS you can take your landcover layer and upload it into Fragstats. There are a ton of landscape metrics build into the software including a couple different connectivity metrics. Some of the landscape metrics are for binary landscapes but there are some that can handle multiple cover types. TRANSVERSE is a metric that allows you to rate each land cover type according to its "traversability", so if certain cover types are not passable for a particular species you can assign a relatively high value. Values range from 0-100, 0 being the ideal land cover type for travel. Here are some other connectivity metrics within Fragstats. Hope this helps
http://www.umass.edu/landeco/research/fragstats/documents/Metrics/Connectivity%20Metrics/CONNECTIVITY%20METRICS.htm
I had very good success using IAN (raster image analysis software), which was created by professors out of UW-Madison:
http://forestandwildlifeecology.wisc.edu/staticsites/mladenofflab/Projects/IAN/index.htm
Hi Jessica, I think your choice should depend on the question(s) you're trying to address. MANY metrics/methods and hence software exist for measuring connectivity. For example, Saura and and colleagues (Ecological Modelling 221 (2010) 2393–2405) developed indices that rank patches in terms of the connectivity they provide. Perhaps you don't need to rank patches. I'd focus on specific issues about connectivity you want to address, then figure out the tool you need.
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