Construction of a Forest Ecological Network Based on the Forest Ecological Suitability Index and the Morphological Spatial Pattern Method: A Case Study of Jindong Forest Farm in Hunan Province

Human activities and climate change have resulted in an increasing fragmentation of forest landscapes, and the conflict between biodiversity protection and economic development has become more pronounced. The establishment of forest ecological networks can be a vital part of biodiversity conservation and sustainable forest development. Using Jindong Forest Farm as the study area, this study combines the forest ecological suitability index, morphological spatial pattern analysis, the area method, and the landscape connectivity index (PC, IIC). This will identify ecological source areas in the study area, extract ecological corridors using the minimum cumulative resistance model and the gravity model, and construct a forest ecological network with ecological source areas as points and ecological corridors as edges. This study identified 11 forest patches in highly suitable habitat regions as ecological source regions, and 54 potential corridors were extracted. The study's results show that a careful analysis of the forest landscape's ecological suitability and morphological spatial pattern provides a scientific method for the rational selection of ecological source regions and serves as a reference for protecting forest species diversity and sustainable forest development.