Providing well-connected landscapes to allow wildlife to move between areas of high-quality habitat is a key strategy to help them adapt to climate change, and agricultural lands can play an important role. This technical report describes how the net movement of terrestrial species across the conterminous United States was modeled and linked to agricultural land quality to identify conservation opportunities on agricultural lands that balance species connectivity with our long-term food security. The results show the potential for agricultural lands to provide important movement routes for terrestrial species, supporting connectivity through otherwise heavily modified landscapes.

This modeling is part of AFT’s Farms Under Threat Initiative which is using advanced spatial analyses to analyze the status of and treats to agricultural land. To view AFT’s Farms Under Threat raster data and create your own map with your selected layers and edits, use the American Farmland Trust Raster Atlas. The Atlas includes Farms Under Threat data layers from Farms Under Threat: State of the States, Farms Under Threat 2040, and Wildlife Connectivity Across U.S. Agricultural Lands.