Monday 19.01.2026

at 12:00 in the 3rd floor conference room in Amado building

M.Sc. Michal Handel

PhD student in Landscape Architecture

Directed by Associate Prof. Assaf Shwartz and Prof. Orr Spiegel

Ecological corridors are widely promoted to enhance landscape connectivity and support species movement, yet empirical evidence of their effectiveness remains limited. This research examined the factors shaping movement in the Harod Valley, an intensive agricultural landscape designated as a national ecological corridor. Using a novel high-resolution tracking system, we monitored hundreds of individuals from 16 bird species, combining observational and experimental approaches. Species significantly avoided arable fields, favoring narrow, vegetated field-margins. When crossing arable fields, gap thresholds varied significantly among species. These movement patterns were linked to species-specific ecological traits, informing a scalable framework for corridor and stepping-stone design. The findings highlight that agricultural landscapes cannot be assumed to function as effective corridors and provide evidence-based guidelines to enhance connectivity and support biodiversity in rapidly changing global environments.

Contact information: Michal Handel  | 054-7569848 | mail: michalhandel@gmail.com