  The concept of simplicial complex from Algebraic Topology is applied to
understand and model the flow of genetic information, processes and organisms
between the areas of unimpaired habitats to design a network of wildlife
corridors for Tigers (Panthera Tigris Tigris) in Central India Eastern Ghats
landscape complex. The work extends and improves on a previous work that has
made use of the concept of minimum spanning tree obtained from the weighted
graph in the focal landscape, which suggested a viable corridor network for the
tiger population of the Protected Areas (PAs) in the landscape complex.
Centralities of the network identify the habitat patches and the critical
parameters that are central to the process of tiger movement across the
network. We extend the concept of vertex centrality to that of the simplicial
centrality yielding inter-vertices adjacency and connection. As a result, the
ecological information propagates expeditiously and even on a local scale in
these networks representing a well-integrated and self-explanatory model as a
community structure. A simplicial complex network based on the network
centralities calculated in the landscape matrix presents a tiger corridor
network in the landscape complex that is proposed to correspond better to
reality than the previously proposed model. Because of the aforementioned
functional and structural properties of the network, the work proposes an
ecological network of corridors for the most tenable usage by the tiger
populations both in the PAs and outside the PAs in the focal landscape.

Physics and Society;Algebraic Topology