The breaking down of administrative boundaries, control of ecological issues, and protection of biodiversity through trans-regional intergovernmental cooperation, are inevitable steps inecological civilization processes.Newly added habitat patcheseach havean obvious variance on ecological conservation costs andalso contribute to habitat network connectivity;the costs spent by each administrative unit on ecological protection and biodiversity conservation are also different.As such, scarce land resource and limited funds may leadto lower ecological conservation efficiency per unitcost in some areas.It is therefore necessary to focus on the issue of cross-regional ecological protection and biodiversity conservation. However, the questions as to whether cross-regional cooperation is effective or not, and how it can be realized require further exploration.In this study, we applied ecological processes and comparative analyses to discuss habitat network optimization of a target specieswith different scenarios. Specifically, we selected the rapidly urbanizing area of Su-Xi-Chang as a cross-regional perspective case study, and the dominant little egret waterbirdas the target species.Furthermore, we discussed the differences of habitat network connectivity under scenarios of equal conservation costs but different spatial-location modes.We designed the optimizing sequence of newly added habitat patches, calculated both its ecological protection cost and the increased ecological benefit value, compared the changes in habitat network connectivity, and explored howthe maximal covering problem of species conservation would be better achieved.Ourresults indicated that: (1) newly added habitat patches are unevenly distributed in different regions, with the largest in Suzhou, followed by Wuxi, and Changzhou; thepatches thathave higher network connectivity and lower conservation costs have the same spatial distribution trend. (2) According to the cost-benefit ratio, conservation cost was preferentially used on the patches of a higher network connectivity index but of a lower conservation cost, both in the partition as well as the cross-regional scenarios.Under the same condition of a total limited conservation cost of 182 million RBM, habitat network connectivity indices α, β, and γ of the scenario of cross-regional habitat optimization increased by 13.17%, 12.97%, and 13.76% more, respectively, than those of the scenario of partition network optimization.Thus, cross-regional habitat network optimization maximizes ecological benefit under limited conservation costs. As such, it can be concluded that it is a better way to realize the maximal covering problem of biodiversity conservation.