Talk:Habitat fragmentation

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The contents of the Forest fragmentation page were merged into Habitat fragmentation on 2016-07-26. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

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It has been stated that the article Habitat Fragmentation should be merged with Forest Fragmentation but for all of you redirected here, they should not as forest fragmentation describes the isolation of certain areas of forest or wooded environments where habitat fragmentation describes fragmenting of an animals habitat(where it can live) but not necessarily its ecosystem. For example, noise from a road cutting through the jungle may cause habitat fragmentation of a shy species that is deterred by the noise but the road is not nearly big enough to stop the common flight of insects, birds and less shy mammals and thus the seeds of the plants they carry with them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ermie23 (talk • contribs) 02:56, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fahrig has said that she has been unable to find any fragmentation effect on extinction risk, independent of the habitat loss issue. So I think it's a bit strong to say that habitat fragmentation is a cause of extinction...it still seems likely, but there isn't enough evidence to say this conclusively. Guettarda 06:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on patch size, the species involved, its home range requirements, the remaining population size, and its effects within the system (possible trophic cascades, for example). Habitat fragmentation results in insularization of animal and plant populations, effectively cutting them off from other subpopulations. The remaining habitat supports a reduced gene pool, and depending on fragment size, it may not support viable populations. In addition, habitat fragmentation rarely acts alone – usually it is in conjunction with other threats, such as poaching and further habitat loss; the extinction risk for populations in fragmented habitats as a result of those activities is significantly higher than that of populations inhabiting larger areas. Also, stochastic events, such as disease or natural disasters (including floods, drought and fire), tend to be far more serious threats to reduced and isolated animal and plant populations.

Theory:

http://www.life.illinois.edu/ib/451/lectures/CONISLB.PPT

Examples:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13715689

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4495222

http://si-pddr.si.edu/dspace/handle/10088/8206

Belsavis (talk) 22:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Additionally, unoccupied fragments of habitat that are separated from a source of colonists by some barrier are less likely to be repopulated than adjoining fragments. " That sentence seemed a proper synthesis from the previous ones to me, so I removed the {{

I just opened this page and another on Glossary.com (http://www.glossary.com/reference.php?q=Islandisation), and noticed that the two read almost the same. In bold are the similarities:

Wikipedia.org:

Habitat fragmentation as the name implies, describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation. Habitat fragmentation can be caused by geological processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment[1] (suspected of being one of the major causes of speciation[1]), or by human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment much faster and causes extinctions of many species.

Glossary.com:

Habitat fragmentation is a process of environmental change important in evolution and conservation biology. As the name implies, it describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat). Habitat fragmentation can be caused by geological processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment or by human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment on a much faster time scale. The former is suspected of being one of the major causes of speciation. The latter is causative in extinctions of many species. --44watt (talk) 08:35, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's very common, but what is almost certain to have happened is that editors here wrote the material, and then it was copied and used to make another website. That is, they copied us. For example, see this version from 16:44, 23 February 2009 where the lead starts with exactly the words you quote from Glossary.com above. Johnuniq (talk) 10:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The map has this caption....

"Fragmentation and destruction of Great Ape habitat in Central Africa, from the GLOBIO and GRASP projects."

but no key to indicate what is Great Ape habitat. You might think its obvious, I do not, and I sometimes make maps for a living. Provide a better map or a better caption or take out the map entirely.

Avram Primack (talk) 16:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to edit the Wikipedia article on Habitat fragmentation because I think that certain information that should be included in the article is missing. Specifically, the article discusses more pronounced form of discontinuities in landscape structure giving rise to a mosaic of patches in a landscape. However, the article makes no mention of other types of discontinuities such as utility right-of-ways (ROWs) that have become pervasive in many forest landscapes.

One common utility ROW is electricity transmission corridors, which are created to prevent vegetation interference with electricity transmission lines. Other utility ROWs include: gas pipeline and telecommunication corridor ROWs. It is important to provide publicly accessible information about utility ROWs since they span over large areas of land, covering an estimated 4 million acres in the United States. Previous research has also shown utility ROWs to have more specie richness than adjoining forest areas, due to alterations in the microclimate in and around the corridor. Moreover, some research has also suggested the capacity of utility ROWs to act as biodiversity havens for many endangered grassland species and a host of insect species.

I think it is important to add to the article on habitat fragmentation that some forms of fragmentation such as utility ROWs can help protect biodiversity, particularly when appropriate management regimes are implemented. Moreover, some studies have shown that electricity transmission ROWs managed by mowing harbor more species than those managed by herbicide application.

I would in addition like to make the following comments based on my evaluation of the present state of the article: I think the lead section defining habitat fragmentation is very clear and understandable. I also like that the article is well organized and broken down into key subsections. Likewise, the article is based on based ion factual statements and hence value-neutral. I am also impressed by the quality of the literature cited, particularly those by renowned ecologists working on biodiversity conservation such as Daniel Simberloff and Lenore Fahrig.

My only objection is that while all major areas are sufficiently covered, other relevant forms of fragmentation such as utility right-of-ways aren't and I would like to contribute that to the article.

Damieco (talk) 18:33, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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In discussing conservation implications it might be worth mentioning other approaches that are taken towards conservation such as integrated approaches that are meant to reduce pressure on protected areas while benefiting people in the surrounding areas.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). Marsh, W. M. (2010). Landscape planning: environmental applications (Vol. Ch 20). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Jadeorr11 (talk) 23:13, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to add a few sections to the article that I think are lacking. Here is a draft of what I was thinking of adding.

Approaches to Understanding Habitat Fragmentation

Two approaches that are typically used to understand habitat fragmentation and its ecological impacts

Species Oriented Approach:

The species oriented approach focuses specifically on individual species and how they each respond to their environment and habitat changes with in it. This approach can be limited because it does only focus on individual species and does not allow for a broad view of the impacts of habitat fragmentation across species.^[1]

Pattern Oriented Approach

The pattern oriented approach is based on land cover and its patterning in correlation with species occurrences. There are typically two models of study for landscape patterning which include the patch-matrix-corridor model developed by Richard Forman. The other model is the variegation model. Variegated landscapes retain much of their natural vegetation but are intermixed with gradients of modified habitat Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Jadeorr11 (talk) 01:33, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In the heading "Approaches to understanding habitat fragmentation" there are "Two approaches" mentioned, but three subheadings listed. The "Variegated model" subheading may need to be updated or moved, or the heading description changed to reflect this difference. TorontoBio (talk) 14:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]