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- Info
Habitat fragmentation
| Author: |
Noss, Reed F.; Csuti, B. |
| Date: |
1994 |
| Periodical: |
In Meefe, G.K.; Carroll, C.R., eds. Principles of conservation biology. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.: |
| Abstract: |
Altenition of habitats by human activity is the greatest threat to the richness of life on Earth. The most visible form of habitat alteration is direct habitat removal, as when a forest is clear-cut, a wetland is drained, a stream is dammed to create a reservoir, or a remnant prairie is converted to a shopping mail. However, if we step back and view the broader landscape, as from a mountain peak or an airplane, the most striking pattern is often fragmentation of a once continuous natural landscape.
Habitat fragmentation has two components: (1) reduction of the total amount of a habitat type, or perhaps of all natural habitat, in a landscape;
and (2) apportionment of the remaining habitat into smaller, more isolated patches (Harris 1984; Wilcove et al. 1986; Saunders et al. 1991). Although the latter component is fragmentation in the literal sense, it usually occurs in tandem with widespread deforestation or other habitat reduction. In many damaged landscapes, such as national forests, there are ways that vegetation can be removed (temporarily or permanently)without fragmenting the remaining vegetation (Franklin and Forman 1987; Harris and Silva-Lopez 1992). In same cases, a landscape may be more \"shredded\" than fragmented. However, the end result of human settlement and resource extraction in a landscape is often a patchwork of small, isolated natural areas in a sea of developed land.
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