Habitat fragmentation is a landscape-level process in which continuous habitats are subdivided into smaller, isolated patches by natural or anthropogenic disturbances, altering spatial configuration without necessarily reducing total habitat area proportionally. It modifies edge-to-core ratios, connectivity, and matrix composition, thereby disrupting ecological flows such as dispersal, gene flow, and trophic interactions. Fragmentation typically leads to smaller population sizes, increased demographic and environmental stochasticity, and heightened vulnerability to local extinction. It also drives community reassembly through edge effects, altered microclimates, and differential species responses based on dispersal ability, habitat specialization, and sensitivity to isolation, making it a central topic in landscape ecology and conservation biology.
Over the past few decades, a collaboration of St. Louis regional groups have partnered to be good stewards of Forest Park, one of the largest urban parks and wildlife areas in the country. Organizations such as Forest Park ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 10, 2026
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North America's bee populations are in trouble, but don't blame the honey bees. While some people argue that an overabundance of managed honey bees—those raised to help pollinate crops and produce honey—is causing native ...
Ecology
Apr 9, 2026
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Global efforts to limit climate change require deep cuts to carbon emissions. However, global emissions are still growing. Currently, we emit roughly 42 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use and land ...
Environment
Apr 7, 2026
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Snow leopards, leopards, and Himalayan wolves all share similar stomping grounds in Nepal's Lapchi Valley in the Himalayas. A recent study, published in PLOS One, has taken a closer look at how these apex predators have found ...
It's a well-established fact that forests and water are deeply connected. For decades, paired-watershed experiments—a scientific method for evaluating land-use impacts on water quantity or quality—have shown that when we ...
Environment
Apr 4, 2026
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26
University of Queensland researchers are urging governments to use newly created national data to protect the country's last remaining ecosystems free of human pressures. The two new datasets map the extent of ecosystem disturbance ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 2, 2026
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A new study has revealed that improving the landscapes surrounding forest remnants can dramatically increase their ability to retain bird species—even when the forest fragments themselves are small or isolated. For decades, ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 30, 2026
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Green roofs and green walls are no longer niche design features but proven, scalable nature-based solutions that can significantly enhance biodiversity, climate resilience, energy efficiency and human well-being in European ...
Environment
Mar 30, 2026
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Delegates are gathering in Campo Grande, Brazil, for the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. The meeting aims to address growing threats to migratory ...
Ecology
Mar 24, 2026
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9
Birds play a larger role in the dispersal of wild cotton than previously assumed. This is shown by a study in the journal Oikos, carried out in southern Africa. Researchers discovered that birds actively collect wild cotton ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 17, 2026
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