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.
A pair of disturbances common in Western Canada's boreal forests, when combined, may have an unexpected benefit of limiting the spread of non-native plant species, a University of Alberta study shows. The research gauged ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 25, 2026
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12
Forest loss does more than reduce tree cover. A new global study involving UBC Okanagan researchers shows it can fundamentally change how watersheds hold and release water. The research, published in the Proceedings of the ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 19, 2026
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66
For 40 years, scientists have been monitoring the Neotropical otter (Lontra longicaudis) along the southern coast of Brazil. A study published in Estuarine Management and Technologies reveals that these charismatic mammals ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 17, 2026
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27
A new national monitoring program provides, for the first time, area-representative knowledge of semi-natural grasslands in Norway. The results show that this habitat covers a larger area than previously mapped, but that ...
Ecology
Feb 16, 2026
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14
National parks are public conservation assets, created to protect biodiversity and provide affordable access to nature for all. But, new research published in npjBiodiversity highlights a growing global issue: According to ...
Environment
Feb 12, 2026
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16
A research team has conducted a study to examine how shelterbelts influence bird species diversity and composition in an agricultural wetland landscape on the western coast of central Japan. They determined that shelterbelts, ...
Ecology
Feb 10, 2026
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1173
The charismatic, robust, and impressive North American mountain sheep is losing its habitat to industrial mining, the changing climate, and human activity. And unless action is taken to protect this popular and inherently ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 9, 2026
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14
Changes to land use can directly heighten the risk of diseases spreading from animals to humans, new University of Stirling–led research has shown. The study, led by Dr. Adam Fell of the University's Faculty of Natural Sciences, ...
Ecology
Jan 28, 2026
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22
Human activity continues to expand ever further into wild areas, throwing ecology out of balance. But what begins as an environmental issue often evolves into a human problem.
Ecology
Jan 21, 2026
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100
Researchers have developed a tool that reliably predicts where destructive new roads are likely to carve through tropical forests, giving environmentalists and public health officials a head-start in identifying at-risk areas ...
Environment
Dec 23, 2025
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22
