Habitat fragmentation is a landscape-level phenomenon in which a once-continuous habitat is broken into smaller, spatially isolated patches separated by a matrix of modified or unsuitable land cover. It encompasses reductions in patch size, increased edge-to-interior ratios, and isolation effects that alter species movement, gene flow, metapopulation dynamics, and community composition. Fragmentation modifies abiotic conditions (e.g., microclimate, hydrology), disrupts ecological interactions such as pollination and predation, and can increase extinction risk, invasion susceptibility, and biotic homogenization. It is typically quantified using metrics of patch configuration, connectivity, and edge density in landscape ecology and conservation biology.
Even in protected areas, birds are disappearing from America's prairies, and unpredictable weather isn't helping. That's the takeaway from a new study by researchers at Michigan State University, Oklahoma State University ...
Ecology
Aug 25, 2026
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27
Imagine spotting a butterfly species in your garden that you have never seen before. You might take a photo and upload it to a citizen science app or tell a local nature group about your new encounter. It feels like a small ...
Ecology
Aug 5, 2026
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20
Seed dispersal through wind, water or animals is a crucial process for forest renewal and biodiversity preservation. In the Atlantic Forest, a new study showed that the amount of forest in the landscape surrounding an area ...
Ecology
Aug 4, 2026
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54
Deep in the forests of North Sumatra, Indonesia, lives the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), the world's rarest great ape. Fewer than 800 individuals remain, confined to the Batang Toru ecosystem, a landscape that ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 4, 2026
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5
A review led by the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has revealed that tiny ground-dwelling invertebrates are overlooked but important seed dispersers, challenging the traditional focus on ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 3, 2026
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15
"An island of biodiversity in a sea of monoculture": This is how a recent study characterized the Pimentel Barbosa Indigenous Territory (TIPB), located in the northeastern part of Mato Grosso state in Brazil's Central-West ...
Environment
Aug 2, 2026
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14
A new study involving the University of Cambridge has found that road traffic kills between 15% and 29% of hedgehogs in local populations each year.
Plants & Animals
Jul 31, 2026
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Africa is home to around 70% of the world's burned area—the total area of land scorched by wildfires each year—making it the planet's biggest wildfire hotspot. Yet despite this, satellite observations have revealed an unexpected ...
Australia's largest gliding marsupial may not be the country's best glider after all, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU) that challenges a decades-old belief about how far southern greater ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 15, 2026
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7
Are giant sinkholes in China's karst mountains havens or traps for the rare plants that inhabit them? A new study finds they are both—offering refuge from heat and drought while gradually eroding the evolutionary potential ...
Evolution
Jul 14, 2026
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