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.
Are box turtles in worse shape than herpetologists thought? University of Toledo researchers raise the question in new research published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
Plants & Animals
Mar 9, 2026
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28
A new study reveals that habitat fragmentation can lead to sudden "tipping points" where a species' genetic health unexpectedly collapses after appearing stable for long periods. By merging network theory with population ...
Ecology
Mar 5, 2026
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66
Floodplains face increasing pressure: currently protected areas will not be sufficient to preserve the species living in them in the future, a review study conducted under the direction of the Swiss Federal Institute for ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 3, 2026
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13
A study of changes to the habitats of more than 700 species reveals massive biodiversity loss—but also possibilities for restoration. "There is a lot of talk about deforestation and biodiversity loss in the Amazon, but even ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 2, 2026
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31
A research team led by Dr. Chris Baumann and Dr. Dorothée Drucker from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen has found that the European wildcat is increasingly using ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 26, 2026
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132
Suitable habitat for migrating monarch butterflies will shift southwards because of climate change, according to a study published in PLOS Climate by Francisco Botello and Carolina Ureta at the National Autonomous University ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 25, 2026
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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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Britain's landscape is highly fragmented by roads, with researchers from Cardiff University finding that more than 70% of the UK's roadless areas are smaller than 1 km2. The researchers say that more than 60% of roadless ...
Ecology
Feb 18, 2026
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141
Frank Cuozzo and Michelle Sauther first traveled to South Africa in 2012 to search for some of the most unusual primates on Earth—bushbabies. These animals are nocturnal and small, often around the size of a housecat. Bushbabies ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 17, 2026
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24
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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