Ecological Implications of Landscape Fragmentation

Abstract

Understanding the effects of extensive and rapid changes in land-use patterns on the distribution and abundance of organisms is an important ecological issue (Burgess and Sharpe 1981; Forman and Godron 1986; Risser et al. 1984; Wiens et al. 1985; Naiman et al. 1988; Lubchenco et al. 1991). Although many physical and biotic factors, such as topography, disturbance, and resource gradients, are associated with habitat fragmentation, the direct effects of human activities (O’Neill et al. 1988a), on the size, shape, and the spatial arrangement of habitat types are particularly important (Krummel et al. 1987; Odum and Turner 1990). Sudden changes in broad-scale patterns have been predicted (Gardner et al. 1987) from gradual change in land-use, producing patterns which may be very sensitive to future disturbances (Franklin and Forman 1987).