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Habitat Amount Modulates Biodiversity Responses To Fragmentation

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Habitat Amount Modulates Biodiversity Responses To Fragmentation

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Habitat amount modulates biodiversity responses to fragmentation

Article in Nature Ecology & Evolution · June 2024


DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02445-1

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nature ecology & evolution

Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02445-1

Habitat amount modulates biodiversity


responses to fragmentation

Received: 25 August 2023 Helin Zhang1,2, Jonathan M. Chase 3,4


& Jinbao Liao 1,2

Accepted: 23 May 2024

Published online: xx xx xxxx Anthropogenic habitat destruction leads to habitat loss and fragmentation,
both of which interact to determine how biodiversity changes at the
Check for updates
landscape level. While the detrimental effects of habitat loss are clear, there
is a long-standing debate about the role of habitat fragmentation per se. We
identify the influence of the total habitat amount lost as a modulator of the
relationship between habitat fragmentation and biodiversity. Using a simple
metacommunity model characterized by colonization–competition (C–C)
trade-offs, we show that the magnitude of habitat loss can induce a unimodal
response of biodiversity to habitat fragmentation. When habitat loss is low,
habitat fragmentation promotes coexistence by suppressing competitively
dominant species, while habitat fragmentation at high levels of habitat
loss can shape many smaller isolated patches that drive extinctions of
superior competitors. While the C–C trade-off is not the only mechanism
for biodiversity maintenance, the modulation of habitat fragmentation
effects by habitat loss is probably common. Reanalysis of a globally
distributed dataset of fragmented animal and plant metacommunities
shows an overall pattern that supports this hypothesis, suggesting a
resolution to the debate regarding the relative importance of positive
versus negative fragmentation effects.

Of the many drivers of biodiversity loss in the Anthropocene, habitat species at the global scale5,14,15. Indeed, projections of species loss with
destruction continues to be among the most devastating1,2. When habi- habitat loss typically assume that the total habitat amount remaining is
tats are destroyed, species in the landscape suffer two simultaneous the overriding factor determining how many species persist, minimiz-
fates. First, fewer species can co-occur with less total habitat area in ing any ecological effects that occur within the remaining habitats8,9.
the landscape as predicted by the species–area relationship (and the However, the quantification of the effects of habitat fragmentation
inverse, endemics–area relationship)3–5. This is the effect of the total following habitat destruction, quantified by a combination of the
habitat amount6,7. Second, the spatial configuration of the remaining number, size and spatial distribution of remaining habitats, has been
habitats can influence how many species remain beyond what would more controversial7,13,16–20.
be expected from a passive sample of the total habitat amount8,9. The consequences of living in smaller, more isolated patches in
This is the effect of habitat fragmentation per se6,7,10–13. a highly fragmented system have traditionally been assumed to be
There is no question that loss in the total habitat amount leads negative for a large number of species21–26. Consequently, many species
to lower diversity and that this plays an important role in the loss of are less likely to persist in highly fragmented habitats than would be

Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Transboundary Ecosecurity of Southwest China, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion Prevention and
1

Green Development, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Plant Reproductive Adaptation and Evolutionary Ecology and Centre for Invasion Biology, Institute of
Biodiversity, School of Ecology and Environmental Science, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan, China. 2Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and
Watershed Research, School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China. 3German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity
Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. 4Institute of Computer Science, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.
e-mail: [email protected]

Nature Ecology & Evolution

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