Matrix composition mediates effects of habitat fragmentation: a modelling study

TY - JOUR

T1 - Matrix composition mediates effects of habitat fragmentation

T2 - a modelling study

AU - Chetcuti, Jordan

AU - Kunin, William E.

AU - Bullock, James M.

N1 - Funding Information: This work used the JASMIN at RAL STFC ( http://jasmin.ac.uk ), operated jointly by the centre of environmental data analysis and the scientific computing department. This facility was funded by NERC. JC was funded by a studentship from the NERC SPHERES Doctoral Training Partnership (NE/L002574/1). Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).

PY - 2021/6

Y1 - 2021/6

N2 - Context: Habitat loss has clear negative effects on biodiversity, but whether fragmentation per se (FPS), excluding habitat loss does is debatable. A contribution to this debate may be that many fragmentation studies tend to use landscapes of fragmented focal-habitat and a single vastly different species-poor intervening land cover (the matrix). Objectives: How does matrix composition influence the effect of FPS on biodiversity?. Methods: Using an individual-based model to investigate the effect of different configurations of the matrix on the relationship between FPS and biodiversity of the focal-habitat. We manipulated the number and quality of land cover types in the matrix, and their similarity to the focal-habitat. Results: Extremely different matrix, caused an order of magnitude stronger effect of FPS on alpha- and gamma-diversity and beta-diversity to decline. Low FPS led to high gamma-diversity. Increasing FPS caused a dramatic decline to low diversity. In contrast landscapes with a more similar matrix had lower diversity under low FPS declining little with increasing FPS. Having few matrix types caused beta-diversity to decline in general compared to landscapes with a larger numbers. Conclusions: The effects of FPS on biodiversity may change depending on the number of matrix types and their similarity to the focal-habitat. We recommend that fragmentation studies should consider a greater variety of landscapes to help assess in which cases FPS does not have a negative impact and allow better predictions of the impacts of fragmentation. We show the importance of having a diversity of matrix land cover types and improving the hospitability of the matrix for species dependent on the focal-habitat.

AB - Context: Habitat loss has clear negative effects on biodiversity, but whether fragmentation per se (FPS), excluding habitat loss does is debatable. A contribution to this debate may be that many fragmentation studies tend to use landscapes of fragmented focal-habitat and a single vastly different species-poor intervening land cover (the matrix). Objectives: How does matrix composition influence the effect of FPS on biodiversity?. Methods: Using an individual-based model to investigate the effect of different configurations of the matrix on the relationship between FPS and biodiversity of the focal-habitat. We manipulated the number and quality of land cover types in the matrix, and their similarity to the focal-habitat. Results: Extremely different matrix, caused an order of magnitude stronger effect of FPS on alpha- and gamma-diversity and beta-diversity to decline. Low FPS led to high gamma-diversity. Increasing FPS caused a dramatic decline to low diversity. In contrast landscapes with a more similar matrix had lower diversity under low FPS declining little with increasing FPS. Having few matrix types caused beta-diversity to decline in general compared to landscapes with a larger numbers. Conclusions: The effects of FPS on biodiversity may change depending on the number of matrix types and their similarity to the focal-habitat. We recommend that fragmentation studies should consider a greater variety of landscapes to help assess in which cases FPS does not have a negative impact and allow better predictions of the impacts of fragmentation. We show the importance of having a diversity of matrix land cover types and improving the hospitability of the matrix for species dependent on the focal-habitat.

KW - Fragmentation per se

KW - Individual-based model

KW - Landscape scale

KW - Matrix habitat

KW - Movement ecology

KW - Species diversity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104723425&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10980-021-01243-5

DO - 10.1007/s10980-021-01243-5

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85104723425

SN - 0921-2973

VL - 36

SP - 1631

EP - 1646

JO - Landscape Ecology

JF - Landscape Ecology

IS - 6

ER -