Citation:

Kuhn, A. Fragmentation and Isolation. Chapter N/A, Encyclopedia of Natural Resources: Land. Taylor and Francis, Philadelphia, PA, , 230-237, (2014).

Impact/Purpose:

Landscapes are being modified by humans at ever-increasing rates worldwide. This landscape level modification has resulted in changes in ecological patterns and processes, including species distributions. The rate at which humans are altering both terrestrial and aquatic habitats far exceeds the capacity for most species to respond to the increasing loss of habitat and isolated remains of these habitat patches. Fragmentation and isolation of habitat is occurring alongside other environmental stressors and may be interacting synergistically rather than independently. Governmental agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are required to assess risks to wildlife populations (in its broadest definition) that result from these stressors, yet considerable uncertainty exists with respect to how such assessments should be conducted. To have any real or sustainable impact the interacting effects and responses to anthropogenically-altered landscapes need to be addressed at an ecosystem level. Understanding and mitigating the causal effects of habitat fragmentation and isolation will require integrated multi-scale landscape level approaches that consider ecological processes occurring within these landscapes, and the synergistic interactions between fragmentation, isolation and other drivers of environmental change.

Description:

Landscapes are being modified by humans at ever-increasing rates worldwide. This landscape level modification has resulted in changes in ecological patterns and processes, including species distributions. The rate at which humans are altering both terrestrial and aquatic habitats far exceeds the capacity for most species to respond to the increasing loss of habitat and isolated remains of these habitat patches. Fragmentation and isolation of habitat is occurring alongside other environmental stressors and may be interacting synergistically rather than independently. To have any real or sustainable impact the interacting effects and responses to anthropogenically-altered landscapes need to be addressed at an ecosystem level. Understanding and mitigating the causal effects of habitat fragmentation and isolation will require integrated multi-scale landscape level approaches that consider ecological processes occurring within these landscapes, and the synergistic interactions between fragmentation, isolation and other drivers of environmental change.

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