COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF HABITAT FRAGMENTATION EFFECTS

Ecologists have used a variety of comparative mensurative and manipulative experimental approaches to study the biological consequences of habitat fragmentation. In this paper, we evaluate the merits of the two major approaches and offer guidelines for selecting a design. Manipulative experiments rigorously assess fragmentation effects by comparing pre- and post-treatment conditions. Yet they are often constrained by a number of practical limitations, such as the difficulty in implementing large-scale treatments and the impracticality of measuring the long-term (decades to centuries) responses to the imposed treatments. Comparative mensurative studies generally involve substituting space for time, and without…