Ecological Responses to Habitat Fragmentation Per Se

For this article, I reviewed empirical studies finding significant ecological responses to habitat fragmentation per se—in other words, significant responses to fragmentation independent of the effects of habitat amount (hereafter referred to as habitat fragmentation). I asked these two questions: Are most significant responses to habitat fragmentation negative or positive? And do particular attributes of species or landscapes lead to a predominance of negative or positive significant responses? I found 118 studies reporting 381 significant responses to habitat fragmentation independent of habitat amount. Of these responses, 76% were positive. Most significant fragmentation effects were positive, irrespective…