Question

How might the ecological features of the forest patches impact the differences in diversity you have observed?

Answer 1

The forest loss and habitat fragmentation are responsible for biodiversity decline. These processes increase the vulnerability of the species that inhabit the forest ecosystem by reducing the suitable habitat and by generating patch isolation. So, habitat loss and fragmentation have the negative effects on biodiversity due to the area reduction, which is responsible to decrease the species effective population sizes, and to the increase in the number of smaller forest fragments, which also is responsible to modify the microenvironmental characteristics of the landscape. It can also be considered that the larger fragments might contain more species than small fragments and that when the patch’s area decreases, and it has the higher implications for core area species than for the edge ones. It can also be considered that the number of individuals per species in a given forest patch is conditioned not only by the area available but also by the dispersal capacity of each species, mainly because the fragmentation processes generate scattered and isolated patches that is responsible to reduce the capacity of the organisms to disperse. In addition, the patch’s species richness can also be defined by the environmental conditions, the species life histories, and the ecological conditions of the fragments that can decide the quality of the resources available.