Environmental studies and Habitat Fragmentation

Project description
write a response to this students short essay. What can you ad to the topic. Use at least one source.

So the article this week is titled: Effects of Habitat Fragmentation on Biodiversity by Lenore Fahrig from Carlton University in Ottawa, Canada. This is a good paper

and covers the topic of habitat fragmentation very objectively, and the author has obviously supported her research with scientific evidence proven in the field.

However, the article is quite long, so I chose to focus on the four unique effects of the process of fragmentation, which give one an idea of how important, and

detrimental, fragmentation can be on biodiversity (Fahrig, 2003).

There are four effects of the process of fragmentation on habitat: reduction in habitat amount, increase in number of habitat patches, decrease in size of habitat

patches, increase in isolation of patches. This makes complete sense when you think about a large forested area that, for example, gets annexed to an urban area and

zoned for development. First you will get roads that decrease habitat amount while at the same time taking the area from one large patch to several smaller patches,

which become more isolated from one another as development expands. As time goes on all of these four factors are amplified. Understanding these four effects of

fragmentation of habitat gives one a tool to help understand what challenges the plants and animals of different patches are going to be facing, and helps

conservationists understand the effects of fragmentation.

Another important factor for researchers is which effect they decide to focus on when studying fragmented areas. For example, a researcher may decide to analyze the

reduction in habitat amount along with the increase of the number of patches. Researchers may choose, as in this case, to review only several of the four. Or they may

choose to use all four factors and decide the effects of all of them (Fahrig, 2003).

Sometimes analyzing all four effects together causes contradictions in the data. The author has tried to reconcile contradictions in the data by recognizing the fact

that each factor affects biodiversity in a different way. Therefore, when we look at habitat fragmentation we have to look at each of the four effects. Then we have to

focus on how each effect of the fragmentation has affected biodiversity in its own way. This came as somewhat of a revelation to me as I read the article. It shows us

how complicated conserving our natural resources can be (Fahrig, 2003).

In summary, when we look at the effects of habitat fragmentation we are focusing on four different effects caused by that fragmentation. After that we need to focus on

how each of those effects (habitat reduction, increased patch numbers, increasingly isolated patches, and smaller patches) influence the biodiversity within the

fragmented area. After reviewing each of the four effects and then analyzing their unique influence, then researchers can determine the overall impact of habitat

fragmentation on the biodiversity of an area (Fahrig, 2003).

PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT 🙂