Global Forest Fragmentation

Forest fragmentation will inevitably continue over the coming years, especially in developing economies. This book provides a cutting edge review of the multi-disciplinary sciences related to studies of global forest fragmentation. It specifically addresses cross-cutting themes from both an ecological and a social sciences perspective. The ultimate goal of Global Forest Fragmentation is to provide a detailed scientific base to support future forest landscape management and planning to meet global environmental and societal needs.

Habitat loss and degradation that comes as a result of human activity is the single biggest threat to biodiversity in the world today. Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change is a groundbreaking work that brings together a wealth of information from a wide range of sources to define the ecological problems caused by landscape change and to highlight the relationships among landscape change, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity conservation. The book: synthesizes a large body of information from the scientific literature considers key theoretical principles for examining and predicting effects examines the range of effects that can arise explores ways of mitigating impacts reviews approaches to studying the problem discusses knowledge gaps and future areas for research and management Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change offers a unique mix of theoretical and practical information, outlining general principles and approaches and illustrating those principles with case studies from around the world. It represents a definitive overview and synthesis on the full range of topics that fall under the widely used but often vaguely defined term "habitat fragmentation."

Climate change, urban sprawl, abandonment of agriculture, intensification of forestry and agriculture, changes in energy generation and use, expansion of infrastructure networks, habitat destruction and degradation, and other drivers of change occur at increasing rates. They affect patterns and processes in forest landscapes, and modify ecosystem services derived from those ecosystems. Consequently, rapidly changing landscapes present many new challenges to scientists and managers. While it is not uncommon to encounter the terms “global change” and “landscape” together in the ecological literature, a global analyses of drivers of change in forest landscapes, and their ecological consequences have not been addressed adequately. That is the goal of this volume: an exploration of the state of knowledge of global changes in forested landscapes with emphasis on causes and effects, and challenges faced by researchers and land managers. Initial chapters identify and describe major agents of landscape change: climate, fire, and human activities. The next series of chapters address implications of changes on ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation and carbon flux. A chapter that describes methodologies of detecting and monitoring landscape changes is presented followed by chapter that highlights the many challenges forest landscape managers face amidst of global change. Finally, we present a summary and a synthesis of the main points presented in the book. Each chapter will contain the individual research experiences of chapter authors, augmented by review and synthesis of global scientific literature on relevant topics, as well as critical input from multiple peer reviewers.

This book focuses on central themes related to the conservation of bats. It details their response to land-use change and management practices, intensified urbanization and roost disturbance and loss. Increasing interactions between humans and bats as a result of hunting, disease relationships, occupation of human dwellings, and conflict over fruit crops are explored in depth. Finally, contributors highlight the roles that taxonomy, conservation networks and conservation psychology have to play in conserving this imperilled but vital taxon. With over 1300 species, bats are the second largest order of mammals, yet as the Anthropocene dawns, bat populations around the world are in decline. Greater understanding of the anthropogenic drivers of this decline and exploration of possible mitigation measures are urgently needed if we are to retain global bat diversity in the coming decades. This book brings together teams of international experts to provide a global review of current understanding and recommend directions for future research and mitigation.

We live in an increasingly fragmented world, with islands of natural habitat cast adrift in a sea of cleared, burned, logged, polluted, and otherwise altered lands. Nowhere are fragmentation and its devastating effects more evident than in the tropical forests. By the year 2000, more than half of these forests will have been cut, causing increased soil erosion, watershed destabilization, climate degradation, and extinction of as many as 600,000 species. Tropical Forest Remnants provides the best information available to help us understand, manage, and conserve the remaining fragments. Covering geographic areas from Southeast Asia and Australia to Madagascar and the New World, this volume summarizes what is known about the ecology, management, restoration, socioeconomics, and conservation of fragmented forests. Thirty-three papers present results of recent research as well as updates from decades-long projects in progress. Two final chapters synthesize the state of research on tropical forest fragmentation and identify key priorities for future work.

We primarily set out to determine the locations and extent of forest landscape fragments larger than 10,000 hectares for the boreal regions and larger than 5,000 hectares for the temperate forest regions, and to determine the geographic extent and location of these fragments within major ecological and administrative units. [...] Thus, we plan to work to refine and expand our analysis to include smaller threshold sizes (i.e., 5,000 for the boreal forest regions and 1,000 hectares for the temperate forest regions) and to incorporate the results of this and similar studies into the improvement of forest conservation decisions. [...] Global Forest Watch Canada will identify locations and assess values of critical forest landscape fragments by: a) Mapping the locations of small unfragmented forest blocks; b) Mapping and analyzing linear disturbance density in order to identify locations of additional critical forest landscape fragments; and c) Assessing components of conservation values of forests (including HCVFs and Endangere [...] In addition to our organization's stated goal of mapping and reporting on forest landscape fragments in Canada's forest regions, the rationale for our study is multifold: 2 The pace and scale of human activity and hence, fragmentation, in some regions of Canada's forest ecozones is considered to be dramatic;18 2 Concern about the economic, environmental and cultural impacts of escalating anthropog [...] Indirect (ecological) impacts include: habitat fragmentation, edge creation, the ecological consequences of traffic using the road, and the behaviour of road users and their interactions with the wildlife and ecosystems adjacent to the road.37 Other ecological impacts attributable to roads and other linear disturbances are: "changes in the way members of the wildlife community interact with one an.

The Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems (PAGE) compares information on a global scale about the condition of five major classes of ecosystem. This study analyzes qualitative and quantitative information and develops selected indicators of the condition of the world's forest ecosystems.

Increasing evidence suggests that the composition and spatial configuration – the pattern – of forest landscapes affect many ecological processes, including the movement and persistence of particular species, the susceptibility and spread of disturbances such as fires or pest outbreaks, and the redistribution of matter and nutrients. Understanding these issues is key to the successful management of complex, multifunctional forest landscapes, and landscape ecology, based on a foundation of island bio-geography and meta-population dynamic theories, provides the rationale to deal with this pattern-to-process interaction at different spatial and temporal scales. This carefully edited volume represents a stimulating addition to the international literature on landscape ecology and resource management. It provides key insights into some of the applicable landscape ecological theories that underlie forest management, with a specific focus on how forest management can benefit from landscape ecology, and how landscape ecology can be advanced by tackling challenging problems in forest (landscape) management. It also presents a series of case studies from Europe, Asia, North America, Africa and Australia exploring the issues of disturbance, diversity, management, and scale, and with a specific focus on how human intervention affects forest landscapes and, in turn, how landscapes influence humans and their culture. An important reference for advanced students and researchers in landscape ecology, conservation biology, forest ecology, natural resource management and ecology across multiple scales, the book will also appeal to researchers and practitioners in reserve design, ecological restoration, forest management, landscape planning and landscape architecture.