Distribution and Causes of Global Forest Fragmentation
By Timothy G. Wade, Kurt H. Riitters, James D. Wickham, K. Jones. 2003
328 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Because human land uses tend to expand over time, forests that share a high proportion of their borders with anthropogenic uses are at higher risk of further degradation than forests that share a high proportion of their borders with non-forest, natural land cover (e.g., wetland). Using 1-km advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) satellite-based land cover, we present a method to separate forest fragmentation into natural and anthropogenic components, and report results for all inhabited continents summarized by World Wildlife Fund biomes. Globally, over half of the temperate broadleaf and mixed forest biome and nearly one quarter of the tropical rainforest biome have been fragmented or removed by humans, as opposed to only 4% of the boreal forest. Overall, Europe had the most human-caused fragmentation and South America the least. This method may allow for improved risk assessments and better targeting for protection and remediation by identifying areas with high amounts of human-caused fragmentation.
Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8c976c37798a78d4c401d4faaab88778c6ab12c3
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In Global and Planetary Change
In Nature and Landscape Conservation
Citations in the corpus
- Banking on the future: progress, challenges and opportunities for the genetic conservation of forest trees (2017, background): “2013), land conversion and fragmentation (Riitters et al. 2016; Wade et al. 2003), and unsustainable use and exploitation (Shearman et al.”
- The response of tree squirrels to fragmentation: a review and synthesis (2005, background): “…over the spread of eastern grey squirrels across continental Europe from introductions in Italy (Lurz et al., 2001; Bertolino & Genovesi, 2003) is appropriate, especially given that the European continent is considered to have the most highly fragmented forests in the world (Wade et al., 2003).”
- Assemblage‐level responses of phyllostomid bats to tropical forest fragmentation: land‐bridge islands as a model system (2008, background): “…identified as key drivers of biodiversity loss, particularly in tropical regions, where habitat modification through deforestation, conversion into agricultural lands, pastoralization, and urbanization continues at unprecedented rates (Sala et al., 2000; Laurance et al., 2001; Wade et al., 2003).”
- The relative importance of local, regional and historical factors determining the distribution of plants in fragmented riverine forests: an emergent group approach (2005, background): “This is especially true in temperate zones, where formerly continuous areas of forest habitat have been fragmented by humans (Wade et al., 2003), and forest connectivity has been shown to influence the composition of local forest plant communities (e.g. Dzwonko & Loster, 1992; Grashof-Bokdam, 1997;…”
- The impact of human pressure on landscape patterns and plant species richness in Mediterranean coastal dunes (2016, background): “Email: carranza@unimol.it habitat fragmentation on natural biodiversity are considered to be negative (Franklin et al. 2002; Wade et al. 2003) and, for this reason, it is a primary issue of interest in conservationbiology (Meffe&Carroll 1997; Trombulak et al. 2004).”
- Effects of urbanization on butterfly species richness, guild structure, and rarity (2007, background): “1998), and urban and suburban sprawl have been identified as primary causes of habitat fragmentation (Wang and Moskovits 2001; Wade et al. 2003).”