Habitat fragmentation isolates populations faster than equal habitat loss alone
When continuous habitat is sliced into patches, surviving animals face barriers of roads, fields, or suburbs that a simple reduction in total area would not create. Gene flow slows, territories shrink, and local extinctions climb.
Edge exposure rises too: smaller patches have more perimeter relative to core, so wind, light, and predators penetrate farther. Two landscapes with the same remaining hectares can hold very different futures for wildlife.
Area lost matters, but isolation matters more. Fragmentation turns one population into many vanishing islands before the map looks empty.
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