Overcoming confusion and stigma in habitat fragmentation research

IF 11 1区 生物学 Q1 BIOLOGY
Federico Riva, Nicola Koper, Lenore Fahrig
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Anthropogenic habitat loss is widely recognized as a primary environmental concern. By contrast, debates on the effects of habitat fragmentation persist. To facilitate overcoming these debates, here we: (i) review the state of the literature on habitat fragmentation, finding widespread confusion and stigma; (ii) identify consequences of this for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management; and (iii) suggest ways in which research can move forward to resolve these problems.

Confusion is evident from the 25 most-cited fragmentation articles published between 2017 and 2021. These articles use five distinct concepts of habitat fragmentation, only one of which clearly distinguishes habitat fragmentation from habitat area and other factors (‘fragmentation per se’). Stigmatization is evident from our new findings that fragmentation papers are more charged with negative sentiments when compared to papers from other subfields in the environmental sciences, and that fragmentation papers with more negative sentiments are cited more.

While most empirical studies of habitat fragmentation per se find neutral or positive effects on species and biodiversity outcomes, which implies that small habitat patches have a high cumulative value, confusion and stigma in reporting and discussing such results have led to suboptimal habitat protection policy. For example, government agencies, conservation organizations, and land trusts impose minimum habitat patch sizes on habitat protection. Given the high cumulative value of small patches, such policies mean that many opportunities for conservation are being missed.

Our review highlights the importance of reducing confusion and stigma in habitat fragmentation research. To this end, we propose implementing study designs in which multiple sample landscapes are selected across independent gradients of habitat amount and fragmentation, measured as patch density. We show that such designs are possible for forest habitat across Earth's biomes. As such study designs are adopted, and as language becomes more precise, we expect that confusion and stigma in habitat fragmentation research will dissipate. We also expect important breakthroughs in understanding the situations where effects of habitat fragmentation per se are neutral, positive, or negative, and the reasons for these differences. Ultimately this will improve efficacy of area-based conservation policies, to the benefit of biodiversity and people.

Abstract Image

克服生境破碎化研究中的困惑和污名。
人类活动造成的栖息地丧失已被广泛认为是一个主要的环境问题。相比之下,关于栖息地破碎化影响的争论却一直存在。为了克服这些争论,我们在此(i) 回顾有关栖息地破碎化的文献现状,发现普遍存在混淆和成见;(ii) 确定其对生物多样性保护和生态系统管理的影响;(iii) 提出推进研究以解决这些问题的方法。在2017年至2021年期间发表的25篇被引用次数最多的破碎化文章中,混淆现象显而易见。这些文章使用了五种不同的生境破碎化概念,其中只有一种将生境破碎化与生境面积和其他因素("破碎化本身")明确区分开来。我们的新发现表明,与环境科学其他子领域的论文相比,片段化论文中的负面情绪更多,而且负面情绪更多的片段化论文被引用的次数也更多。虽然大多数关于生境破碎化本身的实证研究都发现了其对物种和生物多样性结果的中性或积极影响,这意味着小块生境具有很高的累积价值,但在报告和讨论此类结果时出现的混乱和污名化现象导致了次优的生境保护政策。例如,政府机构、保护组织和土地信托基金对栖息地保护规定了最小栖息地斑块大小。鉴于小块斑块具有很高的累积价值,这种政策意味着许多保护机会被错过。我们的综述强调了减少栖息地破碎化研究中的混乱和污名化的重要性。为此,我们建议实施研究设计,在栖息地数量和破碎化(以斑块密度衡量)的独立梯度上选择多个样本景观。我们的研究表明,这种设计适用于地球各生物群落的森林栖息地。随着此类研究设计的采用,以及语言的精确化,我们预计栖息地破碎化研究中的混乱和污名将会消散。我们还期待在理解栖息地破碎化本身的影响是中性、积极还是负面以及造成这些差异的原因方面取得重大突破。最终,这将提高基于区域的保护政策的效率,造福于生物多样性和人类。
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来源期刊
Biological Reviews
Biological Reviews 生物-生物学
CiteScore
21.30
自引率
2.00%
发文量
99
审稿时长
6-12 weeks
期刊介绍: Biological Reviews is a scientific journal that covers a wide range of topics in the biological sciences. It publishes several review articles per issue, which are aimed at both non-specialist biologists and researchers in the field. The articles are scholarly and include extensive bibliographies. Authors are instructed to be aware of the diverse readership and write their articles accordingly. The reviews in Biological Reviews serve as comprehensive introductions to specific fields, presenting the current state of the art and highlighting gaps in knowledge. Each article can be up to 20,000 words long and includes an abstract, a thorough introduction, and a statement of conclusions. The journal focuses on publishing synthetic reviews, which are based on existing literature and address important biological questions. These reviews are interesting to a broad readership and are timely, often related to fast-moving fields or new discoveries. A key aspect of a synthetic review is that it goes beyond simply compiling information and instead analyzes the collected data to create a new theoretical or conceptual framework that can significantly impact the field. Biological Reviews is abstracted and indexed in various databases, including Abstracts on Hygiene & Communicable Diseases, Academic Search, AgBiotech News & Information, AgBiotechNet, AGRICOLA Database, GeoRef, Global Health, SCOPUS, Weed Abstracts, and Reaction Citation Index, among others.
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