Habitat fragmentation

Common card · No. 428589

Habitat fragmentation is the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat), causing population fragmentation and ecosystem decay. Causes of habitat fragmentation include geological processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment (suspected of being one of the major causes of speciation), and human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment much faster and causes the population fluctuation of many species. More specifically, habitat fragmentation is a process by which large and contiguous habitats get divided into smaller, isolated patches of habitats.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Hugo Ahlenius, (PNUE / GRID-Arendal / graphic donated to the public domain), Public domain