Entire plant and animal communities may be threatened by different types of habitat loss – ScienceDaily

The research, co-authored by Dr. Miguel Lurgi of Swansea University, shows that the way in which human activities destroy habitat is an essential factor in understanding the effects of this destruction on the stability and functioning of biological communities. .

The article, published in a scientific journal Nature Communicationswonders whether focusing solely on species diversity risks omitting other aspects of how biological communities respond to habitat destruction.

Daniel Montoya, a researcher at the Station for Theoretical and Experimental Ecology of Moulis (France), also a co-author, said: "Ecologists and practitioners tend to evaluate the impact of human activities on biodiversity by measuring extinction rates of species.

"However, biodiversity includes elements other than a single species, such as interactions between species and their stability over time and in space.

"These additional properties, sometimes overlooked, are essential to the functioning of ecosystems and are the missing component of the loss of biodiversity that accompanies or precedes the extinction of species."

This study revealed that the specific ways in which habitat is lost are important for the biodiversity response.

Mr. Montoya added, "Natural habitats can be destroyed randomly or in groups – for example, by constructing a road or creating new urban areas." The spatial pattern of this loss hinders differentially mobility of individual animals, which has an additional impact on biodiversity and population stability in the remaining fragments of intact habitat. "

Researchers say that a logical question now arises: how is a habitat destroyed in real landscapes around the world?

"It depends on the spatial scale we are looking at, yet we have explored several habitat loss scenarios and our results suggest that community responses are roughly gradual and predictable depending on the degree of habitat loss. 39, spatial autocorrelation of the lost habitat, "said Dr. Lurgi.

This study relates to recent research exploring changes in local diversity as a result of global change, which is currently the subject of lively debate.

"We suggest that, regardless of a positive, negative or neutral change in local diversity, spatial patterns of habitat loss largely influence the structure and dynamics of biodiversity in very different and contrasting ways."

Dr. Lurgi, lecturer at the Department of Biosciences of Swansea, previously worked for the famous CNRS in France and is involved in the journal as part of his own research on the disbadembly dynamics of ecological networks.

The authors hope that their findings will be used to inform environmental science and policy making in the future. They would like aspects of community structure and stability and the spatial pattern of habitat loss to be integrated into conservation planning.

Dr. Lurgi added, "I think it's important to develop a theory and models to help us understand these effects and enable us to find better ways to combat the loss of habitat and property. Other sources of anthropogenic change to better conserve biodiversity. "

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