Predictors of forest fragmentation sensitivity in Neotropical vertebrates: a quantitative review

Abstract

Species' responses to tropical forest fragmentation are variable and not well understood. Species' functional traits might help to reveal patterns of fragmentation sensitivity and provide valuable guidance to conservation practice. On the basis of 30 reviewed studies published between 1997 and 2008, we present a quantitative analysis of 730 responses of Neotropical vertebrates to forest fragmentation and habitat loss in terms of Species' presence, abundance or fitness. Our intention was to identify possible ecological predictors of sensitivity to fragmentation, such as vertebrate group, feeding guild, forest dependency, and body size. We also controlled for methodology and study site characteristics, i.e. parameters studied, study design, study ID, and site ID. These ecological and methodological variables are frequently hypothesized to have an influence on reported fragmentation sensitivity. We conducted Linear Mixed Model analyses in order to relate the potential predictor variables to reported fragmentation effects. Model performance was assessed on the basis of AIC values. The best models included feeding guild, feeding guild+study design and feeding guild+forest dependency, respectively. We found that study ID and site ID significantly improved the models. Post‐hoc tests revealed that nectarivores, possibly herbivores, and species able to use open habitats were affected significantly less by forest fragmentation than others. We therefore conclude that Neotropical nectarivores that are able to use open habitats are less negatively affected by forest fragmentation. Furthermore, a study site's characteristics will always be crucial in explaining observed fragmentation effects.

Species traits explaining sensitivity of snakes to human land use estimated from citizen science data

“…For example, imperilment has been shown almost universally to increase with body size for most species (e.g., Purvis et al, 2000;Cardillo et al, 2008), including reptiles (Tingley et al, 2013;Böhm et al, 2016). Nevertheless, a direct link between body size in vertebrates and sensitivity to habitat loss or human land use has proven elusive across many taxa (Swihart et al, 2003;Meyer et al, 2008;Thornton et al, 2011;Vetter et al, 2011;Quesnelle et al, 2014), and our results agree with these earlier findings. Body size may not generally correlate well with sensitivity to habitat loss because it is linked to many other life-history attributes that more directly predispose species to imperilment risks, including trophic level and fecundity, among others (Henle et al, 2004).…”

Community structure and diversity of tropical forest mammals: data from a global camera trap network

“…Most of the literature on the effects of fragmentation on vertebrate functional groups in tropical forests is biased towards small-to medium-sized birds and bats, with little information for larger and harder-to-detect terrestrial ground-dwelling mammals [36]. However, our preliminary results seem to confirm the higher sensitivity of omnivores and insectivores observed in meta-analyses of wider groups of tropical vertebrates [36]. Whether this is owing to loss of habitat, food resources, hunting or a combination of these factors remains unknown for our sites.…”

Localized extinction of an arboreal desert lizard caused by habitat fragmentation

“…Hence, they are predicted to be unable to move among even relatively close habitat fragments and go extinct first (Ewers and Didham, 2006;Fischer and Lindenmayer, 2007;Hoehn et al, 2007). Species dependent upon vital habitat resources absent from the matrix, such as native vegetation, could show reduced persistence compared to species that can live and disperse in the matrix (Ewers and Didham, 2006;Fischer and Lindenmayer, 2007;Vetter et al, 2011). For instance, the small (60-80 mm snout-vent length) threatened lizard Liolaemus lutzae, restricted to fragmented beach vegetation of the Atlantic Rainforest biome in Brazil show signs of population declines and has been eradicated from some heavily fragmented areas (Rocha et al, 2009).…”