According to the article, in
smaller forest fragments, the researchers recorded only 20 % -50 % of the species expected to occur across the region.
Not exact matches
Fragments of branching coral — the type that looks like animal horns — were attached with fishing line to skeletal branches of PVC pipe, creating a
small forest of life in the middle of an otherwise desolate patch of ocean floor.
To achieve effective climate protection, it will be necessary to stop chopping the
forests into ever
smaller fragments.
The sites — including locations in the Crane Naval Surface and Warfare Center, Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge, and state parks — varied in habitat size and form, ranging from
small to large
forest fragments with varying degrees of tree cover.
For instance, Pimm and a
small group of other scientists are now buying up cattle pastures in Brazil to try to connect
fragments of highly diverse — and highly threatened — coastal
forests.
Damselflies live in coastal
forests that once formed a continuous belt in east Africa but are now
fragmented, forcing the creatures into
small, vulnerable populations.
Forest ecologist Juan Armesto of the Universidad Católica de Chile, who collaborates with Weathers, says that the country's modern coastal rain forest represents small fragments of what must have once been a contiguous forest, connected to the Amazon Basin, that changed gradually over the past 5 million to 25 million years due to the colossal upheaval that created the Andes Moun
Forest ecologist Juan Armesto of the Universidad Católica de Chile, who collaborates with Weathers, says that the country's modern coastal rain
forest represents small fragments of what must have once been a contiguous forest, connected to the Amazon Basin, that changed gradually over the past 5 million to 25 million years due to the colossal upheaval that created the Andes Moun
forest represents
small fragments of what must have once been a contiguous
forest, connected to the Amazon Basin, that changed gradually over the past 5 million to 25 million years due to the colossal upheaval that created the Andes Moun
forest, connected to the Amazon Basin, that changed gradually over the past 5 million to 25 million years due to the colossal upheaval that created the Andes Mountains.
Such
small, isolated populations are essentially doomed: even if the
forest fragments survive, sooner or later dwindling gene pools or disasters such as
forest fires and disease outbreaks will wipe them out.
According to new research,
small mammal species native to these
forest fragments are at greater risk of dying out than previously thought.
«We show that there are always the same few common species in
small, isolated secondary
forest fragments, so each time you go to another piece of
forest, you will encounter the same common birds, a phenomenon called biotic homogenisation.
For example, the number of
forest fragments smaller than 10,000 hectares is rather similar in all three regions: 11.2 percent in Central and South America, 9.9 percent in Africa and 9.2 percent in Southeast Asia.
According to the National Science Foundation, «Areas of patchy woods, which are very common in cities and suburban and rural areas, may have higher populations of Lyme - disease carrying ticks than
forest fragments... this is because some species thrive in
smaller places.»
Among these, truly knockout photography by Walker Evans, Bernice Abbot and August Sander; a
fragment from an Egyptian frieze, dating back to the reign of Akhenaten; Giacometti's The
Forest, and two
small collaged works by Franz Kline, Untitled (c. 1950 -» 52), which tops this review, and Study for «Flanders» (1961).
In the understated language of science, the new study, in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes: «This is unfortunate when one considers that for some species - rich areas of the planet, a large proportion of remaining
forest is in
fragments»
smaller than 2,500 acres.
Yet, for
small and
fragmented forest - holdings, certification can be both costly and resource and time - consuming.
Relegated to ever
smaller fragments of
forest, wild orangutans began to face starvation as their food sources were depleted, forcing them to venture into newly established oil palm plantations where they feed on the young shoots of palms, destroying the tree before it produces any oil seeds.
As pockets of
forest habitat are isolated, their edges are exposed to harsher, brighter, drier conditions and plant and animal dispersal between habitat
fragments is made more difficult; in addition, habitat
fragments may be too
small to sustain populations of some species.