News and Comment
Habitat loss: ecological, evolutionary and genetic consequences

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(99)01799-1Get rights and content

Section snippets

Spatial ecology and habitat loss

A major paradigm for studying the ecology of habitat loss and fragmentation is the metapopulation view1, 2, which posits that metapopulation persistence depends on the interplay between extinction from occupied patches and recolonization of empty patches. Habitat degradation can increase patch extinction rates, and habitat fragmentation and reductions in matrix quality can decrease recolonization rates. However, the original Levins metapopulation model included major oversimplifications that

Expanding the metapopulation paradigm

One ‘new horizon’ outside the main, single-species, metapopulation ecology view looked at how adaptive responses to habitat loss might influence species persistence. Bob Holt (University of Kansas, USA) addressed limits to adaptive evolution in declining habitats, that might often be ‘sinks’ in a source–sink system3. He suggested that adaptive evolution would be more likely if habitat deterioration is gradual and if populations show moderate immigration from source to sink – enough to provide

Genetics and habitat loss

The genetics sessions began with an overview by Pekka Pamilo (Uppsala University, Sweden) who reviewed equilibrium models in population genetics and introduced new, nonequilibrium approaches (e.g. genetic ‘assignment’ tests).

Several presentations assessed the effects of physical landscape structures (e.g. streams, hills, valleys and roads) on gene flow and genetic structure; thus, a new discipline ‘landscape genetics’ is emerging. For example, Michael Antolin (Colorado State University, USA)

Other focal issues

Several papers emphasized that habitat loss is a temporal phenomenon; thus, historical knowledge might be crucial for understanding current patterns. History can be traced through old maps, written accounts and interviews, as well as with modern tools like remote sensing and geographical information systems. A notable example examined change in the distribution of farmland birds in southern Finland.

Research on habitat loss in boreal forests focused on the importance of landscape contexts, the

Prospects

Habitat loss presents perhaps the ultimate challenge to ecologists and evolutionary biologists from both a scientific and management perspective. However, many integrative bridges remain to be built. Although theory and small-scale experimental studies have been reasonably well integrated, these approaches remain largely uncoupled from larger-scale empirical work that applies most directly to conservation and management policy. An exception involves work by Hanski and colleagues using practical

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Ilkka Hanski, Mikko Heino, Jari Niemela, Esa Ranta and Lotta Sundstrom for organizing this conference. A.S.’s participation was supported by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, CA, USA; G.L. was supported by the European Union and the Centre National de le Recherche Scientifique, France; and B.G.J. was supported by the Swedish Council for Forestry and Agricultural Research.

References (3)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (104)

  • Effect of behavioural plasticity and environmental properties on the resilience of communities under habitat loss and fragmentation

    2022, Ecological Modelling
    Citation Excerpt :

    Disturbance is generally understood as any relatively discrete event in time that disrupts ecosystem, community, or population structure, thus changing resources, substrate availability, or the physical environment (White and Pickett, 1985). Disturbances of anthropogenic origin, such as climate change, pollution, and invasive species, are the main threats to ecosystems (Berger-Tal et al., 2016; Sih et al., 2011), with habitat loss directly reducing species distribution worldwide, and leading to several recorded extinctions (Sih et al., 2000). In addition to its direct effects, habitat destruction may also affect biodiversity by subdividing the continuous habitat into smaller pieces, a process called fragmentation (Andrén, 1994).

  • Connectivity and complexity of coastal lakes as determinants for their restoration – A case study of the southern Baltic Sea

    2020, Ecological Engineering
    Citation Excerpt :

    From among diversity of coastal wetlands, the most impacted group constitute coastal lakes. Sih et al. (2000), Perillo et al. (2019) and Grizzetti et al. (2019) indicate that their modification, fragmentation and habitat loss are widely considered some of the most serious threats to biodiversity globally. To undertake any rehabilitation action, a knowledge basis not only for better understanding of biological systems and the dynamics of changes in functioning of ecosystems or their productivity assessment, but also for tracing and predicting of their transformations is required (Beger et al., 2010; Harris et al., 2019).

  • Linking habitat, predators and alternative prey to explain recruitment variations of an endangered caribou population

    2020, Global Ecology and Conservation
    Citation Excerpt :

    Anthropogenic habitat loss, fragmentation and alteration (hereafter referred to as habitat modifications) are frequently identified as major threats to biodiversity (Saunders et al., 1991; Sih et al., 2000).

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text