Assessment of Habitat Fragmentation Effects on Wildlife Population Distribution and Ecosystem Stability in Tropical Forest Landscapes

Abstract

Tropical forests contain the highest amount of terrestrial biodiversity on Earth, but they are facing fast deforestation and fragmentation as a consequence of agriculture, deforestation, and infrastructure. This essay will present a review of existing scientific literature on how habitat fragmentation influences the distribution of wildlife populations and ecosystem stability in tropical forests. Based on the findings of long-term experimental research, global meta-studies, and remote sensing, the literature review will be able to differentiate between the influence of habitat reduction and habitat fragmentation, and consider such factors as edge effects, patch isolation, extinction debt, and matrix permeability. The effects of these factors on ecosystem functioning will also be analyzed. These effects include loss of biomass and carbon, disruption of seed dispersal system, and reduction of functional redundancy. The evidence of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), carried out in central Amazonia, will be used as a long-term case study.