A CONCEPTUAL GENEALOGY OF FRAGMENTATION RESEARCH: FROM ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY TO LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY*

The concept of habitat fragmentation has become an important theme in conservation research, and it is often used as if fragmentation were a unitary phenomenon. However, the concept is ambiguous, and empirical studies demonstrate a wide variety of direct and indirect effects, sometimes with mutually opposing implications. The effects of fragmentation vary across organisms, habitat types, and geographic regions. Such a contrast between a schematic concept and multifaceted empirical reality is counterproductive. I analyzed the stabilization of the schematic view of fragmentation by the early 1980s, using a genealogical narrative as a methodological approach. The main assumptions behind the schematic view were: (1) fragments are comparable to oceanic islands; (2) habitats surrounding fragments are hostile to a majority of the organisms; and (3) natural pre-fragmentation conditions were uniform. The stabilization loop of this view was supported by the reduction of empirical research to species–area curve fitt...

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