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1.
Management of tropical marine environments calls for interdisciplinary studies and innovative methodologies that consider processes occurring over broad spatial scales. We investigated relationships between landscape structure and reef fish assemblage structure in the US Virgin Islands. Measures of landscape structure were transformed into a reduced set of composite indices using principal component analyses (PCA) to synthesize data on the spatial patterning of the landscape structure of the study reefs. However, composite indices (e.g., habitat diversity) were not particularly informative for predicting reef fish assemblage structure. Rather, relationships were interpreted more easily when functional groups of fishes were related to individual habitat features. In particular, multiple reef fish parameters were strongly associated with reef context. Fishes responded to benthic habitat structure at multiple spatial scales, with various groups of fishes each correlated to a unique suite of variables. Accordingly, future experiments should be designed to test functional relationships based on the ecology of the organisms of interest. Our study demonstrates that landscape-scale habitat features influence reef fish communities, illustrating promise in applying a landscape ecology approach to better understand factors that structure coral reef ecosystems. Furthermore, our findings may prove useful in design of spatially-based conservation approaches such as marine protected areas (MPAs), because landscape-scale metrics may serve as proxies for areas with high species diversity and abundance within the coral reef landscape. 相似文献
2.
ContextIn heterogeneous landscapes, local patterns of community structure are a product of the habitat size and condition within a patch interacting with adjacent habitat patches of varying composition and quantity. While evidence for local versus landscape factors have been found in terrestrial biomes, support for such multi-scale effects shaping marine ecological communities is equivocal.ObjectivesWe investigated whether within-patch habitat condition can override seascape context to explain the community structure of macroalgae-associated reef fishes across a tropical seascape.MethodsWe mapped the distribution and abundance of a diverse family of reef fishes (Labridae) occupying macroalgae meadows within a tropical reef ecosystem, and using best-subsets model selection, investigated the potential for habitat structural connectivity and/or local habitat quality for predicting variations in fish community structure across the seascape.ResultsLocal habitat quality (canopy structure, hard habitat complexity) and area of coral-dominated habitat within 500 m of a macroalgal meadow provided the best predictors of fish community structure. However, the specific importance of a given predictor varied with fish life history stage and functional trophic group. Interestingly, macroalgae meadow area was among the least important predictors.ConclusionsGiven the complex interplay between local habitat quality and spatial context effects on fish biodiversity, our study reveals the multi-scale predictors that should be used in spatial conservation and management approaches for tropical fish diversity. Moreover, our findings question the ubiquity of habitat area effects in patchy landscapes, and cautions against a sole reliance on habitat quantity in spatial management. 相似文献
3.
A comprehensive understanding of variables associated with spatial differences in community composition is essential to explain
and predict biodiversity over landscape scales. In this study, spatial patterns of bird diversity in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia,
were examined and associated with local-scale (habitat structure and heterogeneity) and landscape-scale (logging, slope position
and elevation) environmental variables. Within the study area ( c. 196 km 2) local habitat structure and heterogeneity varied considerably, largely due to logging. In total 9747 individuals of 177
bird species were recorded. Akaike's information criterion (AIC) revealed that the best explanatory models of bird community
similarity and species richness included both local- and landscape-scale environmental variables. Important local-scale variables
included liana abundance, fern cover, sapling density, tree density, dead wood abundance and tree architecture, while important
landscape-scale variables were elevation, logging and slope position. Geographic distance between sampling sites was not significantly
associated with spatial variation in either species richness or similarity. These results indicate that deterministic environmental
processes, as opposed to dispersal-driven stochastic processes, primarily structure bird assemblages within the spatial scale
of this study and confirm that highly variable local habitat measures can be effective means of predicting landscape-scale
community patterns. 相似文献
4.
Understanding how spatial habitat patterns influence abundance and dynamics of animal populations is a primary goal in landscape
ecology. We used an information-theoretic approach to investigate the association between habitat patterns at multiple spatial
scales and demographic patterns for black-throated blue warblers ( Dendroica caerulescens) at 20 study sites in west-central Vermont, USA from 2002 to 2005. Sites were characterized by: (1) territory-scale shrub
density, (2) patch-scale shrub density occurring within 25 ha of territories, and (3) landscape-scale habitat patterns occurring
within 5 km radius extents of territories. We considered multiple population parameters including abundance, age ratios, and
annual fecundity. Territory-scale shrub density was most important for determining abundance and age ratios, but landscape-scale
habitat structure strongly influenced reproductive output. Sites with higher territory-scale shrub density had higher abundance,
and were more likely to be occupied by older, more experienced individuals compared to sites with lower shrub density. However,
annual fecundity was higher on sites located in contiguously forested landscapes where shrub density was lower than the fragmented
sites. Further, effects of habitat pattern at one spatial scale depended on habitat conditions at different scales. For example,
abundance increased with increasing territory-scale shrub density, but this effect was much stronger in fragmented landscapes
than in contiguously forested landscapes. These results suggest that habitat pattern at different spatial scales affect demographic
parameters in different ways, and that effects of habitat patterns at one spatial scale depends on habitat conditions at other
scales. 相似文献
5.
We examine the influence of reserve size and boundary length on the relative rate of fish density change in reserves versus fished reference reefs for three exploitable-sized reef fish categories: (1) combined fish (34 species of Haemulidae, Lutjanidae, Serranidae, and hogfish Lachnolaimus maximus); (2) Haemulidae (13 species); and (3) Lutjanidae (9 species). If reef habitat boundaries are highly permeable to fish movements then fish recovery within a reserve would be inversely proportional to: reserve perimeter (RP)/total reserve area (RA) (RP/RA). If, however, reef habitat boundaries are relatively impermeable barriers to fish movements, recovery within the reserve would be inversely proportional to: reserve boundary that intersects reef habitat (HI)/reef habitat area within the reserve (HA) (HI/HA). From 1994 to 2001 we monitored reef fishes within and outside of no-take marine reserves established in 1997 in the Florida Keys, USA. A significant majority of reserves had greater rates of density change than reference reefs for Lutjanidae and combined fish (22 of 24 reserves for both categories). Significantly higher rates of density change were found in ten reserves for Lutjanidae, two reserves for combined fish, and one reserve for Haemulidae. Reserves appeared to promote an increased density of exploitable fishes. A significant, negative, but weakly correlated relationship was found between the relative rate of density change (RDC) for combined fish and the HI/HA ratio. Reserve size and placement appeared to have a minimal effect upon RDC. 相似文献
6.
ContextWith the expansion in urbanization, understanding how biodiversity responds to the altered landscape becomes a major concern. Most studies focus on habitat effects on biodiversity, yet much less attention has been paid to surrounding landscape matrices and their joint effects. ObjectiveWe investigated how habitat and landscape matrices affect waterbird diversity across scales in the Yangtze River Floodplain, a typical area with high biodiversity and severe human-wildlife conflict. MethodsThe compositional and structural features of the landscape were calculated at fine and coarse scales. The ordinary least squares regression model was adopted, following a test showing no significant spatial autocorrelation in the spatial lag and spatial error models, to estimate the relationship between landscape metrics and waterbird diversity. ResultsWell-connected grassland and shrub surrounded by isolated and regular-shaped developed area maintained higher waterbird diversity at fine scales. Regular-shaped developed area and cropland, irregular-shaped forest, and aggregated distribution of wetland and shrub positively affected waterbird diversity at coarse scales. ConclusionsHabitat and landscape matrices jointly affected waterbird diversity. Regular-shaped developed area facilitated higher waterbird diversity and showed the most pronounced effect at coarse scales. The conservation efforts should not only focus on habitat quality and capacity, but also habitat connectivity and complexity when formulating development plans. We suggest planners minimize the expansion of the developed area into critical habitats and leave buffers to maintain habitat connectivity and shape complexity to reduce the disturbance to birds. Our findings provide important insights and practical measures to protect biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes. 相似文献
7.
Three central related issues in ecology are to identify spatial variation of ecological processes, to understand the relative
influence of environmental and spatial variables, and to investigate the response of environmental variables at different
spatial scales. These issues are particularly important for tropical dry forests, which have been comparatively less studied
and are more threatened than other terrestrial ecosystems. This study aims to characterize relationships between community
structure and landscape configuration and habitat type (stand age) considering different spatial scales for a tropical dry
forest in Yucatan. Species density and above ground biomass were calculated from 276 sampling sites, while land cover classes
were obtained from multi-spectral classification of a Spot 5 satellite imagery. Species density and biomass were related to
stand age, landscape metrics of patch types (area, edge, shape, similarity and contrast) and principal coordinate of neighbor
matrices (PCNM) variables using regression analysis. PCNM analysis was performed to interpret results in terms of spatial
scales as well as to decompose variation into spatial, stand age and landscape structure components. Stand age was the most
important variable for biomass, whereas landscape structure and spatial dependence had a comparable or even stronger influence
on species density than stand age. At the very broad scale (8,000–10,500 m), stand age contributed most to biomass and landscape
structure to species density. At the broad scale (2,000–8,000 m), stand age was the most important variable predicting both
species density and biomass. Our results shed light on which landscape configurations could enhance plant diversity and above
ground biomass. 相似文献
8.
Agricultural intensification has led to dramatic losses in biodiversity over the past several decades. Many studies have shown
the effects of intensification on vegetation or soil communities at field or local scales. However, the functional significance
of biodiversity may only appear at larger spatial and temporal scales, due to exchanges among local ecosystems throughout
a landscape. To examine how patterns of biodiversity loss are reflected at larger spatial scales, plant and soil biodiversity
and associated indicators of ecosystem functions were assessed in riparian areas over a 150 km 2 agricultural landscape in the Sacramento Valley of California. Publicly-available GIS data were first used to classify and
select sites over the range of soils, topography and plant community types. Representative sites from the landscape were sampled
for soil physiochemical properties, as well as microbial, nematode, and plant communities. Higher agricultural intensification,
based on field and landscape indices, was negatively correlated with richness and diversity of plant and soil taxa, and was
related to indicators of ecosystem functions, such as increased soil nitrate and phosphorus loading, decreased riparian health
ratings, and lower soil carbon, soil microbial biomass and soil food web structure. Both field- and landscape-scale factors
played important roles in the measured losses. The study area was composed of a wide array of soils, vegetation, and land
management, indicating that the observed trends transcended site-specific conditions. 相似文献
9.
The ecological interpretation of landscape patterns is one of the major objectives in landscape ecology. Both landscape patterns and ecological processes need to be quantified before statistical relationships between these variables can be examined. Landscape indices provide quantitative information about landscape pattern. Response variables or process rates quantify the outcome of ecological processes (e.g., dispersal success for landscape connectivity or Morisita's index for the spatial distribution of individuals). While the principal potential of this approach has been demonstrated in several studies, the robustness of the statistical relationships against variations in landscape structure or against variations of the ecological process itself has never been explicitly investigated. This paper investigates the consistency of correlations between a set of landscape indices (calculated with Fragstats) and three response variables from a simulated dispersal process across heterogeneous landscapes (cell immigration, dispersal success and search time) against variation in three experimental treatments (control variables): habitat amount, habitat fragmentation and dispersal behavior. I found strong correlations between some landscape indices and all three response variables. However, 68% of the statistical relationships were highly inconsistent and sometimes ambiguous for different landscape structures and for differences in dispersal behavior. Correlations between one landscape index and one response variable could range from highly positive to highly negative when derived from different spatial patterns. I furthermore compared correlation coefficients obtained from artificially generated (neutral) landscape models with those obtained from Landsat TM images. Both landscape representations produced equally strong and weak statistical relationships between landscape indices and response variables. This result supports the use of neutral landscape models in theoretical analyses of pattern-process relationships. 相似文献
10.
Understanding species-diversity patterns in heterogeneous landscapes invites comprehensive research on how scale-dependent
processes interact across scales. We used two common beetle families (Tenebrionidae, detrivores; Carabidae, predators) to
conduct such a study in the heterogeneous semi-arid landscape of the Southern Judean Lowland (SJL) of Israel, currently undergoing
intensive fragmentation. Beetles were censused in 25 different-sized patches (500–40,000 m 2). We used Fisher’s α and non-parametric extrapolators to estimate species diversity from 11,125 individuals belonging to
56 species. Patch characteristics (plant species diversity and cover, soil cover and degree of stoniness) were measured by
field transects. Spatial variables (patch size, shape, physiognomy and connectivity) and landscape characteristics were analyzed
by GIS and remote-sensing applications. Both patch-scale and landscape-scale variables affected beetle species diversity.
Path-analysis models showed that landscape-scale variables had the strongest effect on carabid diversity in all patches. The
tenebrionids responded differently: both patch-scale and landscape-scale variables affected species diversity in small patches,
while mainly patch-scale variables affected species diversity in large patches. Most of the paths affected species diversity
both directly and indirectly, combining the effects of both patch-scale and landscape-scale variables. These results match
the biology of the two beetle families: Tenebrionidae, the less mobile and more site-attached family, responded to the environment
in a fine-grained manner, while the highly dispersed Carabidae responded to the environment in a coarse-grained manner. We
suggest that understanding abiotic and biotic variable interactions across scales has important consequences for our knowledge
of community structure and species diversity patterns at large spatial scales. 相似文献
11.
ContextHabitat characteristics are often equated with habitat function for animals. However, in heterogeneous landscapes, similar habitat types occur in different environmental contexts. In the marine realm, landscape studies have been confined to particular environments, rather than encompassing entire seascapes, due to incompatible sampling methods required in different situations. ObjectivesWe examined the interactive structuring effects of local habitat characteristics and environmental context on assemblage composition. MethodsWe used a single technique—remote underwater video census—to explore the importance of habitat type (biotic structural components, substrate, and depth) and environmental context (marine vs estuarine) in structuring juvenile fish assemblages throughout an entire coastal region. In this model system, a range of structural habitat types were present in both estuarine and marine contexts. ResultsThe 1315 video surveys collected show a clear hierarchy in the organisation of juvenile fish communities, with assemblages first distinguished by environmental context, then by habitat type. Marine and estuarine mangroves contained entirely different assemblages, and likewise for rocky reefs and submerged aquatic vegetation. Our results suggest that two functionally different ‘seascape nursery’ types exist at local scales within a single region, defined by their context. ConclusionsThe context of a location can be of greater significance in determining potential habitat function than what habitat-forming biota and substrates are present, and apparently similar habitat types in different contexts may be functionally distinct. These findings have important implications for local-scale management and conservation of juvenile fish habitats, particularly in regard to offsetting and restoration. 相似文献
12.
ContextForest management and disturbances cause habitat fragmentation for saproxylic species living on old-growth attributes. The degree of habitat spatiotemporal continuity required by these species is a key question for designing biodiversity-friendly forestry, and it strongly depends on species’ dispersal. The “stability–dispersal” model predicts that species using stable habitats should have lower dispersal abilities than species associated with ephemeral habitat and thus respond to habitat availability at smaller scales. ObjectivesWe aimed at testing the stability–dispersal model by comparing the spatial scales at which saproxylic beetle guilds using substrates with contrasted stability (from stable to ephemeral: cavicolous, fungicolous, saproxylophagous and xylophagous guilds) are affected by landscape structure (i.e. habitat amount and aggregation). MethodsWe sampled saproxylic beetles using a spatially nested design (plots within landscape windows). We quantified habitat availability (tree cavities, polypores and deadwood) in 1-ha plots, 26-ha buffers around plots and 506-ha windows, and analyzed their effect on the abundance and diversity of associated guilds. ResultsThe habitat amount within plots and buffers positively affected the abundance of the cavicolous and the fungicolous guilds whereas saproxylophagous and xylophagous did not respond at these scales. The habitat aggregation within windows only positively affected the saproxylophagous species richness within plots and also on the similarity in species composition among plots. ConclusionsBeetle guilds specialized on more stable habitat were affected by landscape structure at smaller spatial scales, which corroborated the stability–dispersal model. In managed forests, the spatial grain of conservation efforts should therefore be adapted to the target habitat lifetime. 相似文献
13.
ContextConservation for the Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis), a federally endangered species in the United States of America, is typically focused on local maternity sites; however, the species is a regional migrant, interacting with the environment at multiple spatial scales. Hierarchical levels of management may be necessary, but we have limited knowledge of landscape-level ecology, distribution, and connectivity of suitable areas in complex landscapes. ObjectivesWe sought to (1) identify factors influencing M. sodalis maternity colony distribution in a mosaic landscape, (2) map suitable maternity habitat, and (3) quantify connectivity importance of patches to direct conservation action. MethodsUsing 3 decades of occurrence data, we tested a priori, hypothesis-driven habitat suitability models. We mapped suitable areas and quantified connectivity importance of habitat patches with probabilistic habitat availability metrics. ResultsFactors improving landscape-scale suitability included limited agriculture, more forest cover, forest edge, proximity to medium-sized water bodies, lower elevations, and limited urban development. Areas closer to hibernacula and rivers were suitable. Binary maps showed that 30% of the study area was suitable for M. sodalis and 29% was important for connectivity. Most suitable patches were important for intra-patch connectivity and far fewer contributed to inter-patch connectivity. ConclusionsWhile simple models may be effective for small, homogenous landscapes, complex models are needed to explain habitat suitability in large, mixed landscapes. Suitability modeling identified factors that made sites attractive as maternity areas. Connectivity analysis improved our understanding of important areas for bats and prioritized areas to target for restoration. 相似文献
14.
Recent work in landscape ecology suggests that organisms use environmental cues at a variety of scales to select habitat. As a result, habitat studies that evaluate environmental conditions at multiple spatial scales have become increasingly common. We examined whether the way in which data are rescaled influences inferred relationships between organisms and habitat features. Using a habitat model developed at fine scales, we systematically rescaled habitat (canopy density, slope, and cover type) and distribution maps according to a variety of different rescaling rules, including spatial averaging, thresholding, presence/absence, and majority. We found that the spatial autocorrelation of habitat data interacts with rescaling rules to alter the correspondence between species presence and habitat across scale. Different rules lead to substantially divergent and sometimes opposite correlations among the species and habitat features on the landscape. Such differences in interpretation due to variation in methodology can lead to very different interpretations of a species habitat requirements and thus have important implications for both ecology and conservation. 相似文献
15.
Historically, studies in landscape ecology have investigated how variation in spatial scale can affect the complex interactions observed in an ecosystem. In this study I describe survey data collected as part of the United States National Coastal Assessment that were used to discern the role sampling scale can play in detecting the relationship between physical factors and patterns of polychaete species diversity in marine estuaries. In this survey, sampling sites were randomly selected at three spatial scales using a probability based site selection algorithm applied to a GIS representation of all U.S. west coast estuaries. At each sampling scale, data relating to species diversity and environmental condition were collected. My analyses revealed that polychaetes displayed an increase in diversity towards the equator. It appears that across latitude both the rate of increase in and total diversity were affected by variation in the spatial scale over which the survey was conducted. Variation in scale also affected interpretations of the magnitude to which physical factors may potentially relate to species diversity across latitude. The data suggested that increased sampling scales obscured negative relationships between physical factors and species diversity across the estuaries sampled in this study. The results of this study demonstrate how assessments of the strength of the relationship between physical factors and species diversity in coastal communities can be strongly affected by variation in sampling scale. 相似文献
16.
Landscape change is an ongoing process for even the most established landscapes, especially in context to urban intensification and growth. As urbanization increases over the next century, supporting bird species’ populations within urbanizing areas remains an important conservation challenge. Fundamental elements of the biophysical structure of urban environments in which bird species likely respond include tree cover and human infrastructure. We broadly examine how tree cover and urban development structure bird species distributions along the urban-rural gradient across multiple spatial scales. We established a regional sampling design within the Oak Openings Region of northwestern, Ohio, USA, to survey bird species distributions across an extensive urbanization gradient. Through occupancy modeling, we obtained standardized effects of bird species response to local and landscape-scale predictors and found that landscape tree cover influenced the most species, followed by landscape impervious surface, local building density, and local tree cover. We found that responses varied according to habitat affiliation and migratory distance of individual bird species. Distributions of short-distance, edge habitat species located towards the rural end of the gradient were explained primarily by low levels of urbanization and potential vegetative and supplemental resources associated with these areas, while forest species distributions were primarily related to increasing landscape tree cover. Our findings accentuate the importance of scale relative to urbanization and help target where potential actions may arise to benefit bird diversity. Management will likely need to be implemented by municipal governments and agencies to promote tree cover at landscape scale, followed by residential land management education for private landowners. These approaches will be vital in sustaining biodiversity in urbanizing landscapes as urban growth expands over the next century. 相似文献
17.
Contemporary landscape ecology continues to explore the causes and consequences of landscape heterogeneity across a range of scales, and demands for the scientific underpinnings of landscape planning and management still remains high. The spatial distribution of resources can be a key element in determining habitat quality, and that in turn is directly related to the level of heterogeneity in the system. In this sense, forest habitat mosaics may be more affected by lack of heterogeneity than by structural fragmentation. Nonetheless, increasing spatial heterogeneity at a given spatial scale can also decrease habitat patch size, with potential negative consequences for specialist species. Such dual effect may lead to hump-backed shape relationships between species diversity and heterogeneity, leading to three related assumptions: (i) at low levels of heterogeneity, an increase in heterogeneity favours local and regional species richness, (ii) there is an optimum heterogeneity level at which a maximum number of species is reached, (iii) further increase in spatial heterogeneity has a negative effect on local and regional species richness, due to increasing adverse effects of habitat fragmentation. In this study, we investigated the existence of a hump-shaped relationship between local plant species richness and increasing forest landscape heterogeneity on a complex mosaic in the French Alps. Forest landscape heterogeneity was quantified with five independent criteria. We found significant quadratic relationships between local forest species richness and two heterogeneity criteria indicators, showing a slight decrease of forest species richness at very high heterogeneity levels. Species richness–landscape heterogeneity relationships varied according to the heterogeneity metrics involved and the type of species richness considered. Our results support the assumption that intermediate levels of heterogeneity may support more species than very high levels of heterogeneity, although we were not able to conclude for a systematic negative effect of very high levels of heterogeneity on local plant species richness. 相似文献
18.
As the concepts of landscape ecology have been incorporated into otherdisciplines, the influence of spatial patterns on animal abundance anddistribution has attracted considerable attention. However, there remains asignificant gap in the application of landscape ecology theories and techniquesto wildlife research. By combining landscape ecology techniques withtraditionalwildlife habitat analysis methods, we defined an organism-centeredperspectivefor breeding bald eagles ( Haliaeetus leucocephalus) alongthe Hudson River, New York, USA. We intensively monitored four pairs ofbreedingeagles during the 1999 and 2000 breeding seasons, and collected detailedinformation on perch and forage locations. Our analysis focused on threecritical habitat elements: available perch trees, access to foraging areas, andfreedom from human disturbance. We hypothesized that eagle habitat selectionrelative to each of these elementswould vary with the spatial scale of analysis, and that these scalingrelationships would vary among habitat elements. We investigated two elementsofspatial scale: grain and local extent. Grain was defined as the minimum mappingunit; local extent was defined by the size of an analysis window placed aroundeach focal point. For each habitat element, we quantified habitat use over arange of spatial scales. Eagles displayed scale-dependent patterns of habitatuse in relation to all habitat features, including multi-scale andthreshold-like patterns. This information supports the existence ofscale-dependant relationships in wildlife habitat use and allowed for a moreaccurate and biologically relevant evaluation of Hudson River breeding eagle habitat.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献
19.
A new modified random clusters method for the simulation of landscape the matic spatial patterns is presented. It produces more realistic and general results than landscape models that have been commonly used to date in the field of landscape ecology. Simulated patterns are said to be realistic, apart from their patchy and irregular appearance, because the values of the spatial indices as a function of habitat abundance measured in real landscape patterns (number of patches, edge length and patch cohesion index) can be replicated with the proposed landscape model. It allows a wide range of spatial patterns to be obtained, in which fragmentation and habitat abundance can be systematically and independently varied. Furthermore, a degree of control over the irregularity of the shapes of the simulated landscapes can be achieved, and it is also possible to simulate patterns with anisotropy. The proposed method is easy to implement and requires little computation time, which enhances the practical possibilities of this method in different areas of landscape ecology. 相似文献
20.
Land-use change is forcing many animal populations to inhabit forest patches in which different processes can threaten their survival. Some threatening processes are mainly related to forest patch characteristics, but others depend principally on the landscape spatial context. Thus, the impact of both patch and landscape spatial attributes needs to be assessed to have a better understanding of the habitat spatial attributes that constraint the maintenance of populations in fragmented landscapes. Here, we evaluated the relative effect of three patch-scale (i.e., patch size, shape, and isolation) and five landscape-scale metrics (i.e., forest cover, fragmentation, edge density, mean inter-patch isolation distance, and matrix permeability) on population composition and structure of black howler monkeys ( Alouatta pigra) in the Lacandona rainforest, Mexico. We measured the landscape-scale metrics at two spatial scales: within 100 and 500 ha landscapes. Our findings revealed that howler monkeys were more strongly affected by local-scale metrics. Smaller and more isolated forest patches showed a lower number of individuals but at higher densities. Population density also tended to be positively associated to matrices with higher proportion of secondary forests and arboreal crops (i.e. with greater permeability), most probably because these matrices can offer supplementary foods. The immature-to-female ratio also increased with matrix permeability, shape complexity, and edge density; habitat characteristics that can increase landscape connectivity and sources availability. The prevention of habitat loss and isolation, and the increment of matrix permeability are therefore needed for the conservation of this endangered Neotropical mammal. 相似文献
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