Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42310138›Full record

ArticleNature ecology & evolution2026

Landscape quality drives ecological responses to habitat loss and fragmentation.

Robert J Fletcher, Thomas A H Smith, Maggie Jones, Fredericke Schellenberg, Rikki Payne, Nicholas Kortessis, Emilio M Bruna, Robert D Holt

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Robert J FletcherDepartment of Zoology, Conservation Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. rf497@cam.ac.uk.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1717-5707
Thomas A H SmithDepartment of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6125-4395
Maggie JonesDepartment of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7040-9050
Fredericke SchellenbergDepartment of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Rikki PayneDepartment of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Nicholas KortessisDepartment of Biology, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4690-7508
Emilio M BrunaDepartment of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3381-8477
Robert D HoltDepartment of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.

Funding

National Science Foundation (NSF) DEB-1655555
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Studies have suggested that the quality of the lands surrounding habitat patches can modify the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on species and influence biodiversity predictions across regions. As landscape matrices tend to be complex and vary with habitat change, isolating such effects is challenging. Here we disentangle the effects of habitat loss, fragmentation and surrounding landscape quality in a large, multiscale manipulative experiment on a plant-herbivore system. We find that habitat loss, fragmentation and surrounding matrix quality all affect survival rates, with the greatest negative effects of fragmentation and lower matrix quality under high habitat loss. Demographic rate changes resulted in strong negative effects of habitat loss, fragmentation and low matrix quality on population size at the landscape scale. Our findings indicate that the benefits of high landscape quality are greater in landscapes with low habitat fragmentation, contesting the common expectation that the surrounding matrix matters only in the most fragmented landscapes. This underscores that the quality of the surrounding landscape can have outsized effects on biodiversity in remaining habitats.

Indexed as

BiodiversityConservation of Natural ResourcesEcosystemHerbivoryAnimalsPopulation Density

Identifiers

PMID42310138
PMCPMC13346112

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.