Habitat fragmentation amplifies threats from habitat loss to mammal diversity across the world's terrestrial ecoregions

Global biodiversity is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic environmental change. While there is mounting evidence that habitat loss is a key threat to biodiversity, global assessments typically ignore additional threats from habitat fragmentation. Here, we present a species-area model that integrates habitat size and connectivity, considering species habitat preference and dispersal capacity, patch size, inter-patch distances, and landscape matrix permeability. We applied the model to predict threats from habitat loss and fragmentation to non-volant mammal diversity across the world's ecoregions. We predict that, on average, 10 mammal species are committed to extinction due to habitat loss and fragmentation (range 0-86). On average, 9% of loss is due to fragmentation (range 0%-90%). Considering both habitat loss and fragmentation, our model can be used for large-scale explorative assessments to inform and evaluate strategies for minimizing biodiversity loss and for optimizing habitat conservation and restoration.

Automated summary

This study presents a species-area model that integrates habitat size and connectivity to predict threats to non-volant mammal diversity from habitat loss and fragmentation across the world's ecoregions. On average, 10 mammal species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss and fragmentation, with 9% of the threat coming from fragmentation. The model can inform and evaluate strategies for minimizing biodiversity loss and optimizing habitat conservation and restoration on a large scale.