Landscape ecology, herpetology, functional and community ecology 🐸🐍🦎 Associate professor at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia). Passionate about science fiction, graphical novels, photography and heavy metal 🎸
Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
Loading...
Landscape composition metrics—such as habitat cover and patch size—had positive effects, especially on functional richness.
So yes: habitat amount still matters.
But it is not the whole story.
#FunctionalEcology #ConservationBiology #LandscapeEcology
Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
🌐 Is conserving tropical mammals only about protecting more forest?🌎
Our study in @jappliedecology.bsky.social shows that habitat amount matters—but so does how habitat patches are arranged, connected, and embedded in human-modified landscapes
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
🧵👇
💚 Fragmented landscapes are not just degraded systems to abandon. If managed for heterogeneity and connectivity, they can remain functional reservoirs for tropical mammals.
📚 DOI: doi.org/10.1111/1365...
#OpenScience #JournalOfAppliedEcology
@britishecologicalsociety.org
The strongest positive responses appeared in the Atlantic Forest and Southwestern Amazonia.
In highly transformed tropical hotspots, heterogeneous mosaics may help sustain critical ecosystem functions.
#TropicalEcology #BiodiversityHotspots
Conservation actions to protect mammal´ functional diversity should:
✅ protect small fragments
✅ restore corridors
✅ improve matrix permeability
✅ promote agroforestry and live fences
✅ include configuration metrics in land-use planning
#LandUsePlanning #Conservation
Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
Configuration also matters.
At the patch scale, patch size, patch shape, and proximity among patches positively influenced mammal functional diversity.
Small fragments can act as ecological stepping stones—if they remain connected.
#Connectivity #LandscapePlanning
Important clarification:
This does NOT mean “fragment more forests.”
It means that in landscapes already transformed by people, small remnants, edges, live fences, corridors, and agroforestry matrices can still support functional diversity.
#RestorationEcology
Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
Tropical landscapes are rarely simple. They are mosaics of crops, pastures, and cities; and for mammals, this spatial arrangement can shape which ecological functions persist.
Functional diversity is not just about how many species live in a landscape. It asks: what do species do?
#FunctionalTraits
Nicolas Urbina-Cardona
Our findings demonstrate that mammal functional richness in tropical regions requires integrating habitat amount and landscape configuration into land-use planning. Conservation strategies should mov...
