With accelerated deforestation and fragmentation through the tropics, assessing the impact that landscape spatial changes may have on biodiversity is paramount, as this information is required to design and implement effective management and conservation plans. Primates are expected to be particularly dependent on the landscape context; yet, our understanding on this topic is limited as the maj...

Rainforests biodiversity is sustained by the three-dimensional structure of their canopy which provides a wide range of physical microenvironments. Given the dynamic nature of the forest, the recognition of stable vertical layers or strata in the canopy is controversial. The spatial characterisation of potential habitats of understory species is not straightforward due to the complex structure ...

Sprawl has been loosely defined as dispersed and inefficient urban growth. We propose a series of five indicators that examine the per capita consumption of land taken in new development in relation to several critical land resource impacts associated to sprawl including: (1) density of new urbanization; (2) loss of prime farmland; (3) loss of natural wetlands; (4) loss of core forest habitat; ...

Rapid land-use and climate changes are projected to cause broad-scale global land-cover transformation that will increase species extinction rates. We assessed the exposure of globally threatened plant biodiversity to future habitat loss over the first half of this century by testing country-level associations between threatened plant species richness and future habitat loss owing to land-use a...

Despite extensive empirical research and previous reviews, no clear patterns regarding the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on predator–prey interactions have emerged. We suggest that this is because empirical researchers do not design their studies to test specific hypotheses arising from the theoretical literature. In fact, theoretical work is almost completely ignored by empirical r...

Pollinators may be declining globally, a matter of concern because animal pollination is required by most of the world's plant species, including many crop plants. Human land use and the loss of native habitats is thought to be an important driver of decline for wild, native pollinators, yet the findings of published studies on this topic have never been quantitatively synthesized. Here we use ...