In most forest ecological studies, the larger continuous forest plots are selected as the most preferable field to achieve the overall forest inventory goals and cover maximum species richness. But, contributions for small forest patches are limited to those areas which are found around the agricultural, village and urban ecosystems. Being small patches, these areas in most case neglected or remained under sampling. Are the potentiality of those forest patches (< 1 ha size) needs to examine how they provide wide ecosystem services compared to larger forest plots ?
If there were the corridors among these patches, and the patches were the different landscapes. It was very important that the diversity of small habitats and the connections.
Hi
I think that is important to make that evaluation because diversity respond in different ways to transformation, and thats the nature of the complex system. I would ask if the species that habit those patches had the same role of the ones in the continuos forest, and try to analize the variation of the traits in those sites (the surrogate to measure the ecological process and in some extent, the Ecosystem service). It's plausible that you may have some new species that respond in a positive way in the small patches and to this organism could exist some kind of benefit. To me the the next question may be what ecosystem services are they providing?
But there are some other species that may be unique inside continuos forest, as to other species they have a reduction in their abundance (see the mass ratio effect). In the context of landscape transformation, some patches can be a complementary strategy for some organism, and the releation with the surrounding matrix detemine the persistence of diversity, and some ecological functions, complementing the habitat for the fauna and flora.
I hope this help you! forgive If i miss somthing!
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The quality of forest patch not only depend on its characteristics such as size, geometry but also depend on the context that is the nature of the landscape that surrounds a patch over a range of scales. Consequently, also the provisioning of ecosystems services depend on the context of forest patches. So the importance of small forest patches depends on the specific context in which they exist: for example forest patches in a landscape dominated by forests could be less "important" in terms of conservation value to those embedded in a inhospitable matrix. Interesting readings are:
Zaccarelli et al. 2008. Indicating disturbance content and context for preserved areas. Ecological indicators 8:841-853
Riitters 2005. Downscaling indicators of forest habitat structure from national assessments. Ecological Indicators 5:273-279
Best!
I live on only one forested acre, surrounded by 7 million people living with few or no trees, and on this land we have more species of birds (probably 30-40 species throughout the year), lizard, insects, bumblebees (2 species), fungi (dozen species), salamanders (2 species) because it is the last habitat where they can survive in this concrete jungle. So QUALITY is sometimes much more important in an area than quantity, and even a single acre can be the last home for dozens of species.
The relevance of size of the forest patches and their ecological benefits can vary over time and space.While an individual tree having large crown capable of providing lot of shade along with a good pond with sufficient water in an otherwise dry area devoid of much vegetation will have greater ecological use than when it is located in a big forest area. Again,in certain cases, smaller patches can support only limited number of species &diversity when compared to large continuous forest. The capacity to with stand biotic pressures will be less in smaller patches adjoining to human habitations. Hence one has to analyze this depending the situation by taking various aspects in their totality.
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