How is habitat fragmentation related to biodiversity loss?

1. Immediately reduces local biodiversity (duh)
2. Begins a round of secondary succession in a recently devastated area (i.e. changes local biodiversity).
3. May cause extinction of variant populations or even the species as a whole, i.e. permanent loss of biodiversity.

Habitat fragmentation is frequently caused by humans when native vegetation is cleared for human activities such as agriculture, rural development, urbanization and the creation of hydroelectric reservoirs. Habitats which were once continuous become divided into separate fragments. After intensive clearing, the separate fragments tend to be very small islands isolated from each other by crop land, pasture, pavement, or even barren land. The latter is often the result of slash and burn farming in tropical forests. In the wheatbelt of central western New South Wales, Australia 90% of the native vegetation has been cleared and over 99% of the tallgrass prairie of North America has been cleared, resulting in extreme habitat fragmentation.

One of the major ways that habitat fragmentation affects biodiversity is by reduction in the amount of available habitat (such as rainforests, boreal forests, oceans, marshlands, etc.) for all organisms in an ecological niche. Habitat fragmentation invariably involves some amount of habitat destruction. Plants and other sessile organisms in these areas are usually directly destroyed. Mobile animals (especially birds and mammals) retreat into remnant patches of habitat. This can lead to crowding effects and increased competition.

The remaining habitat fragments are smaller than the original habitat. Species that can move between fragments may use more than one fragment. Species which cannot move between fragments must make do with what is available in the single fragment in which they ended up. Since one of the major causes of habitat destruction is agricultural development, habitat fragments are rarely representative samples of the initial landscape.

Habitat fragmentation is often a cause of species becoming threatened or endangered. Small fragments of habitat can only support small populations of plants and animals and small populations are more vulnerable to extinction.

Habitat fragmentation is a process of environmental change important in evolution and conservation biology.

It describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat).

Habitat fragmentation can be caused by geological processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment or by human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment on a much faster time scale.

One of the major ways that habitat fragmentation affects biodiversity is by reduction in the amount of available habitat (such as rainforests, boreal forests, oceans, marshlands, etc.) for all organisms in an ecological niche.

Basically - Habitat fragmentation invariably involves some amount of habitat destruction and is often a cause of species becoming threatened or endangered