Abstract
Forest fragmentation may negatively impact fauna and flora. An important tool for the development and implementation of research on these effects is the use of a geographic information system (GIS). This paper aims to perform an integrated analysis of the landscape fragments that compose the Alonzo River watershed, Parana State, by using remote sensing tools and landscape ecology metrics. The analyzed landscape metrics were Patton’s index, total area of the patches, edge length, edge density, forest fragment density, and the core area of the patches. The results showed 888 forest patches with area values ranging from 0.15 ha to 2509.82 ha, and it represents 12.5% of the total forest land cover of the studied basin; this means that 85.3% of the forest patches are less than 50 ha and that 75% of those fragments have a Patton’s index value of less than 3.9. The fragments that compose the studied area may be subject to edge effects and biodiversity loss as long as they present reduced areas and small core areas. Thus, the use of GIS and landscape ecology metrics is a quick and efficient way to evaluate the effect of fragmentation over large areas.
Highlights
The effect of land use for agropastoral activities, development, and the expansion of urban areas, the habitats that compose the biomes of Brazil have undergone severe fragmentation processes throughout history
The Alonzo River watershed drainage network (Figure 1), which is located between the North and Campos Gerais regions of Paraná State that include the municipalities of Faxinal, Rosário do Ivaí, Grandes Rios, Ortigueira, Cruzmaltina, Rio Branco and Reserva, is incorporated into the subbasin mosaic of the Ivai river
The Alonzo River watershed is between the transition areas of the Second and Third Paraná Plateau geomorphological units (Couto, Fortes, & Ferreira, 2014), and it is comprised of a very heterogeneous landscape consisting of escarpment ridges, hills, ridge-aligned diabase dikes and large areas of pediments
Summary
The effect of land use for agropastoral activities, development, and the expansion of urban areas, the habitats that compose the biomes of Brazil have undergone severe fragmentation processes throughout history. The main effect of landscape fragmentation is the reduction of habitats into smaller environments, leading to the loss of ecological function. As the size of a forest patch is reduced, there is an increase in the amount of transition environments between the central part of a fragment and its surrounding matrix, which directly influences local diversity interactions (Fahrig, 2003; Metzger et al, 2009). 40, e36503, 2018 colonizing species, restricting genetic variability. This phenomenon may result in the local or total extinction of a species, especially if it is an endemic species (Triantis & Bhagwat, 2014)
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