Post provided by Juliana Pereira, Santiago Saura and Ferenc Jordán

The endangered Egyptian vulture. ©Carlos Delgado

One of the main causes behind biodiversity loss is the reduction and fragmentation of natural habitats. The conversion of natural areas into agricultural, urban or other human-modified landscapes often leaves wild species confined to small and isolated areas of habitat, which can only support small local populations. The problem with small, isolated populations is that they are highly vulnerable to extinction caused by chance events (such as an epidemic or a natural disaster in the area), or by genetic erosion (dramatic loss of genetic diversity that weakens species and takes away their ability to adapt to new conditions).

On top of that, we now have the added concern of climate change, which is altering environmental conditions and shifting habitats to different latitudes and altitudes. To survive in the face of these changes, many species need to modify their geographical distribution and reach new areas with suitable conditions. The combination of mobility (a biological property of species) and the possibility of spatial movement (a physical property of the landscape) is critically important for this. Continue reading →