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Rethinking extinctions that arise from habitat loss

Does the loss of species through habitat decline follow the same pattern whether the area lost is part of a large or a small habitat? An analysis sheds light on this long-running debate, with its implications for conservation strategies.
  1. Joaquín Hortal

    1. Joaquín Hortal is in the Department of Biogeography and Global Change, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid 28006, Spain.

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  2. Ana M. C. Santos

    1. Ana M. C. Santos is in the Department of Ecology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid 28049, Spain, and at the Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global, Autonomous University of Madrid.

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Understanding how habitat size affects the abundance of all the species living in a community provides ecological insights and is valuable for developing strategies to boost biodiversity. Writing in Nature, Chase et al.1 report results that might help to settle a long-running debate about the relationship between the area of a habitat and the diversity of species it can host.

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Nature 584, 194-196 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02210-x

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