Population persistence in fragmented landscapes

Many ecologists believe that fragmenting habitats into discontinuous patches disrupts the reproduction, survivorship and movement of animals. It has seldom, however, been possible to measure all these processes in one study. Recent work by Lesley and Michael Brooker on an Australian songbird, the blue-breasted fairy wren Malurus pulcherrimus, has achieved this elusive goal. Their new paper in Wildlife Research demonstrates that reduced connectedness among habitat patches lowers population recruitment to below break-even levels.