A vast array of topics fall under the umbrella of landscape modification and habitat fragmentation. These include (but are not limited to): conceptual models of landscape cover, habitat loss, habitat degradation, habitat subdivision, edge effects, connectivity, metapopulation dynamics, landscape heterogeneity, threshold effects, extinction cascades, nestedness of biotic assemblages, patch size relationships and landscape genetics. These topics are strongly interrelated and boundaries between them are somewhat artificial (Lindenmayer et al.,2007a) (Figure 2.1).

Many of the individual topics shown in Figure 2.1 have been reviewed in depth over the past two decades, such as connectivity (Bennett, 1990, 1998, Hilty et al., 2006) and edges (Ries et al., 2004; Harper et al., 2005). There also have been major overarching reviews of landscape modification and habitat fragmentation per se (Saunders et al., 1991; Zuidema et al., 1996; Fahrig, 2003; Hobbs and Yates, 2003, Lindenmayer and Fischer, 2006; Fischer and Lindenmayer, 2007). The aim of this chapter is not to produce yet another focused review of a particular topic or of the massively increasing body of work on landscape change and habitat fragmentation; rather, it is to provide brief summaries of topics that were tackled as part of the work at Tumut. These summaries therefore prepare the ground for subsequent chapters that describe the research findings from Tumut.

The ‘species-orientated’ to ‘patterns-based’ continuum

Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation can produce a wide range of effects across several spatial scales and levels of biological organisation.