| Habitat loss is a critical threat to tropical biodiversity and its quantification constitutes a central conservation issue. Typically, assessments have been based on deforestation rates statistics. However, this overlooks the effects brought about by the spatial reconfiguration of the remaining habitat: fragmentation. We present an analysis of fragmentation in a Neotropical site aimed at: (a) devising a protocol for its quantification, (b) using such protocol to provide insights on the ecological consequences of fragmentation, (c) exploring its applicability to address the hypothesis that forest size-inequality decreases with elevation, an indicator of habitat accessibility. We applied the Gini coefficient (G) and the Lorenz curve to analyze fragment-size... |
