Question

52 / 10000 Word Limit

(c) A state is considering opening an area of old-growth forest on state land to logging. Officials debate the best way to log the forest.

1. One official advocates for clear-cutting one-hectare plots in the middle of every twenty hectares of the intact old-growth forest. The official says that this pattern will maximize

biodiversity in the area while still allowing for the harvesting of timber. Explain how this pattern could produce more biodiversity than the old-growth forest alone.

Answer 1

Patches increase the number of habitats and thus increases biodiversity

Step-by-step explanation:

Landscape fragmentation is defined as the segmentation of larger areas of the land cover into smaller and more isolated patches. When considering management policies able to maintain or even increase the biodiversity in a particular land area, is imperative to have into account that a pattern composed of small connected patches and the total fragmented area have important implications for diversity. When a landscape is more fragmented, diversity in each one of the patches increases. This phenomenon is due to the increase in edge species as well as generalists, which will be benefited from the increase in the number of available habitats.