Edge Effects

In ecology, edge effects are the changes in population or community structure that occur at the boundary between two habitats, arising because conditions near an edge, such as wind exposure, light, and temperature swings, differ from conditions in a habitat interior. Small habitat fragments show especially strong edge effects, which can extend across their entire area. An edge can support more species than either of the habitats it separates, since it lets species from both adjoining ecosystems mix with species specially adapted to the edge itself, so edges are sometimes richer in biodiversity than the interiors on either side even as fragmentation increases. Human activities such as urbanization and agriculture create large numbers of new edges by fragmenting habitat, so understanding how edge effects work is important to conservation strategies aimed at limiting their negative consequences. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/