Diverse responses of species to landscape fragmentation in a simple food chain

1) Habitat destruction, characterized by habitat loss and fragmentation, is a key driver of species extinction in spatial extended communities. Recently, there has been some progress in the theory of spatial food webs, however to date practically little is known about how habitat configurational fragmentation influences multi-trophic food web dynamics.

3) In accordance with the trophic rank hypothesis, both habitat loss and fragmentation generally cause species extinction, with stronger effects occurring at higher trophic levels. However, species display diverse responses (negative, neutral or positive) to habitat loss and fragmentation separately, depending on their dispersal range and trophic position.

5) Our results reiterate the importance of the interplay between bottom-up and top-down control in trophically linked communities, and highlight the complex responses occurring in even a simple food chain.