Fragmentation of tropical forest in the Terminos Lagoon reserve, Mexico

The fragmentation of plant communities in an ecosystem is a process in which continuous coverage of vegetation is divided into small areas called patches. A patch is an area that is relatively homogeneous in terms of its relationship to surrounding areas. The causes that provide this discontinuity of the coverage are varied such as fires, deforestation, pests, changes in land use, among others, most of which are facilitated by human activities (Shuangcheng et al., 2008).