Discussion
Our results suggest that including a large number of small patches in
area-based conservation actions will usually result in higher
biodiversity protection than expected based solely on their cumulative
area (Deane et al. 2020; Fahrig 2020; Riva & Fahrig 2022).
Furthermore, we find this for all taxa except herptiles (Figs. 2, 3).
Positive fragmentation effects on biodiversity were apparent for plants,
birds, invertebrates, and mammals, where SS > SL was at
least twice as likely as SL > SS (Fig. 2). Mechanisms
underlying biodiversity patterns across sets of patches are reviewed in
Fahrig (2020) and Fahrig et al. (2022), particularly in relation
to extinction-colonization dynamics and species turnover across patches.
We first speculate on how these mechanisms might have determined the
taxonomic differences observed in our study (Fig. 2, 3), and then
discuss the implications of our results for biodiversity conservation.