traditionally used to answer the SLOSS question, i.e., “for the same total habitat area, is biodiversity higher in one or a few large patches, or in several small patches?” The method consists in comparing two curves of cumulative species richness vs. cumulative area, ordering patches in either increasing (dotted line) or decreasing (continuous line) sizes. Cumulative areas on the x axis correspond to sets of multiple patches, e.g., the two blue patches in (e) vs. the six red patches in (f). When one of the two curves in (d) is consistently above the other, one can infer that in the system under consideration biodiversity responds negatively (continuous line above) or positively (dotted line above) to habitat fragmentation (negative fragmentation effect shown in the example).