A systematic review on the impacts of habitat loss on trees

Methods

A search for publications on the effects of habitat loss on trees was conducted using ISI Web of Knowledge in November 2014. This was accomplished by searching for the terms (title) tree*, (topic) habitat loss* and (topic) diversity* from the years 2009 to 2014. This resulted in 53 studies of interest. The abstracts of these articles were then scanned to refine the search further, and articles that were not relevant to the topic (14) were excluded. These included articles that did not measure variables of tree species, but focused on other organisms (plants, animals, amphibians, birds…etc.). The full text of the 39 remaining primary articles was then inspected for eligibility and to determine the useable data, which was then sorted into the categories under investigation. This was done by extracting data mainly from the methods section, tables and figures. A PRISMA flow diagram (Figure 1) was generated to illustrate this process.

Data was extracted from articles to determine the number of tree species investigated, the type of biome being examined (tropical, subtropical, temperate, boreal and other), the response variables measured (community measures, reproductive traits, genetic diversity, dispersal and desiccation tolerance), and whether the study was observational (sampling, modeling) or an experimental manipulation of the study system. Some studies covered more than one category for biome and response variables, and were given a full point each to get a full scope of the number of studies analysing each category.