<b>Complex relationship between habitat extent and fragmentation in recovering landscapes: The case of the giant panda</b>

The transformation of natural to human-dominated areas continues to be the leading driver of habitat loss and fragmentation, and ultimately species extinction. In response, numerous conservation efforts have emerged, many of which have been successful at recovering the habitat and populations of wildlife species. Nevertheless, while habitat recovery may reduce fragmentation, such outcome may not always occur due to the complexity in the relationship between habitat extent and fragmentation. Although this complexity has important consequences for conservation, it has predominantly been evaluated empirically in landscapes exhibiting habitat loss, not in recovering landscapes, and mostly at a single scale. Using the recovery of the habitat of a global conservation icon (giant pandas, Ailuropoda melanoleuca) as a demonstration, we empirically examined the complexity of the relationship between habitat extent and fragmentation from the perspective of habitat recovery. Our analysis was also performed at different spatial scales, ranging from the average home range of panda individuals to the entire geographic range of the species. Results show that fragmentation not only decreased but also increased with habitat recovery. Furthermore, the increase in fragmentation with an increase in habitat extent occurred at all scales analyzed, although it occurred more often under low (e.g., < 50%) habitat extents and when the distance between newly formed and old habitat areas remained large with respect to the home range of individuals of the target species. In addition, giant pandas exhibited a lower probability of occupying areas that experienced habitat gains but that also increased in fragmentation. Therefore, the complex relationship between habitat extent and fragmentation needs to be properly considered for enhancing the positive outcomes, across multiple scales, of ongoing and future conservation and restoration programs.