Data from: Impact of habitat fragmentation on the spatial structure of the Eastern Arc Forests in East Africa: implications for biodiversity conservation

The Eastern Arc Mountains in Tanzania and Kenya are one of 35 global
biodiversity hotspots. The Eastern Arc forests are, as are many other
tropical biodiversity hotspots, highly fragmented. Understanding the
impact of habitat fragmentation (i.e., habitat loss and subdivision) on
the spatial structure of the Eastern Arc forests is important because
forest spatial structure highly influences species richness, persistence,
and extinction debt. Here we examine the impact of habitat fragmentation
on the spatial structure of the Eastern Arc forests at a patch scale using
very high resolution aerial imagery having a spatial resolution of 0.5–1.5
m. Forest area across the 13 Eastern Arc Mountains is 405,852 ha and is
distributed into 311 fragments ≥ 10 ha in size with a median fragment size
of 84 ha. The 18 largest forest fragments in the Eastern Arc Mountains
contain greater than three-quarters of total forest area. Average fragment
isolation, as assessed by median distance to nearest fragment and median
distance to the nearest larger fragment, is 867 and 1533 m, respectively.
Of total forest area, 14% is < 100 m from the forest edge and 33%
is < 300 m from the forest edge. Establishing forested linkages
among the largest and closest forest fragments through forest regeneration
and protection of secondary regenerating forest as well as providing
protected area status to the remaining non-protected forest including
unprotected smaller forest fragments are important to enhancing the
long-term persistence of many plant and animal species here.