Data from: How do habitat amount and habitat fragmentation drive time-delayed responses of biodiversity to land-use change?

Land-use change is a root cause of the extinction crisis, but links
between habitat change and biodiversity loss are not fully understood.
While there is evidence that habitat loss is an important extinction
driver, the relevance of habitat fragmentation remains debated. Moreover,
while time-delays of biodiversity responses to habitat transformation are
well-documented, time-delayed effects have been ignored in the habitat
loss vs. fragmentation debate. Here, using a hierarchical Bayesian multi-
species occupancy framework, we systematically tested for time-delayed
responses of bird and mammal communities to habitat loss and to habitat
fragmentation. We focused on the Argentine Chaco, where deforestation has
been widespread recently. We used an extensive field dataset on birds and
mammals, along with a time series of annual woodland maps from 1985-2016
covering recent and historical habitat transformations. Contemporary
habitat amount explained bird and mammal occupancy better than past
habitat amount. However, occupancy was affected more by past rather than
recent fragmentation, indicating a time-delayed response to fragmentation.
Considering past landscape patterns is therefore crucial for understanding
current biodiversity patterns. Not accounting for land-use history ignores
the possibility of extinction debt and can thus obscure impacts of
fragmentation, potentially explaining contrasting findings of habitat loss
vs. fragmentation studies.