Thomas Matthews

The primary aim of his thesis was to model avifaunal responses to habitat fragmentation. More specifically, the thesis aimed to critically evaluate existing models and frameworks used to model habitat fragmentation, with particular focus on the species-area relationship. Additionally, the thesis aims to discern if species responses to fragmentation are constant across the range. Species behaviour has been theorised to vary at the range margins as a result of responses to climatic change. However, it has not been empirically tested whether individual species occurrence patterns are constant across different fragmented landscapes. The thesis also involves an examination of critical spatial thresholds in habitat islands. This involves the application of piecewise regression to determine if a breakpoint is present in the species-area relationship for a variety of fragmented landscapes.