Edge Effect

An edge effect refers to the effect of a prevailing boundary between contrasting spatial environments within an ecosystem or landscape. Landscapes are comprised of heterogeneous mosaics of habitat patches of varying size, shape and quality; these characteristics change over space and time. The edges or boundaries between habitat patches have implications for ecological processes between patches (e.g., animal movement) as well as within them (e.g., light penetration from patch edge to interior affecting within patch resource availability). The spatial configuration of patches—or landscape spatial pattern—includes the degree of fragmentation of or connectivity among habitat patches within the landscape, thereby influencing ecosystem and landscape-level processes such as seasonal animal migration, effective range and dispersal, as well as the ecological impacts of natural or anthropogenic disturbance.

Edge regions ...