The role of habitat area and edge in fragmented landscapes: definitively distinct or inevitably intertwined?This review is one of a series dealing with some aspects of the impact of habitat fragmentation on animals and plants. This series is one of several virtual symposia focussing on ecological topics that will be published in the Journal from time to time.

Over the past few decades, much research has focussed on the effects of habitat area (i.e., patch size) and edges in fragmented landscapes. We review and synthesize the literature on area and edge effects to identify whether the ecological processes influenced by patch size and edge are distinct, to summarize evidence for the relative effect of each, and to discuss how estimating their independent effects may be accomplished in field studies....