The integration and connection of habitats in protected areas (PAs) are essential for the survival of plant and animal species and attaining sustainable development. Investigating the integrity of PAs can be useful in developing connections among patches and decreasing the fragmentation of a habitat. The current study has analyzed spatial and temporal changes to habitat to quantify fragmentation and structural destruction in PAs in Tehran Province, Iran. To achieve this purpose, the trends in land use/land cover (LULC) changes and the quantitative metrics of the landscape ecology approach have been examined. The results revealed that in Lar National Park, low-density pasture has the top increasing trend with 4.2% from 1989 to 2019; in Jajrud PA, built-up has the top increasing trend with 1.5% during the studied years; and among the land uses in TangehVashi Natural Monument, bare land has the top increasing trend with 0.6% from 1989 to 2019. According to the findings, habitat fragmentation and patch numbers have expanded in the studied areas due to the development of economic and physical activities. The results also indicate that the current trend of habitat fragmentation in PAs will have the highest negative impacts, especially in decreasing habitat integrity, changing the structure of patterns and spatial elements, and increasing the edge effect of patches.

Background: The growing human population around the world is creating an increased demand for food. In agricultural landscapes, forests are cleared and turned into agricultural land to produce more food. Increasing the productivity of agricultural land per unit area may prevent extreme forest degradation. Since many agricultural products are dependent on pollinators, it is possible to increase crop production by increasing the pollination rate in the agricultural landscapes. Pollinators are highly dependent on forest patches in agricultural landscapes. Therefore, by creating new forest patches around agricultural fields, we can increase the pollination rate, and thus the crop production. In this regard, estimating the effects of different scenarios of forest fragmentation helps us to find an optimized pattern of forest patches for increasing pollination in an agricultural landscape. Methods: To investigate the effect of different forest fragmentation scenarios on pollination, we used simulated agricultural landscapes, including different forest proportions and degrees of fragmentation. Using landscape metrics, we estimated the relationship between pollination and landscape structure for each landscape. Results: Our results showed that for increasing pollination, two significant factors should be considered: habitat amount and capacity of small patches to supply pollination. We found that when the capacity of small patches in supplying pollination was low, fragmented patterns of forest patches decreased pollination. With increasing capacity, landscapes with a high degree of forest fragmentation showed the highest levels of pollination. There was an exception for habitat amounts (the proportion of forest patches) less than 0.1 of the entire landscape where increasing edge density, aggregation, and the number of forest patches resulted in increasing pollination in all scenarios. Conclusion: This study encourages agriculturists and landscape planners to focus on increasing crop production per unit area by pollinators because it leads to biodiversity conservation and reduces socio-economic costs of land-use changes. We also suggest that to increase pollination in agricultural landscapes by creating new forest patches, special attention should be paid to the capacity of patches in supporting pollinators.

The dynamic and heterogeneity of the urban heat island (UHI) is the result of the interactions between biotic, physical, social, and built components. Urban ecology as a transdisciplinary science can provide a context to understand the complex social–biophysical issues such as the thermal environment in cities. This study aimed at developing a theoretical framework to elucidate the interactions between the social–biophysical patterns and processes mediating UHI. To do it, we conducted a theoretical review to delineate UHI complexity using the concept of dynamic heterogeneity of pattern, process, and function in UHI phenomenon. Furthermore, a hypothetical heterogeneity spiral (i.e., driver-outcome spiral) related to the UHI was conceived as a model template. The adopted theoretical framework can provide a holistic vision of the UHI, contributing to a better understanding of UHI’s spatial variations in long-term studies. Through the developed framework, we can devise appropriate methodological approaches (i.e., statistic-based techniques) to develop prediction models of UHI’s spatial heterogeneity.