The edge forests are in red and the green areas are considered core forests. I want to also point to the fact that there is a break in the contiguous forest. The areas where white appears may be a natural geological structure that does not support forests, but, that does not mean it is not fragmented.
The picture shows contiguous forest in the northwest corner and southeast corner, but, there is definitely a break that shows fragmentation.
There are also great many edge forests that interrupt the contiguous forest. Depending on the hardiness of the contiguous forest and the damage the edge forests cause, it can be argued this is a fragmented forest.
Forest fragmentation (click here) is the breaking of large, contiguous, forested areas into smaller pieces of forest; typically these pieces are separated by roads, agriculture, utility corridors, subdivisions, or other human development. It usually occurs incrementally, beginning with cleared patches here and there – think Swiss cheese – within an otherwise unbroken expanse of tree cover.
Over time, those non-forest patches tend to multiply and expand until eventually the forest is reduced to scattered, disconnected forest islands. The surrounding non-forest lands and land uses seriously threaten the health, function, and value of the remaining forest.
Any large-scale canopy disturbance affects a forest, but it is important to distinguish between a forest fragmented by human infrastructure development and a forest of mixed ages and varied canopy closure that results from good forest management. The former is typically much more damaging to forest health and habitat quality, usually with permanent negative effects, whereas the latter may cause only temporary change in the forest....The LENO tower comes up out of the canopy near the Tombigbee River aquatic field site
This is a forest in Alabama. It is beautiful. The tower is an observation tower and used by forest personnel and scientists. This is a good picture of an unbroken canopy, except, for the tower. All forests these days are often touched by people for a variety of reasons. This reason, is a tower that will help monitor that beautiful canopy.
