Species turnover does not rescue biodiversity in fragmented landscapes

Habitat fragmentation generally reduces biodiversity at the patch scale (alpha diversity)1. However, there is ongoing debate about whether such negative effects can be alleviated at the landscape scale (gamma diversity) if among-patch diversity (beta diversity) increases as a result of fragmentation 2, 3, 4, 5-6. This controversial view has not been rigorously tested. Here we use a dataset of 4,006 taxa across 37 studies from 6 continents to test the effects of fragmentation on biodiversity across scales by explicitly comparing continuous and fragmented landscapes. We find that fragmented landscapes consistently have both lower alpha diversity and lower gamma diversity. Although fragmented landscapes did tend to have higher beta diversity, this did not translate into higher gamma diversity. Our findings refute claims that habitat fragmentation can increase biodiversity at landscape scales, and emphasize the need to restore habitat and increase connectivity to minimize biodiversity loss at ever-increasing scales.