SYSTEMATIC REVIEW published: 17 December 2019 doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2019.00083 Impacts of Habitat Degradation on Tropical Montane Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Map for Identifying Future Research Priorities Malcolm C. K. Soh 1*, Nicola J. Mitchell 1, Amanda R. Ridley 1, Connor W. Butler 2, Chong Leong Puan 3 and Kelvin S.-H. Peh 2,4 1 School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia, 2 School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom, 3 Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Edited by: Malaysia, 4 Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom Mark Andrew Adams, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia Tropical montane forests (TMFs) are major centers of evolutionary change and harbor Reviewed by: many endemic species with small geographic ranges. In this systematic map, we Giuliano Maselli Locosselli, University of São Paulo, Brazil focus on the impacts of anthropogenic habitat degradation on TMFs globally. We first Daniel J. Wieczynski, determine how TMF research is distributed across geographic regions, degradation UCLA Department of Ecology and type (i.e., deforestation, land-use conversion, habitat fragmentation, ecological level Evolutionary Biology, United States (i.e., ecosystem, community, population, genetic) and taxonomic group. Secondly, we *Correspondence: Malcolm C. K. Soh summarize the impacts of habitat degradation on biodiversity and ecosystem services,
[email protected] and identify deficiencies in current knowledge. We show that habitat degradation in TMFs impacts biodiversity at all ecological levels and will be compounded by climate change. Specialty section: This article was submitted to However, despite montane species being perceived as more extinction-prone due to Tropical Forests, their restricted geographic ranges, there are some indications of biotic resilience if the a section of the journal impacts to TMFs are less severe.