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FNUMBER - Number of forest patches in 1 km grid cell The number of forest patches is calculated by counting forest patches in the 1 km grid cell reporting unit. A patch is defined as adjacent forest pixels, including diagonals. An irregularly shaped patch may be split into several patches by the grid cell boundary, inaccurately increasing the metric value. A grid cell with many small patches is representative of a highly fragmented landscape. Fragmented forests provide habitat for edge species, but are poor for interior species, and are unlikely to provide migration corridors. |