Habitat fragmentation is considered to be a leading cause that is responsible for the long-term population declines of Northern Bobwhites. There are numerous factors responsible for habitat fragmentation such as expanding suburbanization, intensification of agricultural and forestry practices, and invasions of exotic plants; the unifying theme is how people use land for settlement and the production of food and fiber. As patches of habitat become smaller and more isolated, populations experience a lower probability of persistence that results in local extinctions, which can lead to larger, and perhaps even regional extinctions. However, we lack a strong empirical and quantified basis that describes the numerical relationships between population trajectories and persistence of iconic species such as the bobwhite and how land use and land cover has changed during the past four decades.
