Abstract Understanding habitat fragmentation has largely focused on species counts, often neglecting functional diversity. This study addresses that gap by evaluating how landscape composition and configuration at patch and landscape scales affect mammalian functional diversity and key traits We conducted a random‐effects meta‐analysis (restricted maximum likelihood) on 268 Fisher's z effect sizes from 27 studies. The analysis examined eight functional diversity indices and five traits in relation to composition metrics (e.g. habitat cover, patch size) and configuration metrics (e.g. edge density, patch number, effective mesh size—MESH, forest landscape integrity index—FLII), accounting for study identity and heterogeneity ( Q , I 2 ). Roughly 60% of composition metrics showed significant positive effects—especially on functional richness—while configuration metrics, particularly MESH and FLII, had consistent negative impacts. Although typically associated with higher connectivity and integrity, these results were unexpected and suggest context‐dependent responses. The strongest positive responses were found in the Atlantic Forest and Southwestern Amazon, emphasizing the importance of habitat heterogeneity in tropical hotspots. Synthesis and applications . Our findings demonstrate that mammal functional richness in tropical regions requires integrating habitat amount and landscape configuration into land‐use planning. Conservation strategies should move beyond setting targets for total habitat area and explicitly incorporate configuration metrics that promote heterogeneity and functional connectivity. In highly transformed biodiversity hotspots, conservation and land‐use planning should prioritize expanding and diversifying these patches, rather than consolidating them into large homogeneous blocks, to better safeguard functional diversity and the ecosystem processes it supports.
Chacón‐Pacheco et al. (Fri,) studied this question.