In West Africa, vast areas are being deforested; the remnant forest patches provide a wealth of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation potential, yet they are threatened by human activity. Forest patches <100 ha have not been widely catalogued before; we mapped forest loss of small forest patches outside of protected areas in the Guinean savannah and humid Guineo-Congolian bioclimatic regions of Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon between 2000 and 2022. Focusing on the dynamics of small patches, without considering the splitting process of larger patches, we quantified changes in their number and area and the rate and trend of forest loss. Small forest patches are widespread, yet their area and number have decreased, while the forest loss rate is increasing. Primary forest patches lost almost half of their area annually – twice as much as secondary forests, and this loss was especially pronounced across small patches (0.5 – 10 ha), suggesting deforestation preferentially occurs in the smallest patches of primary forest. If forest loss continues at the current rate, 14% of the total forest area mapped in this study will have disappeared by 2032, jeopardizing their potential to provide ecosystem services and emphasizing the need for measures to counter their deforestation.

Epiphytic orchids are very diverse in montane forests, but fragmentation modifies this diversity. Twenty fragments were quantified to evaluate the effects of fragmentation on the alpha and beta diversities of epiphytic orchids in a montane forest located in southern Mexico. The following factors were evaluated: area, core area, shape, edge density, Euclidean nearest-neighbour distance fragment and contrast index. In each fragment, two transects of 2 × 50 m were drawn, and the trees with a diameter at breast height ≥ 20 cm were recorded. In each tree, the orchid species present were identified and quantified. Twenty-three species of epiphytic orchid in 234 phorophytes corresponding to 20 species were recorded. The epiphytic orchid richness per tree and species turnover was different between the phorophytes. The edge density and the contrast index had significant effects on the alpha diversity, while the isolation of the fragments significantly affected the beta diversity. The edge density positively affected the alpha diversity of the epiphytic orchids, likely through microclimatic changes caused by fragmentation. Drought-tolerant species were common on the edges of the fragments, and shade-tolerant species established on the core area of the fragments. This pattern most likely depends on the ecological range of the taxa, which is crucial to their development and persistence in fragmented habitats.