Forest Fragmentation, Forest Loss, and Metacommunity Structure in Forests of Northern Ethiopia: A Systematic Scoping Review

BACKGROUND: The forests of northern Ethiopia — spanning Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions — represent some of Africa's most fragmented and ecologically significant Afromontane landscapes. Centuries of agricultural expansion, overgrazing, charcoal harvesting, and conflict have reduced continuous montane forest to scattered remnants in a degraded agricultural matrix. Despite a growing body of primary literature, no systematic synthesis has integrated evidence on forest fragmentation dynamics, forest cover loss, and metacommunity structural theory for this region. OBJECTIVES: To map the extent, rate, and drivers of forest cover loss and fragmentation; characterise fragmentation metrics and patch dynamics; synthesise evidence on metacommunity structure and species assembly across fragmented forest landscapes; synthesise multi-dimensional biodiversity responses; and identify knowledge gaps and conservation policy recommendations for forests of northern Ethiopia. ELIGIBILITY: Empirical, remote sensing, modelling, and review studies addressing forest fragmentation, forest loss, or community assembly in forests of Tigray, Amhara, or Afar regions. All study designs, languages, and time periods. Grey literature, theses, and institutional reports included. SOURCES: Nineteen bibliographic databases and grey literature sources including Web of Science, Scopus, CAB Abstracts, African Journals Online (AJOL), Ethiopian university repositories (Mekelle, Gondar, Bahir Dar, Addis Ababa, Haramaya), EEFRI, EBI, Global Forest Watch, and nine targeted hand-searched journals. SYNTHESIS: Narrative synthesis with forest loss tabulation, fragmentation metrics comparison, metacommunity paradigm classification, biodiversity response mapping, and knowledge gap analysis. No formal meta-analysis.