1. Introduction
Within a landscape, animals respond to large scale vegetative patterns as well as to environmental gradients and individual habitat patches.
Small scale (patch) responses are usually related to patch type, composition, dynamics, connectivity or isolation, edge effect, contrast and permeability, or any combination of those
(Morrison et al., 1998).
Variability in habitat patch characteristics can induce different animal responses and hence community changes across the landscape. Although a contiguous landscape matrix (i.e. the most extensive and connected landscape type) harbours an animal community adapted or adapting to its particular bioenvironmental features, non-matrix habitat patches (i.e. areas with different habitat condition than the surrounding matrix), depending on their degree of differentiation towards the matrix, can add few or many elements to the overall species pool