Habitat fragmentation is a process of environmental change important in evolution an conservation biology. As the name implies, it describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat). Habitat fragmentation can be caused by geological processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment or by human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment on a much faster time scale. The former is suspected of being one of the major causes of speciation. The latter is causative in extinctions of many species.