## 3 Results  
### Deforestation and Fragmentation  
Table 3 shows that mangrove forests throughout the Ecuadorian coast changed between 1996 and 2020 (an increase of 141.37 km\({}^{2}\)), despite a slight reduction between 1996 and 2015. Mangrove forests present in the province of Galapagos almost doubled their coverage between 1996 and 2020. It is important to highlight that throughout the distribution area there has been a recovery of the mangrove surface area during the last period considered (2015-2020). Fragmentation metrics increased in all provinces with a higher number of tiles, which indicated the creation of new mangrove fragments. High rates of forestation were linked to some of these areas (Table 4). The Galapagos Islands had 173 new tiles with new fragments of mangrove forests, and the number of patches within each tile increased. However, they were still below the rest of the provinces, where the number of patches increased over 10 (Guayas and Esmeraldas) or 20 (Manabi and El Oro) times. It can also be observed that the average size of the patches (MPS) was very low, with the highest value in Guayas province (0.4 km\({}^{2}\)) and the lowest in the Galapagos Islands (0.03 km\({}^{2}\)). \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Metric** & **Level** & **Formula** & **Meaning** & **References** \\ \hline Number of & & & & \\ components (\(NC\)) & Global level & NC = nc & Number of components of the graph. & [37] \\ \hline  & & where: N: number of patches, nc: number of components, n\({}_{\text{k}}\): number of patches in component k, Ni: all patches close to the patch I, a\({}_{\text{i}}\): capacity of patch i (generally the surface area), ac\({}_{\text{k}}\): capacity of component k (sum of the capacity of the patches composing k), A: area of the study zone, d\({}_{\text{ij}}\): distance between patches i and j (generally the least-cost distance between them), e\({}^{-\text{adji}}\): probability of movement between patches i and j, \(\alpha\) = brake on movement distance, \(\beta\) = exponent to weight more or less capacity. & \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: _Cont._ \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline  & & & & **Year** & \\ \hline
**Provinces** & & **1996** & **2007** & **2015** & **2020** \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{El Oro} & Area (km\({}^{2}\)) & 177.30 & 153.81 & 152.09 & 189.18 \\  & Deforestation rate & & \(-1.29\) & \(-0.14\) & 4.36 \\ Manabi & Area (km\({}^{2}\)) & 35.83 & 28.08 & 24.94 & 31.70 \\  & Deforestation rate & & \(-2.22\) & \(-1.48\) & 4.80 \\ Guayas & Area (km\({}^{2}\)) & 973.24 & 958.63 & 954.77 & 1008.16 \\  & Deforestation rate & & \(-0.14\) & \(-0.05\) & 1.09 \\ Galapagos & Area (km\({}^{2}\)) & 25.17 & 25.17 & 25.10 & 51.72 \\  & Deforestation rate & & 0.00 & \(-0.03\) & 14.46 \\ Esmeraldas & Area (km\({}^{2}\)) & 235.13 & 223.51 & 222.32 & 240.31 \\  & Deforestation rate & & \(-0.46\) & \(-0.07\) & 1.56 \\ Santa Elena & Area (km\({}^{2}\)) & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.00 & 0.23 \\  & Deforestation rate & & & \\ Total & Area (km\({}^{2}\)) & 1446.68 & 1389.20 & 1379.22 & 1521.30 \\  & Deforestation rate & & \(-0.37\) & \(-0.09\) & 1.96 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Deforestation rate and area per province in the years 1996, 2007, 2015, and 2020. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c c c c} \hline  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**EI Oro**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Emeraldas**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Manabi**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Guayas**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Galapagos**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Santa Elena**} \\ \hline  & **1996** & **2020** & **1  
The reticular fragmentation index increased between 1996 and 2020 (Figures 2-4), with higher values in the Galapagos Islands and Manabi and lower values in Guayas and El Oro provinces (Table S1). Even in areas with low fragmentation, there was a generalized trend toward mangrove fragmentation throughout Ecuador. The transition between hexagons with mangrove remnants showed that between 2015 and 2020, 27% of them had recovered mangrove forests.