The impact of weather and the phase of the rodent cycle on breeding populations of waterbirds in Finnish Lapland
Climate change may affect bird populations both directly by changing the weather conditions, and indirectly through changes in the food chain. While both theoretical and empirical studies have shown climate change having drastic impacts on polar areas, its consequences on Arctic bird species are still poorly known. Here we investigated how weather and changes in predator–prey interactions affected the annual growth rates of sub-Arctic birds by monitoring the breeding numbers of three duck and seven wader species in the alpine tundra of Finnish Lapland during 2005–2015 (except for 2006). We hypothesized that growth rates of waterbirds would be positively associated with warm and dry weather …
Synthesis of Environmental Impact Assessment to support planning of ecological compensation and decision-making: an introduction to research project
Habitat changes are the key drivers of global biodiversity loss. However, land-use decisions that extensively affect the abundance and distribution of species are made at local scale. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a systematic process where the effects of major projects on their utilized environment are examined, and it leads either to implementation, modification or rejection of the planned project. Even though EIA process also includes a proposal for the follow-up program, monitoring of the impacts is not specifically required after project has been implemented. Lack of this information, for example, complicates the mitigation of impacts since the realized loss of natural value…