0000000000659594
AUTHOR
Assaf Shwartz
Unrelenting spread of the alien monk parakeetMyiopsitta monachusin Israel. Is it time to sound the alarm?
BACKGROUND Monk parakeets, Myiopsitta monachus Boddaert, are native to South America but have established populations in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. They are claimed to act as agricultural pests in their native range, and their communal stick nests may damage human infrastructure. Although several monk parakeet populations are present in the Mediterranean Basin and temperate Europe, little empirical data are available on their population size and growth, distribution and potential impact. We investigated the temporal and spatial dynamics of monk parakeets in Israel to assess their invasion success and potential impact on agriculture. RESULTS Monk parakeet populations are growing…
Implementation of the land-sharing and land-sparing framework in agro-ecological corridors
Maintaining adequate food supply while conserving biodiversity is one of the great challenges in conservation today. There is a fundamental controversy between land sparing and land sharing[1]: Land sparing favors intensive agriculture that allows maximal food production in a small area and spares land for conservation, while land sharing favors agro-environmental practices that create multifunctional agroecosystems. While land sparing has proven more advantageous in intact forests, evidence from long-history agricultural landscapes is mixed[2]. Using the sparing-sharing framework, we assessed costs and benefits of agriculture and conservation in planning an ecological corridor in the Jezre…