Search results for "Landscape"

Early Diagnosis of Vegetation Health From High-Resolution Hyperspectral and Thermal Imagery: Lessons Learned From Empirical Relationships and Radiati…

2019

[Purpose of Review] We provide a comprehensive review of the empirical and modelling approaches used to quantify the radiation–vegetation interactions related to vegetation temperature, leaf optical properties linked to pigment absorption and chlorophyll fluorescence emission, and of their capability to monitor vegetation health. Part 1 provides an overview of the main physiological indicators (PIs) applied in remote sensing to detect alterations in plant functioning linked to vegetation diseases and decline processes. Part 2 reviews the recent advances in the development of quantitative methods to assess PI through hyperspectral and thermal images.

What are the effects of even-aged and uneven-aged forest management on boreal forest biodiversity in Fennoscandia and European Russia? : A systematic…

2019

Abstract Background Biodiversity is vital for human well-being, but is threatened by human actions world-wide. In the boreal zone, harvesting and management of forests on an industrial scale is the most important factor driving habitat change and degradation. Over time different forest management regimes have been implemented but their impact on biodiversity at different spatial and temporal scales has not been systematically reviewed although non-systematic reviews on the topic exist. The aim of this article is to describe a protocol for a systematic review to synthesise and compare the impacts of two different forest management systems on biodiversity at different spatial and temporal sca…

Planning for the future : identifying conservation priority areas for Iberian birds under climate change

2018

[Context]: Species are expected to shift their distributions in response to global environmental changes and additional protected areas are needed to encompass the corresponding changes in the distributions of their habitats. Conservation policies are likely to become obsolete unless they integrate the potential impacts of climate and land-use change on biodiversity.

Woodland key habitats in preserving polypore diversity in boreal forests: Effects of patch size, stand structure and microclimate

2016

Abstract Woodland key-habitats (WKHs) are set-asides in managed forests that are conceived to maintain specific aspects of forest biodiversity and they are widely used in Northern European countries. WKHs are often quite small (from 0.1 to a few hectares) and thus it is unclear if they can maintain biodiversity. We studied the effects of WKH size, microclimate and forest structure on species richness and composition of polypores, a group of wood-decaying fungi that has become threatened due to clear-cut forestry. The WKHs studied varied in size between 0.05 and 3.6 ha, and the control forests from 6.5 to 44.7 ha. Patch size and the volumes of logs and standing dead trees significantly affec…

Comment on “A simple way to incorporate uncertainty and risk into forest harvest scheduling”

2017

In a recent research article, Robinson et al. (2016) described a method of estimating uncertainty of harvesting outcomes by analyzing the historical yield to the associated prediction for a large number of harvest operations. We agree with this analysis, and consider it a useful tool to integrate estimates of uncertainty into the optimization process. The authors attempt to manage the risk using two different methods, based on deterministic integer linear programming. The first method focused on maximizing the 10th quantile of the distribution of predicted volume subject to area constraint, while the second method focused on minimizing the variation of total quantity of volume harvested sub…

Resemblance of a model species and its mimic: Response to Bury and Cichoń

2018

Within trophic level shifts in collagen-carbonate stable carbon isotope spacing are propagated by diet and digestive physiology in large mammal herbi…

2018

Stable carbon isotope analyses of vertebrate hard tissues such as bones, teeth, and tusks provide information about animal diets in ecological, archeological, and paleontological contexts. There is debate about how carbon isotope compositions of collagen and apatite carbonate differ in terms of their relationship to diet, and to each other. We evaluated relationships between δ13Ccollagen and δ13Ccarbonate among free-ranging southern African mammals to test predictions about the influences of dietary and physiological differences between species. Whereas the slopes of δ13Ccollagen–δ13Ccarbonate relationships among carnivores are ≤1, herbivore δ13Ccollag…

Give me a sample of air and I will tell which species are found from your region : Molecular identification of fungi from airborne spore samples

2017

Fungi are a megadiverse group of organisms, they play major roles in ecosystem functioning and are important for human health, food production and nature conservation. Our knowledge on fungal diversity and fungal ecology is however still very limited, in part because surveying and identifying fungi is time demanding and requires expert knowledge. We present a method that allows anyone to generate a list of fungal species likely to occur in a region of interest, with minimal effort and without requiring taxonomical expertise. The method consists of using a cyclone sampler to acquire fungal spores directly from the air to an Eppendorf tube, and applying DNA barcoding with probabilistic specie…

Conservation of the endangered Mediterranean tortoise Testudo hermanni hermanni: The contribution of population genetics and historical demography

2016

International audience; Estimating the genetic variation and demographic trends of species in decline is of major concern in conservation genetics. This study contributes to understanding how historical and anthropogenic factors shape the distribution of current genetic diversity in one of the most endangered reptiles in Western Europe, the Hermann's tortoise Testudo hermanni hermanni. We used 17 microsatellite loci, chosen from a pyrosequencing library specifically developed for the subspecies to genotype eight populations distributed over about 30 sample localities covering almost the entire geographic distribution of the sub-species. The population genetic results reflect a very strong g…

Corncrake conservation genetics at a European scale: the impact of biogeographical and anthropological processes

2016

Abstract Understanding patterns of genetic structure, gene flow and diversity across a species range is required to determine the genetic status and viability of small peripheral populations. This is especially crucial in species distributed across a large range where spatial heterogeneity makes it difficult to predict the distribution of genetic diversity. Although biogeographical models provide expectations of how spatially structured genetic variation may be at the range scale, human disturbance may cause strong deviations from these theoretical predictions. In this study, we investigated genetic structure and demography at a pan-European scale in the corncrake Crex crex , a grassland bi…