Search results for "landscape conservation"
showing 10 items of 783 documents
Analysis of spatial patterns informs community assembly and sampling requirements for Collembola in forest soils
2018
Abstract The relative importance of niche separation, non-equilibrial and neutral models of community assembly has been a theme in community ecology for many decades with none appearing to be applicable under all circumstances. In this study, Collembola species abundances were recorded over eleven consecutive years in a spatially explicit grid and used to examine (i) whether observed beta diversity differed from that expected under conditions of neutrality, (ii) whether sampling points differed in their relative contributions to overall beta diversity, and (iii) the number of samples required to provide comparable estimates of species richness across three forest sites. Neutrality could not…
Accounting for preferential sampling in species distribution models
2019
D. C., A. L. Q. and F. M. would like to thank the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) for financial support (jointly financed by the European Regional Development Fund) via Research Grants MTM2013‐42323‐P and MTM2016‐77501‐P, and ACOMP/2015/202 from Generalitat Valenciana (Spain). Species distribution models (SDMs) are now being widely used in ecology for management and conservation purposes across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine realms. The increasing interest in SDMs has drawn the attention of ecologists to spatial models and, in particular, to geostatistical models, which are used to associate observations of species occurrence or abundance with environmental covariates in a fi…
New conservation viewpoints when plants are viewed at one level higher. Integration of phylogeographic structure, niche modeling and genetic diversit…
2019
Protection and management of closely related endangered species and subspecies at a very narrow regional scale is the origin of multiple dysfunctional conservation decisions. These include artificially increased IUCN risk assessment categories and derived consequences: poor effectiveness in allocating public and private funds or repeat of unnecessary actions/facilities. Data provided by the revisited study of a group of W Mediterranean larkspurs (Delphinium ser. Fissa), including new data on demography, niche modeling, genetic diversity and phylogeography, contributed to a new and wider analysis of causes of threat. Although current IUCN Red List regulations did not allow for assessments at…
Searching for solutions to the conflict over Europe’s oldest forest
2019
The Białowieża Forest World Heritage site is one of the last remaining primeval forests in lowland Europe and is a refuge for European Bison (Bison bonasus), the largest land mammal on the continent (Table 1).
Challenges of ecological restoration: Lessons from forests in northern Europe
2013
The alarming rate of ecosystem degradation has raised the need for ecological restoration throughout different biomes and continents. North European forests may appear as one of the least vulnerable ecosystems from a global perspective, since forest cover is not rapidly decreasing and many ecosystem services remain at high level. However, extensive areas of northern forests are heavily exploited and have lost a major part of their biodiversity value. There is a strong requirement to restore these areas towards a more natural condition in order to meet the targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Several northern countries are now taking up this challenge by restoring forest biodiv…
The socio-economic impact of conservation: The Safe Islands for Seabirds LIFE project
2017
Using the Safe Islands for Seabirds LIFE project as a case study, we assessed the socio-economic impact of a nature conservation project on the local community, focusing on the wealth created and the jobs supported directly and indirectly by the project. The Safe Islands for Seabirds project took place during 2009-2012, mainly on Corvo Island, the smallest and least populated island of Portugal's Azores Archipelago. To assess the impact of the project we used a combination of methods to analyse the project expenditure, the jobs created directly as a result of it, and, by means of multipliers, the incomes and jobs it supported indirectly. We estimate that during 2009-2012 direct expenditure …
Introduced alien signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) in Finland : uncontrollable expansion despite numerous crayfisheries strategies
2018
In Finland, massive signal crayfish introductions started towards the end of 1980s, with an estimated total of 2.2 million signal crayfish been stocked before year 2016. During that period, Finnish fisheries authorities have implemented three national management strategies setting guidelines for the crayfish introductions. The main aims of the strategies have been conservation of native noble crayfish stocks and a controlled spreading of the alien signal crayfish within a designated region. In this study, we report the current distribution of signal crayfish in Finland in comparison to the guidelines set in these three national strategies. The present distribution area of the signal crayfis…
The effect of buffer strip width and selective logging on riparian forest microclimate
2019
Riparian forests have cool and humid microclimates, and one aim of leaving forested buffer strips between clear-cut areas and streams is to conserve these microclimatic conditions. We used an experimental study set up of 35 streamside sites to study the impacts of buffer strip width (15 or 30 m) and selective logging within the buffer strips on summer-time air temperature, relative air humidity and canopy openness 12 years after logging. The buffer strip treatments were compared to unlogged control sites. We found that 15-meter buffer strips with or without selective logging and 30-meter buffer strips with selective logging were insufficient in maintaining temperature, relative humidity and…
Doom of the elephant-dependent trees in a Congo tropical forest.
2013
9 pages; International audience; In an evergreen lowland rain forest of the Cuvette Centrale, DR Congo, at the LuiKotale Max-Planck research site, forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are close to extinction. Between January 2009 and June 2011 we investigated the influence of elephant decline on sustainability of elephant-dispersed tree populations. For this, we explored how trees with the megafaunal syndrome reproduce without seed dispersal by elephants and how does this affect the demography and spatial distribution of these tree species. We studied alternative partners for functional replacement of the elephant. Overall, 18 tree species presenting the megafaunal syndrome were identified…
Elaboración de modelos de la distribución de la tórtola europea (Streptopelia turtur L. 1758) en el sureste de la península ibérica
2021
The European turtle dove population and breeding range has declined sharply in Spain. This study reanalyses data from the Atlas of Breeding Birds in Alicante (SE Spain), aiming to identify the main variables related to its occurrence and abundance. We used hierarchical partitioning analysis to identify important environmental variables associated with natural vegetation, farming, hydrological web, anthropic presence, climate, and topography. Analysis combining the most explicative variables of each group identified the mixture of pines and scrubland in the semiarid areas and the length of unpaved roads as the most important variables with a positive effect on occurrence, while herbaceous cr…