Category: Research summaries

Research summaries

Gone with the wind: canopies of next generation tropical forests will function differently based on today’s understory recruitment

In this post Jarrah Wills discusses his recent paper ‘Next-generation tropical forests: reforestation type affects recruitment of species and functional diversity in a human-dominated landscape‘ Diverse understory development within forest plantations can provide conservation value in highly modified tropical landscapes, but how many species should be used to establish a framework to encourage recruitment: one species, two species, more? And how does the quality of … Continue reading Gone with the wind: canopies of next generation tropical forests will function differently based on today’s understory recruitment

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Avian pest control in vineyards

In this post Michelle Harrison and Cristina Banks-Leite discuss a recent paper by Luc Barbaro and colleagues ‘Avian pest control in vineyards is driven by interactions between bird functional diversity and landscape heterogeneity‘. The global wine industry currently contributes roughly US$303 billion to the world’s economy (Plant and Food Research, 2013). Wine is a key export for many European countries such as Italy, France and … Continue reading Avian pest control in vineyards

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Caring for and sharing data created by volunteers

In this post Quentin Groom discusses his recent Commentary paper ‘Is citizen science an open science in the case of biodiversity observations?‘ Volunteers are the single largest source of biodiversity observations. Without their work we could not monitor the declines of native species nor the spread of invasive species. Their work provides data on the diversity of life, its geography, the migration of animals and … Continue reading Caring for and sharing data created by volunteers

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Choosing the appropriate analytical resolution for protected area planning

Blog post by Moreno Di Marco, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Based on: Di Marco, M., Watson, J.E.M., Possingham, H.P. & Venter, O. (2016). Limitations and trade-offs in the use of species distribution maps for protected area planning. J. Appl. Ecol. doi 10.1111/1365-2664.12771. From local-scale management to global scale policy, conservation decisions are influenced by the knowledge of … Continue reading Choosing the appropriate analytical resolution for protected area planning

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The birds and the Bayes – new statistical approaches to modelling seabird flight heights

In this post Viola Ross-Smith discusses her recent paper ‘Modelling flight heights of lesser black-backed gulls and great skuas from GPS: A Bayesian approach‘. Although the need for renewable energy and its benefits are now widely recognised, this technology does not come without implications for biodiversity and the environment. For this reason, it’s important to assess and quantify the potential risks of renewables to wildlife … Continue reading The birds and the Bayes – new statistical approaches to modelling seabird flight heights

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A new look at an old problem: Measuring the importance of dispersal in human-impacted systems

In this post Angela Strecker discusses the recent paper ‘A fresh approach reveals how dispersal shapes metacommunity structure in a human-altered landscape‘, by Barbara Downes, Jill Lancaster, Alena Glaister and William Bovill. One of the largest challenges that ecologists face is understanding the importance of dispersal across patches in ecosystems.  In the process of dispersal, organisms move to different habitats, allowing them to potentially escape … Continue reading A new look at an old problem: Measuring the importance of dispersal in human-impacted systems

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African forest elephants are really slow breeders

In this post, Associate Editor Johan du Toit discusses new Policy Direction “Slow intrinsic growth rate in forest elephants indicates recovery from poaching will require decades” by Andrea Turkalo, Peter Wrege, and George Wittemyer, published today. Intrinsic population growth is related to body mass The rate at which a population grows (r) under ideal conditions with no resource limitation, disease, or predation, is governed by … Continue reading African forest elephants are really slow breeders

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Landscape structure influences urban vegetation vertical structure

In this post Matthew Mitchell discusses his recent paper ‘Landscape structure influences urban vegetation vertical structure‘. The importance of urban vegetation Odds are that you’re reading this in a city. More than half of humanity today lives in cities, and this is expected to increase to two-thirds by 2050. Living in a city, you almost certainly rely on urban vegetation for key ecosystem services like … Continue reading Landscape structure influences urban vegetation vertical structure

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Invasion Biology needs assessment of current policies and measures

In this post Associate Editor Céline Bellard discusses the recent paper ‘Managing the risk of wildlife disease introduction: pathway-level biosecurity for preventing the introduction of alien ranaviruses‘, by Pablo García-Díaz, Joshua Ross, Andrew Woolnough and Phillip Cassey. Invasive alien species are one of the major drivers of global biodiversity loss. Among the most notorious invasive species, emerging wildlife diseases like the chytrid fungi are a globally widespread threat to … Continue reading Invasion Biology needs assessment of current policies and measures

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Old villages are hot-spots of farmland bird diversity

In this post Zuzanna Rosin discusses her paper ‘Villages and their old farmsteads are hot-spots of bird diversity in agricultural landscapes‘, published today. The decline of farmland biodiversity is one of the major ecological and conservation problems in Europe. To date many efforts have been made to slow down the rate of this process, however, recent studies confirm ongoing negative trends. To counteract this decline, it … Continue reading Old villages are hot-spots of farmland bird diversity

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