Tag: biodiversity

Research summaries

Fighting fire with fire – using prescribed burning to protect threatened plant communities

In this post Brett Murphy discusses his recent paper with colleagues Mark Cochrane and Jeremy Russell-Smith ‘Prescribed burning protects endangered tropical heathlands of the Arnhem Plateau, northern Australia’ In many fire-prone landscapes, wildfires threaten a range of societal and ecological values, including human life and property, crops and domestic livestock, as well as biodiversity and ecosystem services. One of the most important tools humans have … Continue reading Fighting fire with fire – using prescribed burning to protect threatened plant communities

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Biodiversity restoration in the rice terraces of Japan

In this post Kei Uchida and Atushi Ushimaru discuss their recent paper “Land abandonment and intensification diminish spatial and temporal β-diversity of grassland plants and herbivorous insects within paddy terraces” For our recent article published in the Journal of Applied Ecology we studied the traditional paddy terraces of the agricultural lands in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan (Photo 1, Uchida & Ushimaru 2015) and compared them with … Continue reading Biodiversity restoration in the rice terraces of Japan

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‘Fruiting dead’ – or the still unpaid extinction debt of a common shrub

In this post Juan P. González-Varo, Rafael G. Albaladejo, Marcelo A. Aizen, Juan Arroyo and Abelardo Aparicio discuss their recent paper ‘Extinction debt of a common shrub in a fragmented landscape’. A key question with direct implications for biodiversity conservation and restoration in fragmented areas is whether the persistence of those species we currently observe in habitat remnants is ensured in the long-term. Habitat-specialist species, … Continue reading ‘Fruiting dead’ – or the still unpaid extinction debt of a common shrub

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With rapid advances in camera trap technology, researchers should “hurry up and wait”

In this post Pen-Yuan Hsing discusses the recent paper from Cole Burton and colleagues ‘Wildlife camera trapping: a review and recommendations for linking surveys to ecological processes’ and the exciting new advances in camera trap technology. Camera traps have come a long way since first entering the ecologist’s toolbox more than a hundred years ago. Early iterations involved bulky film cameras powered by lead acid … Continue reading With rapid advances in camera trap technology, researchers should “hurry up and wait”

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Plant species diversity improves ecosystem multifunctionality on a green roof

In this post, Jeremy Lundholm writes about his recent paper “Green roof plant species diversity improves ecosystem multifunctionality”. We can improve the benefits provided by green roofs by planting more species. Green roofs offer an attractive and useful solution to wasted space on building rooftops. Green roof coverage is growing in major cities around the world and more ecologists are paying attention to this habitat. … Continue reading Plant species diversity improves ecosystem multifunctionality on a green roof

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The development of fencing policies and its relevance to the Convention of Migratory Species

In this post, Sarah M. Durant and Roseline C. Beudels-Jamar write about their article ‘Developing fencing policies for dryland ecosystems’, which is the first Policy Direction article for the Journal of Applied Ecology. Policy Directions are a new article type relating to policy implementation and decision making. The focus of these articles is to inform and improve policy over a wide range of subjects by … Continue reading The development of fencing policies and its relevance to the Convention of Migratory Species

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To fence or not to fence, that is the question

In this post Executive Editor, Marc Cadotte discusses the first Policy Direction article ‘Developing fencing policies for dryland ecosystems’ for the Journal of Applied Ecology. Policy Directions are a new article type relating to policy implementation and decision making. The focus of these articles is to inform and improve policy over a wide range of subjects by providing a broader policy context for the topic and … Continue reading To fence or not to fence, that is the question

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From seedling to adult assemblages: chronic disturbance drives the biological impoverishment of Brazilian Caatinga flora

In this post, Elâine Ribeiro writes about her recent paper with Víctor Arroyo-Rodríguez, Bráulio Santos, Marcelo Tabarelli and Inara Leal “Chronic anthropogenic disturbance drives the biological impoverishment of the Brazilian Caatinga vegetation”. Many studies worldwide are devoted to understand the reorganization of biological communities after human disturbances. However, a large proportion of these studies deal with acute (as opposed to chronic) forms of disturbance (Martorell … Continue reading From seedling to adult assemblages: chronic disturbance drives the biological impoverishment of Brazilian Caatinga flora

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How common birds and rainforests help cacao farmers in Indonesia

In this post, Bea Maas writes about her recent paper with Teja Tscharntke, Shahabuddin Saleh, Dadang Dwi Putra & Yann Clough “Avian species identity drives predation success in tropical cacao agroforestry“. Birds can make farmers happy. Due to their contribution to the suppression of pest insects in agriculture, their presence can increase the quality and quantity of crop yields. Especially in the tropics, insect eating birds … Continue reading How common birds and rainforests help cacao farmers in Indonesia

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Bringing land sparing and land sharing to the city

This post was written by Jonathan Rhodes, @j_r_rhodes, on the recent paper by Masa Soga et al. on land sharing and land sparing in urban systems. In agricultural landscapes the idea of choosing between strategies that intersperse intensive land-uses with areas set aside for biodiversity (land sparing) versus less intensive agriculture without set-asides (land sharing) to maximise biodiversity is relatively well developed (Green et al. … Continue reading Bringing land sparing and land sharing to the city

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