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

Applied Ecology as a Global Enterprise

This post is from Journal of Applied Ecology’s newest Senior Editor Martin Nuñez. The BES’s recent response to the UK referendum reminding us that ecology is a global concern has offered me the ideal opportunity to introduce myself. I am Martin Nuñez, the newest Senior Editor of Journal of Applied Ecology. I am a researcher at CONICET, and Professor at Universidad Nacional del Comahue, in … Continue reading Applied Ecology as a Global Enterprise

60-year dataset provides first evidence of waterfowl resilience to wildfire in burning boreal forest

In this post Associate Editor Ayesha Tulloch discusses a paper she recently handled by Tyler L. Lewis, Joel A. Schmutz, Courtney L. Amundson, and Mark S. Lindberg,  ‘Waterfowl populations are resilient to immediate and lagged impacts of wildfires in the boreal forest‘ Across much of the fire-dependent ecosystems of the globe, fire at appropriate intervals and intensities is critical for stimulating growth and reproduction. However, … Continue reading 60-year dataset provides first evidence of waterfowl resilience to wildfire in burning boreal forest

The rise and fall of a simple solution

In this post Anna-Sara Liman discusses her recent paper ‘Predator refuges for conservation biological control in an intermediately disturbed system: the rise and fall of a simple solution‘ The first so called willow “energy forests” were planted in Sweden (and the UK) in the early nineties and represent among the first steps towards development of a bioenergy sector and a future bioeconomy. Willows are fast-growing … Continue reading The rise and fall of a simple solution

Beyond the Haze: Implications of the recent fires in Indonesia for tropical peatland research

This post was written by members of C-PEAT (Lydia Cole, Ian Lawson, Dave Beilman, Dan Charman and Zicheng Yu) to voice the group’s concern over the consequences of the recent extensive burning of Indonesia’s peatlands for science. C-PEAT (Carbon in Peat on Earth through Time) is a thematic group of PAGES (Past Global Changes), and had its inaugural meeting at Columbia University in New York, … Continue reading Beyond the Haze: Implications of the recent fires in Indonesia for tropical peatland research

We may be underestimating the negative impacts of logging on the biodiversity of tropical forests

In this post Filipe França & Hannah Griffiths discuss their recent paper ’Do space-for-time assessments underestimate the impacts of logging on tropical biodiversity? An Amazonian case study using dung beetles The difficulty in developing strong researcher-practitioner relationships is a central ‘stumbling block’ in conservation science. Unfortunately this means that more often than not the policy implications of ecological research don’t reach the people responsible for … Continue reading We may be underestimating the negative impacts of logging on the biodiversity of tropical forests

Restoring Australian floodplains? Add water, reduce browsing, and lower salt*

In this post Associate Editor David Moreno Mateos discusses a paper he handled by Gillis Horner and colleagues ‘Recruitment of a keystone tree species must concurrently manage flooding and browsing’ It’s true, land management keeps getting complicated, especially when it gets to restoring sites. But the fact is that studies keep showing that we’re not that good at restoring ecosystems, essentially restored ecosystems tend not … Continue reading Restoring Australian floodplains? Add water, reduce browsing, and lower salt*

Managing impacts of land use change

This blog post is part of the blog series ‘Authors in Asia’, to accompany the recent Virtual Issue in Journal of Applied Ecology. You can read other posts in this series here. This post features three manuscripts which look at managing impacts of land use change. First, Kei Uchida discusses his paper ‘Land abandonment and intensification diminish spatial and temporal β-diversity of grassland plants and … Continue reading Managing impacts of land use change

Forest cover change in the Greater Mekong sub-region

This blog post is part of the blog series ‘Authors in Asia’, to accompany the recent Virtual Issue in Journal of Applied Ecology. You can read other posts in this series here. Minerva Singh is a PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge and she is involved with the BES Conservation Ecology Special Interest Group. Her research focuses on using high resolution airborne data for … Continue reading Forest cover change in the Greater Mekong sub-region