Understanding the harvest of Chilean kelp forests: Moving toward sustainability

Blog post written by Alejandro Pérez Matus to discuss their latest study which aimed to help us understand kelp recovery after harvesting. This blog post is also available in Spanish here. Humans have been connected to kelp forests for more than 16,000 years. It is hypothesized that these underwater forests helped early coastal communities migrate from northeast Asia to the Americas. Today, the ecosystem services … Continue reading Understanding the harvest of Chilean kelp forests: Moving toward sustainability

Entendiendo la cosecha de los bosques de macroalgas en Chile: Avanzando hacia la sostenibilidad

Entrada de blog escrita por Alejandro Pérez Matus para discutir su último estudio, que tenía como objetivo ayudarnos a entender la recuperación del alga después de la cosecha. Esta publicación del blog también está disponible en inglés aquí. Los humanos hemos estado conectados con los bosques de algas pardas por más de 16.000 años. Se hipotetiza que estos bosques submarinos ayudaron a las comunidades costeras … Continue reading Entendiendo la cosecha de los bosques de macroalgas en Chile: Avanzando hacia la sostenibilidad

Less people leads to the return of large mammals

Some areas of the world – particularly rural areas – now have less people than they used to. In this Perspective, we: Although the human populations of many countries around the world are still growing, we are only 60-70 years away from a world with a shrinking total population. Understanding how biodiversity responds to a shrinking human population will be critical in the coming years. … Continue reading Less people leads to the return of large mammals

Ying Ki Law: The role of forests in landslide occurrence, recurrence and recovery

Shortlisted for the 2024 Southwood Prize Ying Ki Law explains how her team investigated post-landslide vegetation recovery patterns and the role of forests in occurrence and recurrence probability. About the research Overview Our paper examines how landslides recover and what factors influence their regrowth and landslide risk. While landslide management often focuses on engineering solutions, we emphasize the role of vegetation recovery in long-term stability. … Continue reading Ying Ki Law: The role of forests in landslide occurrence, recurrence and recovery

Rewild or Restore – how about doing both?

James Bullock and Nathalie Pettorelli summarise their Perspective piece that highlight the potential for integrating restoration and rewilding agendas into whole landscape approaches. As biodiversity continues to decline at an alarming pace, it is becoming more urgent to not only halt these losses but to reverse them. This reversal of losses, now commonly termed ‘nature recovery’, generally requires improving the state of terrestrial and aquatic … Continue reading Rewild or Restore – how about doing both?

The spontaneous recovery of Neotropical savannas in abandoned pastures – A recuperação espontânea de savanas neotropicais em pastagens abandonadas

Mario Cava comments on the article, Abandoned pastures cannot spontaneously recover the attributes of old-growth savannas, published in Journal of Applied Ecology. The authors have also provided a Portuguese translation of this post. Old-growth savannas are ancient fire-prone systems, with high endemism and species diversity. The richness of these systems is mainly represented by the ground layer. In the Brazilian Cerrado, for example, for each tree … Continue reading The spontaneous recovery of Neotropical savannas in abandoned pastures – A recuperação espontânea de savanas neotropicais em pastagens abandonadas