Tag: tropics

Agriculture, Forests, Research summaries

Forest patches in working landscapes offer surprising opportunities to conserve neotropical birds

A Spanish version of this post is available here. After years of research into the biodiversity value of agricultural countrysides, it has become clear that, while there is great potential to conserve wildlife alongside humanity in ‘working landscapes’, wildlife communities remain distinct from those in nature reserves. But can working landscapes ever support vulnerable, reserve-affiliated species? New research from Costa Rica by Karp et al. … Continue reading Forest patches in working landscapes offer surprising opportunities to conserve neotropical birds

Journal of Applied Ecology1 Comment
Agriculture, Forests, Research summaries, Translation

Parches boscosos en paisajes agrícolas: la estrategia para conservar las aves Neotropicales

An English version of this post is also available here. Tras investigar la biodiversidad en zonas agrícolas y ganaderas por varios años, se ha encontrado que las fincas, haciendas y jardines tienen mucho potencial para conservar la biodiversidad. Sin embargo, dichas áreas no son reemplazos de las áreas protegidas ya que hay algunas especies que solamente habitan en áreas protegidas. Un nuevo artículo de investigación … Continue reading Parches boscosos en paisajes agrícolas: la estrategia para conservar las aves Neotropicales

Journal of Applied Ecology2 Comments
Agriculture, Forests, Research summaries, Restoration

Abandoned pastures regenerate to low diversity forests without intervention

To start the week, Associate Editor, Cate Macinnis-Ng comments on the recently published article, Abandoned pastures cannot spontaneously recover the attributes of old-growth savannas by Cava et al. Savanna ecosystems of the seasonally dry tropics cover almost 20% of the earth’s land area. Maintenance of biodiversity in savannas relies on the right amounts of grazing and fire. While overgrazing of savannas is a common threat, … Continue reading Abandoned pastures regenerate to low diversity forests without intervention

Journal of Applied Ecology5 Comments
Agriculture, Research summaries

Landscape structure and human management influence biodiversity value of livestock production systems

In this post Associate Editor, Elizabeth Nichols  and student, Jordan Reyes comment on the recent paper by Alvarado et al.,The role of livestock intensification and landscape structure in maintaining tropical biodiversity, published in Journal of Applied Ecology. The United Nations predicts that by the year 2050 the world population will have increased by 34%, reaching nearly 9.7 billion people. How can we support this growing human … Continue reading Landscape structure and human management influence biodiversity value of livestock production systems

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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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Research summaries

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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Research summaries

Liko Nā Pilina – The hybrid ecosystems project

In this post, Rebecca Ostertag, Laura Warman, Susan Cordell and Peter Vitousek write about their recent paper “Using plant functional traits to restore Hawaiian rainforest”. You can also watch them in action in the video about their project to see whether hybrid ecosystems could save native forests in Hawaii. Loosely translated, ‘liko nā pilina’ means “Budding (or growing) new partnerships (or relationships)” in the Hawaiian language. We … Continue reading Liko Nā Pilina – The hybrid ecosystems project

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Perspectives, Practitioners, The Applied Ecologist community

Are biologists just “tourists with binoculars”? Exploring the knowing-doing gap in tropical countries

Today’s post is a fascinating perspective on the knowing-doing gap from Anne Toomey. Anne also has her own blog: Science and the Community – Adventures in the Bolivian Amazon. In a recent issue of Journal of Applied Ecology, editor Philip Hulme wrote a piece on the increasingly discussed knowing-doing gap, in which there is a “clear mismatch between ecological knowledge generated by researchers and that … Continue reading Are biologists just “tourists with binoculars”? Exploring the knowing-doing gap in tropical countries

Journal of Applied Ecology3 Comments