Declining population trends of European mountain birds

Mountain areas often hold special species communities, and they are high on the list of conservation concern. Global warming and changes in human land use, such as grazing pressure and afforestation, have been suggested to be major threats for biodiversity in the mountain areas, affecting species abundance and causing distribution shifts towards mountaintops. Population shifts towards poles and mountaintops have been documented in several areas, indicating that climate change is one of the key drivers of species’ distribution changes. Despite the high conservation concern, relatively little is known about the population trends of species in mountain areas due to low accessibility and difficult working conditions. Thanks to the recent improvement of bird monitoring schemes around Europe, we can here report a first account of population trends of 44 bird species from four major European mountain regions: Fennoscandia, UK upland, south‐western (Iberia) and south‐central mountains (Alps), covering 12 countries. Overall, the mountain bird species declined significantly (?7%) during 2002–2014, which is similar to the declining rate in common birds in Europe during the same period. Mountain specialists showed a significant ?10% decline in population numbers. The slope for mountain generalists was also negative, but not significantly so. The slopes of specialists and generalists did not differ from each other. Fennoscandian and Iberian populations were on average declining, while in United Kingdom and Alps, trends were nonsignificant. Temperature change or migratory behaviour was not significantly associated with regional population trends of species. Alpine habitats are highly vulnerable to climate change, and this is certainly one of the main drivers of mountain bird population trends. However, observed declines can also be partly linked with local land use practices. More efforts should be undertaken to identify the causes of decline and to increase conservation efforts for these populations.     

农林类院校《细胞生物学》教学中植物类案例的应用

当前《细胞生物学》教材的主要内容来自于对酵母和动物的研究结果,而普通农林类院校生物学相关专业的教学内容以认识植物的生命活动规律为核心,讲授的具体内容与学生的专业联系并不密切。为弥补这种不足,我们在教学活动中特意将植物中细胞生物学相关研究的结论和最新研究进展融入到教学中,将细胞生物学的教学内容与专业特点紧密结合,激发学生的学习兴趣,提高教学效果。     

Do riparian forest strips in modified forest landscapes aid in conserving bat diversity?

Agricultural practices lead to losses of natural resources and biodiversity. Maintaining forests alongside streams (riparian forest strips) has been used as a mechanism to minimize the impact of clearing for agriculture on biodiversity. To test the contribution of riparian forest strips to conserve biodiversity in production landscapes, we selected bats as a biodiversity model system and examined two dimensions of diversity: taxonomic and functional. We compared bat diversity and composition in forest, with and without stream habitat, and in narrow forest riparian strips surrounded by areas cleared for agriculture. We tested the hypothesis that riparian forest strips provide potential conservation value by providing habitat and serving as movement corridors for forest bat species. Riparian forest strips maintained 75% of the bat species registered in forested habitats. We found assemblage in sites with riparian forest strips were dominated by a few species with high abundance and included several species with low abundance. Bat species assemblage was more similar between sites with streams than between those sites to forests without stream habitat. These results highlight the importance of stream habitat in predicting presence of bat species. We registered similar number of guilds between forest sites and riparian forest strips sites. Relative to matrix habitats, stream and edge habitats in riparian forest strips sites were functionally more diverse, supporting our hypothesis about the potential conservation value of riparian forest strips. Results from this study suggest that maintaining riparian forest strips within cleared areas for agricultural areas helps conserve the taxonomic and functional diversity of bats. Also, it provides basic data to evaluate the efficacy of maintaining these landscape features for mitigating impacts of agricultural development on biodiversity. However, we caution that riparian forest strips alone are not sufficient for biodiversity maintenance; their value depends on maintenance of larger forest areas in their vicinity.     

Replanting of first‐cycle oil palm results in a second wave of biodiversity loss

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To replicate,or not to replicate – that should not be a question

Recent simulations suggest that ecologists can enhance the predictive ability of models by designing experiments that maximise the number of levels of an experimental factor by sacrificing replication. Here, I describe how these simulations were based on a faulty metric of prediction success and reinforce the importance of replication.     

Arthropod biodiversity in olive groves under two soil management systems: presence versus absence of herbaceous cover crop

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Reshaping our understanding of species’ roles in landscape‐scale networks

In network ecology, landscape‐scale processes are often overlooked, yet there is increasing evidence that species and interactions spill over between habitats, calling for further study of interhabitat dependencies. Here, we investigate how species connect a mosaic of habitats based on the spatial variation of their mutualistic and antagonistic interactions using two multilayer networks, combining pollination, herbivory and parasitism in the UK and New Zealand. Developing novel methods of network analysis for landscape‐scale ecological networks, we discovered that few plant and pollinator species acted as connectors or hubs, both within and among habitats, whereas herbivores and parasitoids typically have more peripheral network roles. Insect species’ roles depend on factors other than just the abundance of taxa in the lower trophic level, exemplified by larger Hymenoptera connecting networks of different habitats and insects relying on different resources across different habitats. Our findings provide a broader perspective for landscape‐scale management and ecological community conservation.