Plantation forests,climate change and biodiversity

Nearly 4 % of the world’s forests are plantations, established to provide a variety of ecosystem services, principally timber and other wood products. In addition to such services, plantation forests provide direct and indirect benefits to biodiversity via the provision of forest habitat for a wide range of species, and by reducing negative impacts on natural forests by offsetting the need to extract resources. There is compelling evidence that climate change is directly affecting biodiversity in forests throughout the world. These impacts occur as a result of changes in temperature, rainfall, storm frequency and magnitude, fire frequency, and the frequency and magnitude of pest and disease outbreaks. However, in plantation forests it is not only the direct effects of climate change that will impact on biodiversity. Climate change will have strong indirect effects on biodiversity in plantation forests via changes in forest management actions that have been proposed to mitigate the effects of climate change on the productive capacity of plantations. These include changes in species selection (including use of species mixtures), rotation length, thinning, pruning, extraction of bioenergy feedstocks, and large scale climate change driven afforestation, reforestation, and, potentially deforestation. By bringing together the potential direct and indirect impacts of climate change we conclude that in the short to medium term changes in plantation management designed to mitigate or adapt to climate change could have a significantly greater impact on biodiversity in such plantation forests than the direct effects of climate change. Although this hypothesis remains to be formally tested, forest managers worldwide are already considering new approaches to plantation forestry in an effort to create forests that are more resilient to the effects of changing climatic conditions. Such change presents significant risks to existing biodiversity values in plantation forests, however it also provides new opportunities to improve biodiversity values within existing and new plantation forests. We conclude by suggesting future options, such as functional zoning and species mixtures applied at either the stand level or as fine-scale mosaics of single-species stands as options to improve biodiversity whilst increasing resilience to climate change.     

Poverty trap formed by the ecology of infectious diseases

While most of the world has enjoyed exponential economic growth, more than one-sixth of the world is today roughly as poor as their ancestors were many generations ago. Widely accepted general explanations for the persistence of such poverty have been elusive and are needed by the international development community. Building on a well-established model of human infectious diseases, we show how formally integrating simple economic and disease ecology models can naturally give rise to poverty traps, where initial economic and epidemiological conditions determine the long-term trajectory of the health and economic development of a society. This poverty trap may therefore be broken by improving health conditions of the population. More generally, we demonstrate that simple human ecological models can help explain broad patterns of modern economic organization.     

三江平原湿地生态系统生物多样性保护价值

生物多样性保护是三江平原湿地生态系统提供的一项重要的生态服务功能,具有重要的经济价值。应用M.Hoel和T.Sterner提出的经济模型,分析了贴现率和边际价格变化综合影响下的三江平原湿地生态系统生物多样性保护价值变化过程,研究了收入边际效用弹性和替代弹性对贴现率和边际价格变化综合效应的影响,并通过对比传统贴现方法揭示了三江平原湿地生态系统生物多样性保护所蕴含的巨大经济价值。研究结果表明,在贴现率和边际价格变化的综合影响下,三江平原湿地生态系统生物多样性保护价值曲线呈现出先增长再下降的变化趋势,总经济价值为人均19438.9元;收入边际效用弹性和替代弹性的取值对价值评估结果的影响较大,不同参数条件下的价值评估结果将最终作用于湿地生态系统保护相关决策的制定;价值评估结果同样证明了在保持经济较快速度发展的同时提高三江平原湿地生态系统生物多样性保护功能的恢复速率对于促进地区经济协调发展和提高社会福祉状况具有重要的现实意义。     

Spatial correlates of us heights and body mass indexes, 2002

Aiming to further explore possible underlying causes of the recent remarkable stagnation and relative decline in American heights, this paper describes the result of analysis of the commercial US Sizing Survey (2002). Heights are correlated positively with income and education among both white males and females while Body Mass Index (BMI) is correlated negatively among females, as in other samples. In contrast to much of the literature, this paper considers geographic correlates of height such as local poverty rate, median income and population density at the zip code level of resolution. After adjusting for confounding factors that influence height such as income and education, population density is found to be strongly and negatively correlated with height among white men, but less so among white women. The effect on BMIs less convincing. Other ethnic groups are not analysed in detail because of the small number of observations available. Local economic conditions as measured by median income, unemployment and poverty rate do not have a strong correlation with height or BMI after adjusting for individual income and education.     

内蒙古通辽市库伦旗蒙古族庭园植物农业生物多样性分析——以芒汗苏木毛敦塔拉嘎查为例

庭园是形成和保存农业生物多样性的基本单位,也是野生植物和栽培植物聚集的场所。在农村,庭园的主要作用是提供日常生活所需,还可产生收入。庭园中不仅存在较高的生物多样性,而且庭园也有很多社会、文化、生态方面等功能。该研究针对通辽市库伦旗芒汗苏木毛敦塔拉嘎查蒙古族,采用随机抽样和农户推荐的方式选择了11个农户,以农户的整个庭园面积为样方,设立11个样方进行农业生物多样性分析,并用漫谈式访谈和半结构调查方法进行庭园植物及其经济效益调查。结果表明:毛敦塔拉嘎查蒙古族庭园植物物种丰富度较高,庭园植物共有96种,包括栽培及野生的植物蔬菜类33种、水果用19种、观赏用20种、饲料用8种、药食兼用5种、其它用途类16种,其中有些种类具有多种用途;毛敦塔拉嘎查各农户庭园植物的多样性随着庭园类型及庭园管理者的特征而不同;庭园面积大且种植大量经济作物的庭园经济效益高;据调查当地庭园的经营模式具有生态种植型、综合经营型、庭园养殖型三种类型。这些庭园植物不仅对当地农牧民的生活具有广泛作用而且对农业生物多样性保护具有深远意义。     

Economic inequality predicts biodiversity loss

Human activity is causing high rates of biodiversity loss. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the extent to which socioeconomic factors exacerbate or ameliorate our impacts on biological diversity. One such factor, economic inequality, has been shown to affect public health, and has been linked to environmental problems in general. We tested how strongly economic inequality is related to biodiversity loss in particular. We found that among countries, and among US states, the number of species that are threatened or declining increases substantially with the Gini ratio of income inequality. At both levels of analysis, the connection between income inequality and biodiversity loss persists after controlling for biophysical conditions, human population size, and per capita GDP or income. Future research should explore potential mechanisms behind this equality-biodiversity relationship. Our results suggest that economic reforms would go hand in hand with, if not serving as a prerequisite for, effective conservation.     

Trophic and non‐trophic interactions influence the mechanisms underlying biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships under different abiotic conditions

Plant diversity effects on ecosystem functioning usually have been studied from a plant perspective. However, the mechanisms underlying biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships may also depend on positive or negative interactions between plants and other biotic and abiotic factors, which remain poorly understood. Here we assessed whether plant–herbivore and/or plant–detritivore interactions modify the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationship and the mechanisms underlying biodiversity effects, including complementarity and selection effects, biomass allocation, vertical distribution of roots, and plant survival using a microcosm experiment. We also evaluated to what extent trophic and non‐trophic interactions are affected by abiotic conditions by studying drought effects. Our results show that biotic and abiotic conditions influence the shape of the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship, varying from hump‐shaped to linear. For instance, total biomass increased linearly with plant richness in the presence of detritivores, but not in the absence of detritivores. Moreover, detritivore effects on belowground plant productivity were highly context dependent, varying in the presence of herbivores. Plant interactions with soil biota, especially with herbivores, influenced the mechanisms underlying diversity effects. Herbivores increased plant complementarity and modified biomass allocation and vertical distribution of roots. Furthermore, biotic–abiotic interactions influenced plant productivity differently across plant functional groups. Our findings emphasize the importance of complex biotic interactions underlying biodiversity effects, and that these biotic interactions may change with abiotic conditions. Despite minor changes in productivity in the short‐term, soil biota‐induced changes in plant–plant interactions and plant survival are likely to have significant long‐term consequences for ecosystem functioning. Considering the context‐dependency of multichannel interactions may contribute to reconciling differences among observed patterns in biodiversity studies. Further, abiotic conditions modified the effects of biotic interactions, suggesting that changes in environmental conditions may not only affect ecosystems directly, but also change the biotic composition of and dynamics within ecosystems.     

种间互作网络的结构、生态系统功能及稳定性机制研究

生态群落中不同物种间发生多样化的相互作用, 形成了复杂的种间互作网络。复杂生态网络的结构如何影响群落的生态系统功能及稳定性是群落生态学的核心问题之一。种间互作直接影响到物质和能量在生态系统不同组分之间的流动和循环以及群落构建过程, 使得网络结构与生态系统功能和群落稳定性密切相关。在群落及生态系统水平上开展种间互作网络研究将为群落的构建机制、生物多样性维持、生态系统稳定性、物种协同进化和性状分化等领域提供新的视野。当前生物多样性及生态系统功能受到全球变化的极大影响, 研究种间互作网络的拓扑结构、构建机制、稳定性和生态功能也可为生物多样性的保护和管理提供依据。该文从网络结构、构建机制、网络结构和稳定性关系、种间互作对生态系统功能的影响等4个方面综述当前种间网络研究进展, 并提出在今后的研究中利用机器学习和多层网络等来探究环境变化对种间互作网络结构和功能的影响, 并实现理论和实证研究的有效整合。     

The present and future effects of land use on ecological assemblages in tropical grasslands and savannas in Africa

The world is currently experiencing a period of rapid, human‐driven biodiversity loss. Over the past decade, numerous metrics for biodiversity have been used to create indicators to track change in biodiversity. However, our ability to predict future changes has been limited. In this study, we use two very different models to predict the status and possible futures for the composition and diversity of ecological assemblages in African tropical grasslands and savannas under land‐use change. We show that ecological assemblages are affected more by land use in African grasslands and savannas than in other biomes. We estimate that average losses of assemblage composition and diversity are already between 9.7 and 42.0%, depending on the model and measure used. If current socio‐economic trajectories continue (‘business‐as‐usual’), the likely associated land‐use changes are predicted to lead to a further 5.6–12.3% loss of assemblage composition and diversity. In contrast, a scenario that assumes more efficient use of agricultural areas (thus requiring a smaller total area) could be associated with a partial reversal ? of as much as 3.2% ? of past losses. While the agriculture that causes the majority of land‐use change is an important source of economic growth, projections of the effects of land use on ecological assemblages can allow for more informed decisions.     

Biodiversity and human health: evidence for causality?

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and other commentators have warned about the impacts that biodiversity decline will have on human health. There is no doubting that the natural world provides mankind with the majority of the resources required to sustain life and health. Many species provide food, fuel, medicines; with the potential for many more (as of yet) undiscovered uses for various species. Despite this, there have been very few attempts to actually investigate relationships between biodiversity (i.e. number of species, rather than the ability of specific species to provide health benefits) and human health. This paper reviews the available evidence and demonstrates that while the links between biodiversity and health seem intuitive, they are very difficult to prove. Socio-economics has a huge influence on health status and the exploitation of natural resources (leading to eventual biodiversity loss) tends to have a positive economic effects. More direct effects of biodiversity on health include the diversity of the internal microbiome, the effect of natural diversity on our mental health and well-being (although this has large social aspects with many people feeling fearful in very diverse environments). Still to be elucidated are the tipping points where the level of global biodiversity loss is such that human health can no longer be sustained.     

The relationship between wealth and biodiversity: A test of the Luxury Effect on bird species richness in the developing world

The Luxury Effect hypothesizes a positive relationship between wealth and biodiversity within urban areas. Understanding how urban development, both in terms of socio‐economic status and the built environment, affects biodiversity can contribute to the sustainable development of cities, and may be especially important in the developing world where current growth in urban populations is most rapid. We tested the Luxury Effect by analysing bird species richness in relation to income levels, as well as human population density and urban cover, in landscapes along an urbanization gradient in South Africa. The Luxury Effect was supported in landscapes with lower urbanization levels in that species richness was positively correlated with income level where urban cover was relatively low. However, the effect was reversed in highly urbanized landscapes, where species richness was negatively associated with income level. Tree cover was also positively correlated with species richness, although it could not explain the Luxury Effect. Species richness was negatively related to urban cover, but there was no association with human population density. Our model suggests that maintaining green space in at least an equal proportion to the built environment is likely to provide a development strategy that will enhance urban biodiversity, and with it, the positive benefits that are manifest for urban dwellers. Our findings can form a key contribution to a wider strategy to expand urban settlements in a sustainable way to provide for the growing urban population in South Africa, including addressing imbalances in environmental justice across income levels and racial groups.     

非木材林产品的民族植物学研究进展

非木材林产品（NTFPs）是指从森林植被中采集的药材、食物（如野菜、野果等）、树脂树胶、纤维或其他非木材类产品,它们不仅为当地群众提供了食物、药材等日常生活必需品,而且也是许多地区原住民的重要经济收入来源。在收集整理相关国内外研究资料的基础上,从非木材林产品的集市民族植物学、非木材林产品的经济价值和对原住民经济收入的贡献、影响非木材林产品采集和利用的因素、非木材林产品采集对当地生物多样性的影响、原住民对非木材林产品的传统管理与保护等方面对近年来有关非木材林产品的民族植物学研究进展进行了综合评述,并对非木材林产品的民族植物学重点研究内容和方向提出了一些建议。     

经济发展对环境质量的影响——环境库兹涅茨曲线国内外研究进展

“环境库兹涅茨曲线 (Environm ental Kuznets Curve)”是指环境破坏与收入水平之间成倒 U形曲线关系 ,即随着经济发展和收入水平的提高 ,环境质量先破坏后好转。 2 0世纪 90年代初 ,揭开了 EKC研究的序幕 ;之后涌现大量实证研究和理论解释模型的探索 ;近年来的研究在前人的基础上视野更加宽阔 ,更注重理论模型的完善。从实证研究、计量模型和解释理论等 3条线索回顾了近年来国内外的主要研究进展 ,认为现有研究在计量模型、数据处理、指标选取等方面虽然取得了巨大进展 ,但仍存在许多不足 ;EKC研究要得到更进一步发展必须突破这些局限     

Impact of different economic factors on biological invasions on the global scale

Social-economic factors are considered as the key to understand processes contributing to biological invasions. However, there has been few quantified, statistical evidence on the relationship between economic development and biological invasion on a worldwide scale. Herein, using principal factor analysis, we investigated the relationship between biological invasion and economic development together with biodiversity for 91 economies throughout the world. Our result indicates that the prevalence of invasive species in the economies can be well predicted by economic factors (R² = 0.733). The impact of economic factors on the occurrence of invasive species for low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high income economies are 0%, 34.3%, 46.3% and 80.8% respectively. Greenhouse gas emissions (CO₂, Nitrous oxide, Methane and Other greenhouse gases) and also biodiversity have positive relationships with the global occurrence of invasive species in the economies on the global scale. The major social-economic factors that are correlated to biological invasions are different for various economies, and therefore the strategies for biological invasion prevention and control should be different.     

Relationships between biodiversity and biological control in agroecosystems: Current status and future challenges

Agricultural systems around the world are faced with the challenge of providing for the demands of a growing human population. To meet this demand, agricultural systems have intensified to produce more crops per unit area at the expense of greater inputs. Agricultural intensification, while yielding more crops, generally has detrimental impacts on biodiversity. However, intensified agricultural systems often have fewer pests than more “environmentally-friendly” systems, which is believed to be primarily due to extensive pesticide use on intensive farms. In turn, to be competitive, less-intensive agricultural systems must rely on biological control of pests. Biological pest control is a complex ecosystem service that is generally positively associated with biodiversity of natural enemy guilds. Yet, we still have a limited understanding of the relationships between biodiversity and biological control in agroecosystems, and the mechanisms underlying these relationships. Here, we review the effects of agricultural intensification on the diversity of natural enemy communities attacking arthropod pests and weeds. We next discuss how biodiversity of these communities impacts pest control, and the mechanisms underlying these effects. We focus in particular on novel conceptual issues such as relationships between richness, evenness, abundance, and pest control. Moreover, we discuss novel experimental approaches that can be used to explore the relationships between biodiversity and biological control in agroecosystems. In particular, we highlight new experimental frontiers regarding evenness, realistic manipulations of biodiversity, and functional and genetic diversity. Management shifts that aim to conserve diversity while suppressing both insect and weed pests will help growers to face future challenges. Moreover, a greater understanding of the interactions between diversity components, and the mechanisms underlying biodiversity effects, would improve efforts to strengthen biological control in agroecosystems.     

A Study of Environmental Awareness and Attitudes in Ibadan,Nigeria

Biodiversity and the natural environment have suffered a huge negative impact around the world as a result of excessive exploitation by humans and the often short-sighted economic policies of national governments. Some scientists have asserted that the resolution of this problem may lie in a proper examination and understanding of human knowledge of, and attitudes toward, the environment. In this study, we examine the distribution of environmental awareness and attitudes in Ibadan, south-western Nigeria across sociodemographic categories. We found that contrary to a number of findings from studies in other parts of the world, older respondents were the most concerned about the environment and youths were not more knowledgeable than older individuals about environmental issues. Male respondents had more knowledge than females but gender did not affect other aspects of environmental attitudes. However, occupation and education both had marked effects on environmental knowledge and attitudes. Our study suggests that given the current socioeconomic situation in Nigeria, and limited knowledge of environmental issues, the most effective strategy for promoting environmentally responsible behavior and positive attitudes regarding less obvious issues such as biodiversity loss might simply be to increase exposure to straightforward messages emphasizing their relevance.     

浙江定海次生林内物种丰富度与生物量和生产力关系的环境依赖性

迄今生物多样性与生态系统功能关系的研究主要在物种组成随机配置的人工生态系统中进行, 在自然生态系统中研究较少, 且未考虑环境因子如何影响生态系统功能及其与生物多样性的关系。本研究选取亚热带广泛分布的次生林为研究对象, 利用模型拟合的方法, 探讨亚热带次生林中物种丰富度与生物量和生产力之间的关系, 以及环境因子(海拔、坡度、坡向、土层厚度)和次生林恢复时间(林龄)对生物量、生产力、物种丰富度与生物量和生产力间关系的影响。结果表明, 当不考虑环境因子时, 物种丰富度与生物量之间存在显著的线性正相关关系, 而与生产力之间存在显著的二次关系(先增加后减少的驼峰型)。当考虑环境因子时, 个体密度和土层厚度对生物量具有显著影响, 而环境因子对生产力并无显著效应。在坡度较陡、坡向朝南及土层较厚的环境条件下, 物种丰富度与生物量具有显著的线性正相关关系; 而在坡度较缓、坡向朝北及土层较薄的环境条件下, 物种丰富度不影响生物量。在较高海拔环境条件下, 生产力随物种丰富度先增加后减少(驼峰形状), 而在其他环境条件下, 生产力均不响应物种丰富度。以上结果说明自然森林生态系统中物种丰富度与生物量和生产力的关系存在差异, 且其相互间的关系依赖于环境因子。     

A socio‐ecological model for predicting impacts of land‐use and climate change on regional plant diversity in the Austrian Alps

Climate and land‐use change jointly affect the future of biodiversity. Yet, biodiversity scenarios have so far concentrated on climatic effects because forecasts of land use are rarely available at appropriate spatial and thematic scales. Agent‐based models (ABMs) represent a potentially powerful but little explored tool for establishing thematically and spatially fine‐grained land‐use scenarios. Here, we use an ABM parameterized for 1,329 agents, mostly farmers, in a Central European model region, and simulate the changes to land‐use patterns resulting from their response to three scenarios of changing socio‐economic conditions and three scenarios of climate change until the mid of the century. Subsequently, we use species distribution models to, first, analyse relationships between the realized niches of 832 plant species and climatic gradients or land‐use types, respectively, and, second, to project consequent changes in potential regional ranges of these species as triggered by changes in both the altered land‐use patterns and the changing climate. We find that both drivers determine the realized niches of the studied plants, with land use having a stronger effect than any single climatic variable in the model. Nevertheless, the plants' future distributions appear much more responsive to climate than to land‐use changes because alternative future socio‐economic backgrounds have only modest impact on land‐use decisions in the model region. However, relative effects of climate and land‐use changes on biodiversity may differ drastically in other regions, especially where landscapes are still dominated by natural or semi‐natural habitat. We conclude that agent‐based modelling of land use is able to provide scenarios at scales relevant to individual species distribution and suggest that coupling ABMs with models of species' range change should be intensified to provide more realistic biodiversity forecasts.     

Diversity effects under different nutrient addition and cutting frequency environments in experimental plant communities

The effects of biodiversity on productivity have been well studied in the past decades. However, the responses of these biodiversity effects to modern grassland managements have not been explicitly tested. By establishing a five years diversity-manipulated experiment with different cutting frequency and nutrient addition levels, we explored the changes of biodiversity effects and the underlying mechanisms under these managements. Our results showed that community biomass increased with species richness. The correlations were observed under all management regimes, but their strengths varied with management intensity. The net biodiversity effects (NE) increased with nutrient supply, but reduced with frequent cutting. These two factors also interactively influenced NE. Importantly, their influences could last 5 years or longer. The NE changes mainly resulted from the variations of complementarity effects (CE), i.e., the aboveground space partitioning of our species. However, the selection effects (SE) were minimally influenced by nutrient addition and cutting frequency, indicating that under these conditions our species had comparably competitive strength. Especially, CE increased over time in highly cutting subplots, suggesting that this relationship was condition–dependent. We conclude that biodiversity is vitally important for ecosystem functioning even when the ecosystems are disturbed by human activities, and is most effective in enhancing biomass productivity under nutrient supply and low cutting frequency conditions. Field studies with species that come from other functional groups are needed to draw a more general conclusion.     

岷山山系大熊猫自然保护区2003年生物多样性监测

岷山山系是全球生物多样性保护的热点地区之一,有着全世界最大的大熊猫种群和面积最大的大熊猫栖息地。到2003年底,在该地区已建立了20个以保护大熊猫为主的自然保护区。从2003年开始,岷山17个大熊猫自然保护区实施了野外大熊猫及其栖息地监测。通过监测,了解了岷山自然保护区野生动物分布状况、人为活动对自然保护区的干扰情况,以及自然保护区周边社区经济情况,为自然保护区管理决策提供了依据。同时,通过监测活动还提高了自然保护区工作人员的业务水平。建议今后将自然保护区监测工作纳入自然保护区日常工作中。