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Ecosystem services: From theory to implementation
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Around the world, leaders are increasingly recognizing ecosystems as natural capital assets that supply life-support services of tremendous value. The challenge is to turn this recognition into incentives and institutions that will guide wise investments in natural capital, on a large scale. Advances are required on three key fronts, each featured here: the science of ecosystem production functions and service mapping; the design of appropriate finance, policy, and governance systems; and the art of implementing these in diverse biophysical and social contexts. Scientific understanding of ecosystem production functions is improving rapidly but remains a limiting factor in incorporating natural capital into decisions, via systems of national accounting and other mechanisms. Novel institutional structures are being established for a broad array of services and places, creating a need and opportunity for systematic assessment of their scope and limitations. Finally, it is clear that formal sharing of experience, and defining of priorities for future work, could greatly accelerate the rate of innova- tion and uptake of new approaches.
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Climate-induced changes in the small mammal communities of the Northern Great Lakes Region
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We use museum and other collection records to document large and extraordinarily rapid
changes in the ranges and relative abundance of nine species of mammals in the northern
Great Lakes region (white-footed mice, woodland deer mice, southern red-backed voles,
woodland jumping mice, eastern chipmunks, least chipmunks, southern flying squirrels,
northern flying squirrels, common opossums). These species reach either the southern or
the northern limit of their distributions in this region. Changes consistently reflect
increases in species of primarily southern distribution (white-footed mice, eastern
chipmunks, southern flying squirrels, common opossums) and declines by northern
species (woodland deer mice, southern red-backed voles, woodland jumping mice, least
chipmunks, northern flying squirrels). White-footed mice and southern flying squirrels
have extended their ranges over 225 km since 1980, and at particularly well-studied sites
in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, small mammal assemblages have shifted from numerical
domination by northern species to domination by southern species. Repeated resampling
at some sites suggests that southern species are replacing northern ones rather than
simply being added to the fauna. Observed changes are consistent with predictions from
climatic warming but not with predictions based on recovery from logging or changes in
human populations. Because of the abundance of these focal species (the eight rodent
species make up 96.5% of capture records of all forest-dwelling rodents in the region and
70% of capture records of all forest-dwelling small mammals) and the dominating
ecological roles they play, these changes substantially affect the composition and
structure of forest communities. They also provide an unusually clear example of change
that is likely to be the result of climatic warming in communities that are experienced by
large numbers of people.
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Conservation threats: biofuel
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Biofuels: Europe’s largest conservation charity has launched a campaign to heighten the threat to wildlife habitats and biodiversity from plantations of fuel crops. Nigel Williams reports. 1st paragraph: Europe embraced the theoretical potential that biofuels might offer both in terms of climate change and renewable sources of energy, as enthusiastically as anywhere else, but the dawning reality has hit harder here than in many other areas with the realisation that it is a crowded continent with limited scope for home-grown material.
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Another reason for concern: regional and global impacts on ecosystems for different levels of climate change
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Between 1C and 2C increases in global mean temperatures most species, ecosystems and landscapes will be impacted and adaptive capacity will become limited. With the already ongoing high rate of climate change, the decline in biodiversity will therefore accelerate and simultaneously many ecosystem services will become less abundant.
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Impacts of mountaintop mining on terrestrial ecosystem integrity: identifying landscape thresholds for avian species in the central Appalachians, United States
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Reclaimed mine-dominated landscapes (less forest and more grassland/shrubland cover) elicited more negative (57 %) than positive (39 %) species responses. Negative thresholds for each landscape metric generally occurred at lower values than positive thresholds, thus negatively responding species were
detrimentally affected before positively responding species benefitted. Forest interior birds generally
responded negatively to landscape metric thresholds, interior edge species responses were mixed, and early
successional birds responded positively. The forest interior guild declined most at 4 % forest loss, while
the shrubland guild increased greatest after 52 % loss
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Scenarios of future land use change around United States’ protected areas
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Land use change around protected areas can diminish their conservation value, making it important to
predict future land use changes nearby. Our goal was to evaluate future land use changes around protected
areas of different types in the United States under different socioeconomic scenarios. We analyzed
econometric-based projections of future land use change to capture changes around 1260 protected
areas, including National Forests, Parks, Refuges, and Wilderness Areas, from 2001 to 2051, under different
land use policies and crop prices. Our results showed that urban expansion around protected areas
will continue to be a major threat, and expand by 67% under business-as-usual conditions.
Concomitantly, a substantial number of protected areas will lose natural vegetation in their surroundings.
National land-use policies or changes in crop prices are not likely to affect the overall pattern of land use,
but can have effects in certain regions. Discouraging urbanization through zoning, for example, can
reduce future urban pressures around National Forests and Refuges in the East, while the implementation
of an afforestation policy can increase the amount of natural vegetation around some Refuges throughout
the U.S. On the other hand, increases in crop prices can increase crop/pasture cover around some protected
areas, and limit the potential recovery of natural vegetation. Overall, our results highlight that future
land-use change around protected areas is likely to be substantial but variable among regions and
protected area types. Safeguarding the conservation value of protected areas may require serious consideration of threats and opportunities arising from future land use.
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Reconciling nature conservation and traditional farming practices: a spatially explicit framework to assess the extent of High Nature Value farmlands in the European countryside
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Over past centuries, European landscapes have been shaped by human management. Traditional, low intensity agricultural practices, adapted to local climatic, geographic, and environmental conditions, led to a rich, diverse cultural and natural heritage, reflected in a wide range of rural landscapes, most of which were preserved until the advent of industrialized agriculture (Bignal & McCracken 2000; Paracchini et al. 2010; Oppermann et al. 2012). Agricultural landscapes currently account for half of Europe’s territory (Overmars et al. 2013), with ca. 50% of all species relying on agricultural habitats at least to some extent (Kristensen 2003; Moreira et al. 2005; Halada et al. 2011). Due to their acknowledged role in the maintenance of high levels of biodiversity, low-intensity farming systems have been highlighted as critical to nature conservation and protection of the rural environment (Beaufoy et al. 1994; Paracchini et al. 2010; Halada et al.2011; Egan & Mortensen 2012).
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Forecasting the response of Earth’s surface to future climatic and land use changes: A review of methods and research needs
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In the future, Earth will be warmer, precipitation events will be more extreme, global mean
sea level will rise, and many arid and semiarid regions will be drier. Human modifications of landscapes
will also occur at an accelerated rate as developed areas increase in size and population density. We now
have gridded global forecasts, being continually improved, of the climatic and land use changes (C&LUC)
that are likely to occur in the coming decades. However, besides a few exceptions, consensus forecasts do
not exist for how these C&LUC will likely impact Earth-surface processes and hazards. In some cases, we
have the tools to forecast the geomorphic responses to likely future C&LUC. Fully exploiting these models
and utilizing these tools will require close collaboration among Earth-surface scientists and Earth-system
modelers. This paper assesses the state-of-the-art tools and data that are being used or could be used to
forecast changes in the state of Earth’s surface as a result of likely future C&LUC. We also propose strategies
for filling key knowledge gaps, emphasizing where additional basic research and/or collaboration
across disciplines are necessary. The main body of the paper addresses cross-cutting issues, including the
importance of nonlinear/threshold-dominated interactions among topography, vegetation, and sediment
transport, as well as the importance of alternate stable states and extreme, rare events for understanding
and forecasting Earth-surface response to C&LUC. Five supplements delve into different scales or process
zones (global-scale assessments and fluvial, aeolian, glacial/periglacial, and coastal process zones) in
detail.
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Stitching Together Work of LCCs across the Southeast
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The Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) is a shared, long-term vision for the conservation future of the Southeast and Caribbean region of the United States.
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21st century conservation: A vision of collaboration across landscapes
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Just one week after taking office, the Biden administration proposed an ambitious conservation agenda to stem the loss of biodiversity, enhance environmental equity and justice and curb the drivers of climate change. The agenda envisions engaging state, tribal, local and territorial officials, farmers and forest landowners, fishermen and others to conserve 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030.
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