Sensitivity of Bolivian seasonally-dry tropical forest to precipitation and temperature changes over glacial-interglacial timescales

We used fossil pollen to investigate the response of the eastern Chiquitano seasonally-dry tropical forest (SDTF), lowland Bolivia, to high-amplitude climate change associated with glacial–interglacial cycles. Changes in the structure, composition and diversity of the past vegetation are compared with palaeoclimate data previously reconstructed from the same record, and these results shed light on the biogeographic history of today’s highly disjunct blocks of SDTF across South America. We demonstrate that lower glacial temperatures limited tropical forest in the Chiquitanía region, and suggest that SDTF was absent or restricted at latitudes below 17°S, the proposed location of the majority of the hypothesized ‘Pleistocene dry forest arc’ (PDFA). At 19500 yrs b.p., warming supported the establishment of a floristically-distinct SDTF, which showed little change throughout the glacial–Holocene transition, despite a shift to significantly wetter conditions beginning ca. 12500–12200 yrs b.p. Anadenanthera colubrina, a key SDTF taxon, arrived at 10000 yrs b.p., which coincides with the onset of drought associated with an extended dry season. Lasting until 3000 yrs b.p., Holocene drought caused a floristic shift to more drought-tolerant taxa and a reduction in α-diversity (shown by declining palynological richness), but closed-canopy forest was maintained throughout. In contrast to the PDFA, the modern distribution of SDTF most likely represents the greatest spatial coverage of these forests in southern South America since glacial times. We find that temperature is a key climatic control upon the distribution of lowland South American SDTF over glacial-interglacial timescales, and seasonality of rainfall exerts a strong control on their floristic composition.

Differentiation between Neotropical rainforest, dry forest and savannah ecosystems by their modern pollen spectra and implications for the fossil pollen record

Accurate differentiation between tropical forest and savannah ecosystems in the fossil pollen record is hampered by the combination of: i) poor taxonomic resolution in pollen identification, and ii) the high species diversity of many lowland tropical families, i.e. with many different growth forms living in numerous environmental settings. These barriers to interpreting the fossil record hinder our understanding of the past distributions of different Neotropical ecosystems and consequently cloud our knowledge of past climatic, biodiversity and carbon storage patterns. Modern pollen studies facilitate an improved understanding of how ecosystems are represented by the pollen their plants produce and therefore aid interpretation of fossil pollen records. To understand how to differentiate ecosystems palynologically, it is essential that a consistent sampling method is used across ecosystems. However, to date, modern pollen studies from tropical South America have employed a variety of methodologies (e.g. pollen traps, moss polsters, soil samples). In this paper, we present the first modern pollen study from the Neotropics to examine the modern pollen rain from moist evergreen tropical forest (METF), semi-deciduous dry tropical forest (SDTF) and wooded savannah (cerradão) using a consistent sampling methodology (pollen traps). Pollen rain was sampled annually in September for the years 1999–2001 from within permanent vegetation study plots in, or near, the Noel Kempff Mercado National Park (NKMNP), Bolivia. Comparison of the modern pollen rain within these plots with detailed floristic inventories allowed estimates of the relative pollen productivity and dispersal for individual taxa to be made (% pollen/% vegetation or ‘p/v’). The applicability of these data to interpreting fossil records from lake sediments was then explored by comparison with pollen assemblages obtained from five lake surface samples.

Implementing REDD through community-based forest management: lessons from Tanzania

REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation) aims to slow carbon releases caused by forest disturbance by making payments conditional on forest quality over time. Like earlier policies to slow deforestation, REDD must change the behaviour of forest degrading actors. Broadly, it can be implemented with payments to forest users in exchange for improved forest management, thus creating incentives; through payments for enforcement, thus creating disincentives; or through addressing external drivers such as urban charcoal demand. In Tanzania, community-based forest management (CBFM), a form of participatory forest management, was chosen by the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group, a local NGO, as a model for implementing REDD pilot programmes. Payments are made to villages that have the rights to forest carbon. In exchange, the villages must demonstrably reduce deforestation at the village level. In this paper, using this pilot programme as a case study, combined with a review of the literature, we provide insights for REDD implementation in sub-Saharan Africa. We pay particular attention to leakage, monitoring and enforcement. We suggest that implementing REDD through CBFM-type structures can create appropriate incentives and behaviour change when the recipients of the REDD funds are also the key drivers of forest change. When external forces drive forest change, however, REDD through CBFM-type structures becomes an enforcement programme with local communities rather than government agencies being responsible for the enforcement. That structure imposes costs on local communities, whose local authority limits the ability to address leakage outside the particular REDD village.

Exploring socioeconomic impacts of forest based mitigation projects: Lessons from Brazil and Bolivia

This paper aims to contribute new insights globally and regionally on how carbon forest mitigation contributes to sustainable development in South America. Carbon finance has emerged as a potential policy option to tackling global climate change, degradation of forests, and social development in poor countries. This paper focuses on evaluating the socioeconomic impacts of a set of forest based mitigation pilot projects that emerged under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The paper reviews research conducted in 2001–2002, drawing from empirical data from four pilot projects, derived from qualitative stakeholder interviews, and complemented by policy documents and literature. Of the four projects studied three are located in frontier areas, where there are considerable pressures for conversion of standing forest to agriculture. In this sense, forest mitigation projects have a substantial role to play in the region. Findings suggest however, that all four projects have experienced cumbersome implementation processes specifically, due to weak social objectives, poor communication, as well as time constraints. In three out of four cases, stakeholders highlighted limited local acceptance at the implementation stages. In the light of these findings, we discuss opportunities for implementation of future forest based mitigation projects in the land use sector.

Small-scale forest carbon projects: Adapting CDM to low-income communities

Given the decision to include small-scale sinks projects implemented by low-income communities in the clean development mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, the paper explores some of the basic governance conditions that such carbon forestry projects will have to meet if they are to be successfully put in practice. To date there are no validated small-scale sinks projects and investors have shown little interest in financing such projects, possibly to due to the risks and uncertainties associated with sinks projects. Some suggest however, that carbon has the potential to become a serious commodity on the world market, thus governance over ownership, rights and responsibilities merit discussion. Drawing on the interdisciplinary development, as well as from the literature on livelihoods and democratic decentralization in forestry, the paper explores how to adapt forest carbon projects to the realities encountered in the local context. It also highlights the importance of capitalizing on synergies with other rural development strategies, ensuring stakeholder participation by working with accountable, representative local organizations, and creating flexible and adaptive project designs.

The role of sky conditions on gross primary production in a mixed deciduous forest

The role of different sky conditions on diffuse PAR fraction (ϕ), air temperature (Ta), vapor pressure deficit (vpd) and GPP in a deciduous forest is investigated using eddy covariance observations of CO2 fluxes and radiometer and ceilometer observations of sky and PAR conditions on hourly and growing season timescales. Maximum GPP response occurred under moderate to high PAR and ϕ and low vpd. Light response models using a rectangular hyperbola showed a positive linear relation between ϕ and effective quantum efficiency (α = 0.023ϕ + 0.012, r2 = 0.994). Since PAR and ϕ are negatively correlated, there is a tradeoff between the greater use efficiency of diffuse light and lower vpd and the associated decrease in total PAR available for photosynthesis. To a lesser extent, light response was also modified by vpd and Ta. The net effect of these and their relation with sky conditions helped enhance light response under sky conditions that produced higher ϕ. Six sky conditions were classified from cloud frequency and ϕ data: optically thick clouds, optically thin clouds, mixed sky (partial clouds within hour), high, medium and low optical aerosol. The frequency and light responses of each sky condition for the growing season were used to predict the role of changing sky conditions on annual GPP. The net effect of increasing frequency of thick clouds is to decrease GPP, changing low aerosol conditions has negligible effect. Increases in the other sky conditions all lead to gains in GPP. Sky conditions that enhance intermediate levels of ϕ, such as thin or scattered clouds or higher aerosol concentrations from volcanic eruptions or anthropogenic emissions, will have a positive outcome on annual GPP, while an increase in cloud cover will have a negative impact. Due to the ϕ/PAR tradeoff and since GPP response to changes in individual sky conditions differ in sign and magnitude, the net response of ecosystem GPP to future sky conditions is non-linear and tends toward moderation of change.

Progress in the genetics of common obesity and type 2 diabetes

The prevalence of obesity and diabetes, which are heritable traits that arise from the interactions of multiple genes and lifestyle factors, continues to rise worldwide, causing serious health problems and imposing a substantial economic burden on societies. For the past 15 years, candidate gene and genome-wide linkage studies have been the main genetic epidemiological approaches to identify genetic loci for obesity and diabetes, yet progress has been slow and success limited. The genome-wide association approach, which has become available in recent years, has dramatically changed the pace of gene discoveries. Genome-wide association is a hypothesis-generating approach that aims to identify new loci associated with the disease or trait of interest. So far, three waves of large-scale genome-wide association studies have identified 19 loci for common obesity and 18 for common type 2 diabetes. Although the combined contribution of these loci to the variation in obesity and diabetes risk is small and their predictive value is typically low, these recently identified loci are set to substantially improve our insights into the pathophysiology of obesity and diabetes. This will require integration of genetic epidemiological methods with functional genomics and proteomics. However, the use of these novel insights for genetic screening and personalised treatment lies some way off in the future.

The genetics of diabetes mellitus

Genes play an important role in the development of diabetes mellitus. Putative susceptibility genes could be the key to the development of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. A combination of genetic and environmental factors is most likely the cause of Type 1 diabetes. The pathogenetic sequence leading to the selective autoimmune destruction of islet beta-cells and development of Type 1 diabetes involves genetic factors, environmental factors, immune regulation and chemical mediators. Unlike Type 1 diabetes mellitus, Type 2 diabetes is often considered a polygenic disorder with multiple genes located on different chromosomes being associated with this condition. This is further complicated by numerous environmental factors which also contribute to the clinical manifestation of the disorder in genetically predisposed persons. Only a minority of cases of type 2 diabetes are caused by single gene defects such as maturity onset diabetes of the young (MODY), syndrome of insulin resistance (insulin receptor defect) and maternally inherited diabetes and deafness (mitochondrial gene defect). Although Type 2 diabetes mellitus appears in almost epidemic proportions our knowledge of the mechanism of this disease is limited. More information about insulin secretion and action and the genetic variability of the various factors involved will contribute to better understanding and classification of this group of diseases. This article discusses the results of various genetic studies on diabetes with special reference to Indian population.

Evidence of increased net ecosystem productivity associated with a longer vegetated season in a deciduous forest in south-central Indiana, USA

Observations of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of carbon and its biophysical drivers have been collected at the AmeriFlux site in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest (MMSF) in Indiana, USA since 1998. Thus, this is one of the few deciduous forest sites in the world, where a decadal analysis on net ecosystem productivity (NEP) trends is possible. Despite the large interannual variability in NEP, the observations show a significant increase in forest productivity over the past 10 years (by an annual increment of about 10 g C m−2 yr−1). There is evidence that this trend can be explained by longer vegetative seasons, caused by extension of the vegetative activity in the fall. Both phenological and flux observations indicate that the vegetative season extended later in the fall with an increase in length of about 3 days yr−1 for the past 10 years. However, these changes are responsible for only 50% of the total annual gain in forest productivity in the past decade. A negative trend in air and soil temperature during the winter months may explain an equivalent increase in NEP through a decrease in ecosystem respiration.

An assessment of observed vertical flux divergence in long-term eddy-covariance measurements over two Midwestern forest ecosystems

Vertical divergence of CO2 fluxes is observed over two Midwestern AmeriFlux forest sites. The differences in ensemble averaged hourly CO2 fluxes measured at two heights above canopy are relatively small (0.2–0.5 μmol m−2 s−1), but they are the major contributors to differences (76–256 g C m−2 or 41.8–50.6%) in estimated annual net ecosystem exchange (NEE) in 2001. A friction velocity criterion is used in these estimates but mean flow advection is not accounted for. This study examines the effects of coordinate rotation, averaging time period, sampling frequency and co-spectral correction on CO2 fluxes measured at a single height, and on vertical flux differences measured between two heights. Both the offset in measured vertical velocity and the downflow/upflow caused by supporting tower structures in upwind directions lead to systematic over- or under-estimates of fluxes measured at a single height. An offset of 1 cm s−1 and an upflow/downflow of 1° lead to 1% and 5.6% differences in momentum fluxes and nighttime sensible heat and CO2 fluxes, respectively, but only 0.5% and 2.8% differences in daytime sensible heat and CO2 fluxes. The sign and magnitude of both offset and upflow/downflow angle vary between sonic anemometers at two measurement heights. This introduces a systematic and large bias in vertical flux differences if these effects are not corrected in the coordinate rotation. A 1 h averaging time period is shown to be appropriate for the two sites. In the daytime, the absolute magnitudes of co-spectra decrease with height in the natural frequencies of 0.02–0.1 Hz but increase in the lower frequencies (<0.01 Hz). Thus, air motions in these two frequency ranges counteract each other in determining vertical flux differences, whose magnitude and sign vary with averaging time period. At night, co-spectral densities of CO2 are more positive at the higher levels of both sites in the frequency range of 0.03–0.4 Hz and this vertical increase is also shown at most frequencies lower than 0.03 Hz. Differences in co-spectral corrections at the two heights lead to a positive shift in vertical CO2 flux differences throughout the day at both sites. At night, the vertical CO2 flux differences between two measurement heights are 20–30% and 40–60% of co-spectral corrected CO2 fluxes measured at the lower levels of the two sites, respectively. Vertical differences of CO2 flux are relatively small in the daytime. Vertical differences in estimated mean vertical advection of CO2 between the two measurement heights generally do not improve the closure of the 1D (vertical) CO2 budget in the air layer between the two measurement heights. This may imply the significance of horizontal advection. However, a reliable assessment of mean advection contributions in annual NEE estimate at these two AmeriFlux sites is currently an unsolved problem.

Nocturnal cooling below a forest canopy: Model and evaluation

Nocturnal cooling of air within a forest canopy and the resulting temperature profile may drive local thermally driven motions, such as drainage flows, which are believed to impact measurements of ecosystem–atmosphere exchange. To model such flows, it is necessary to accurately predict the rate of cooling. Cooling occurs primarily due to radiative heat loss. However, much of the radiative loss occurs at the surface of canopy elements (leaves, branches, and boles of trees), while radiative divergence in the canopy air space is small due to high transmissivity of air. Furthermore, sensible heat exchange between the canopy elements and the air space is slow relative to radiative fluxes. Therefore, canopy elements initially cool much more quickly than the canopy air space after the switch from radiative gain during the day to radiative loss during the night. Thus in modeling air cooling within a canopy, it is not appropriate to neglect the storage change of heat in the canopy elements or even to assume equal rates of cooling of the canopy air and canopy elements. Here a simple parameterization of radiatively driven cooling of air within the canopy is presented, which accounts implicitly for radiative cooling of the canopy volume, heat storage in the canopy elements, and heat transfer between the canopy elements and the air. Simulations using this parameterization are compared to temperature data from the Morgan–Monroe State Forest (IN, USA) FLUXNET site. While the model does not perfectly reproduce the measured rates of cooling, particularly near the top of the canopy, the simulated cooling rates are of the correct order of magnitude.

Distance from forest edge affects bee pollinators in oilseed rape fields

Wild pollinators have been shown to enhance the pollination of Brassica napus(oilseed rape) and thus increase its market value. Several studies have previously shown that pollination services are greater in crops adjoining forest patches or other seminatural habitats than in crops completely surrounded by other crops. In this study, we investigated the specific importance of forest edges in providing potential pollinators in B. napus fields in two areas in France. Bees were caught with yellow pan traps at increasing distances from both warm and cold forest edges into B. napus fields during the blooming period. A total of 4594 individual bees, representing six families and 83 taxa, were collected. We found that both bee abundance and taxa richness were negatively affected by the distance from forest edge. However, responses varied between bee groups and edge orientations. The ITD (Inter-Tegular distance) of the species, a good proxy for bee foraging range, seems to limit how far the bees can travel from the forest edge. We found a greater abundance of cuckoo bees (Nomada spp.) of Andrena spp. and Andrena spp. males at forest edges, which we assume indicate suitable nesting sites, or at least mating sites, for some abundant Andrena species and their parasites (Fig. 1). Synthesis and Applications. This study provides one of the first examples in temperate ecosystems of how forest edges may actually act as a reservoir of potential pollinators and directly benefit agricultural crops by providing nesting or mating sites for important early spring pollinators. Policymakers and land managers should take forest edges into account and encourage their protection in the agricultural matrix to promote wild bees and their pollination services.

A niche-based framework to assess current monitoring of European forest birds and guide indicator species' selection

Concern that European forest biodiversity is depleted and declining has provoked widespread efforts to improve management practices. To gauge the success of these actions, appropriate monitoring of forest ecosystems is paramount. Multi-species indicators are frequently used to assess the state of biodiversity and its response to implemented management, but generally applicable and objective methodologies for species' selection are lacking. Here we use a niche-based approach, underpinned by coarse quantification of species' resource use, to objectively select species for inclusion in a pan-European forest bird indicator. We identify both the minimum number of species required to deliver full resource coverage and the most sensitive species' combination, and explore the trade-off between two key characteristics, sensitivity and redundancy, associated with indicators comprising different numbers of species. We compare our indicator to an existing forest bird indicator selected on the basis of expert opinion and show it is more representative of the wider community. We also present alternative indicators for regional and forest type specific monitoring and show that species' choice can have a significant impact on the indicator and consequent projections about the state of the biodiversity it represents. Furthermore, by comparing indicator sets drawn from currently monitored species and the full forest bird community, we identify gaps in the coverage of the current monitoring scheme. We believe that adopting this niche-based framework for species' selection supports the objective development of multi-species indicators and that it has good potential to be extended to a range of habitats and taxa.