Determinants of native avian richness in suburban remnant vegetation : implications for conservation planning

While urban areas are increasingly recognized as having potential value for biodiversity conservation, the relationship between biodiversity and the structure and configuration of the urban landscape is poorly understood. In this study we surveyed birds in 39 remnant patches of native vegetation of various sizes (range 1–107 ha) embedded in the suburban matrix in Melbourne, Australia. The total richness of species within remnants was strongly associated with the size of remnants. Remnant-reliant species displayed a much stronger response to remnant area than matrix-tolerant species indicating the importance of large remnants in maintaining representative bird assemblages. Large remnants are important for other ecological groups of species including migratory species, ground foraging birds and canopy foraging birds. Other landscape (e.g. amount of riparian vegetation) and structural components (e.g. shrub cover) of remnants have a lesser role in determining the richness of individual remnants. This research provides conservation managers and planners with a hierarchical process to reserve design and management in order to conserve the highest richness of native species within urban areas. First of all, conservation efforts should preferentially focus on the retention of larger remnants of native vegetation. Second, where possible, riparian vegetation should be included within reserves or, where it is already present, should be carefully managed to ensure its integrity. Third, efforts should be focused at maintaining appropriate habitat and vegetation structure and complexity.

Impact of vegetation and preferential source areas on global dust aerosol: results from a model study

[1] We present a model of the dust cycle that successfully predicts dust emissions as determined by land surface properties, monthly vegetation and snow cover, and 6-hourly surface wind speeds for the years 1982–1993. The model takes account of the role of dry lake beds as preferential source areas for dust emission. The occurrence of these preferential sources is determined by a water routing and storage model. The dust source scheme also explicitly takes into account the role of vegetation type as well as monthly vegetation cover. Dust transport is computed using assimilated winds for the years 1987–1990. Deposition of dust occurs through dry and wet deposition, where subcloud scavenging is calculated using assimilated precipitation fields. Comparison of simulated patterns of atmospheric dust loading with the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer satellite absorbing aerosol index shows that the model produces realistic results from daily to interannual timescales. The magnitude of dust deposition agrees well with sediment flux data from marine sites. Emission of submicron dust from preferential source areas are required for the computation of a realistic dust optical thickness. Sensitivity studies show that Asian dust source strengths are particularly sensitive to the seasonality of vegetation cover.

The relationship between native vegetation and in-stream salinity: An Australian case study

The Glenelg-Hopkins area is a large regional watershed (2.6 million ha) in southwest Victoria that has been extensively cleared for agriculture. In-stream electrical conductivity (EC) in relation to remnant native vegetation is examined from the headwaters to the upper extent of the estuary of the Glenelg River. Five water quality gauging stations were selected. Their contributing subcatchments represent a continuum of disturbance. Proportions of native vegetation ranged from ∼100% at the headwaters of the river to ∼30% at the furthest downstream gauge station. The relationship between remnant vegetation and in-stream EC was examined using aggregated and non-aggregated land use statistics over a period of 22 years from three land use maps. Increased proportions of native vegetation were significantly negatively correlated with in-stream EC and were consistent across all scenarios investigated.

Assessing the dynamic of structural changes in Cerrado vegetation of protected and non-protected areas using NDVI

The structure of Brazilian savannah, named locally as “cerrado”, tends to change if the human pressures, such as pasture and intensive fire, are suppressed showing a densification of the physiognomies throughout the time. Vegetation Index acquired from remotely sensed data has been a proper way to study and monitoring large areas, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is one of the most used for this purpose. The aim of this study was to assess the dynamic of structural changes in protected and non-protected areas of cerrado vegetation using NDVI. For this purpose, three cerrado fragments in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, were evaluated for a 26 year time span from 1985 and 2011, being two of them protected against anthropogenic interference. Landsat 5 –Thematic Mapper images were used and processed in ArcGIS. In the protected areas NDVI indicated that the vegetation followed the expected trend of changes for cerrado, with more open physiognomies tending to be denser throughout this period of 26 years, whereas in the non-protected fragment the NDVI evidences human pressure, showing lower phytomass in 2011. NDVI showed to be efficient in detecting and monitoring changes in cerrado vegetation structure, and can be useful to study both, the natural dynamics of cerrado vegetation and the anthropogenic interference in protected areas.

The revision of the Brazilian Forest Act: increased deforestation or a historic step towards balancing agricultural development and nature conservation?

Almost two-thirds of the Brazilian territory still has prevalence of natural vegetation. Although not all pristine, much of these areas have high conservation value. 170 million hectare (Mha) of the natural vegetation is located within Federal and State protected areas. Most of the remaining 367 Mha is on private agriculture lands, where the Forest Act is the most important legal framework for conservation. In July 2010, the Brazilian parliament began the analysis of a substitutive legislation for the Forest Act. The main motivations for the revision is that, on the one hand, it has been found ineffective in protecting natural vegetation, and on the other hand, it is perceived as a barrier against development in the agriculture sector. The substitutive Forest Act, as it presently stands, does not represent a balance between existing standpoints and objectives; it may drive development towards either more private protection through market-driven compensation actions, or increased deforestation and less nature protection/restoration. This article uses outcomes from modeling analyses to discuss weaknesses of the substitutive Forest Act and to suggest possible improvements. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Linking Landscape Protection and Nature Conservation: Switzerland’s Experience with Protected Mire Landscapes

Since 1987, Switzerland’s Federal Inventory of Mire Landscapes of Particular Beauty and National Importance has provided an instrument for the integration of nature conservation and landscape protection. Mires and mire landscape protection are strictly regulated. However, research results show that neither the goals of mire protection nor those of mire landscape protection are being achieved. The reasons for this are manifold and, in particular, have to do with a lack of coordination between the various policy areas that shape mire environments and mire landscapes. There are several key challenges involving different political and administrative levels. At the national level, mechanisms must be devised that enable differentiated regional implementation of national sectoral policies. In the context of cantonal structure planning, regional nature conservation and landscape protection priorities should be established based on existing regional potentials vis-à-vis the natural environment and landscapes (including protected biotopes and landscapes). At the regional level (spanning multiple communes), integrated planning instruments and governance structures should be developed so that implementation of national and cantonal sectoral policies may be harmonized under the umbrella of regional and integrated development plans. These adjustments to Switzerland’s institutional system are necessary to enable far-reaching integration of nature conservation and landscape protection when setting regional policy priorities. This would strengthen the protection of mire landscapes and other integrative instruments such as regional nature parks of national importance.

Trees as Tools in Environmental Improvement; An Analysis of the Contribution of Vegetation to Energy and Water Conservation in the Front Range of Colorado

The Denver metropolitan area is facing rapid population growth that increases the stress on already limited resources. Research and advanced computer modeling show that trees, especially those in urban areas, have significant environmental benefits. These benefits include air quality improvements, energy savings, greenhouse gas reduction, and possible water conservation. This Capstone Project applies statistical methods to analyze a small data set of residential homes and their energy and water consumption, as a function of their individual landscape. Results indicate that tree shade can influence water conservation, and that irrigation methods can be an influential factor as well. The Capstone is a preliminary analysis for future study to be performed by the Institute for Environmental Solutions in 2007.

Territorial and demographic aspects of the Networks of Protected Natural Areas of Castilla-La Mancha: 1978-2014

The Autonomous Region of Castilla-La Mancha develops from the approval of the Spanish Constitution a whole executive and legislative branch to implement its policies on environmental protection. The new legislation (Law 9/1999, of 26 May) has pursued the conservation and the integral protection of the natural elements of the territory demanding to new criteria as such the environmental quality of ecosystems or the exceptional landscape. The spread and the declaration of new natural spaces have caused a double geographical and territorial model. First, natural spaces located in rural mountainous areas with depopulation and aging problems. And second, natural spaces situated in areas densely populated

Species-based and community-level approaches to conservation prioritization

One major reason for the global decline of biodiversity is habitat loss and fragmentation. Conservation areas can be designed to reduce biodiversity loss, but as resources are limited, conservation efforts need to be prioritized in order to achieve best possible outcomes. The field of systematic conservation planning developed as a response to opportunistic approaches to conservation that often resulted in biased representation of biological diversity. The last two decades have seen the development of increasingly sophisticated methods that account for information about biodiversity conservation goals (benefits), economical considerations (costs) and socio-political constraints. In this thesis I focus on two general topics related to systematic conservation planning. First, I address two aspects of the question about how biodiversity features should be valued. (i) I investigate the extremely important but often neglected issue of differential prioritization of species for conservation. Species prioritization can be based on various criteria, and is always goal-dependent, but can also be implemented in a scientifically more rigorous way than what is the usual practice. (ii) I introduce a novel framework for conservation prioritization, which is based on continuous benefit functions that convert increasing levels of biodiversity feature representation to increasing conservation value using the principle that more is better. Traditional target-based systematic conservation planning is a special case of this approach, in which a step function is used for the benefit function. We have further expanded the benefit function framework for area prioritization to address issues such as protected area size and habitat vulnerability. In the second part of the thesis I address the application of community level modelling strategies to conservation prioritization. One of the most serious issues in systematic conservation planning currently is not the deficiency of methodology for selection and design, but simply the lack of data. Community level modelling offers a surrogate strategy that makes conservation planning more feasible in data poor regions. We have reviewed the available community-level approaches to conservation planning. These range from simplistic classification techniques to sophisticated modelling and selection strategies. We have also developed a general and novel community level approach to conservation prioritization that significantly improves on methods that were available before. This thesis introduces further degrees of realism into conservation planning methodology. The benefit function -based conservation prioritization framework largely circumvents the problematic phase of target setting, and allowing for trade-offs between species representation provides a more flexible and hopefully more attractive approach to conservation practitioners. The community-level approach seems highly promising and should prove valuable for conservation planning especially in data poor regions. Future work should focus on integrating prioritization methods to deal with multiple aspects in combination influencing the prioritization process, and further testing and refining the community level strategies using real, large datasets.

Efficacy of sod removal in regenerating fen vegetation for the conservation of the marsh fritillary butterfly Euphydryas aurinia, Montiaghs Moss Nature Reserve, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

The efficacy of ‘sod removal’ as a fenland restoration technique was tested using an experimental approach at Montiaghs Moss Nature Reserve, Northern Ireland, from 2006 to 2008. The site suffered from rank growth of purple moor-grass Molinia caerulea which was out-competing herbaceous species. Soil was removed up to a depth of 15 cm completely denuding vegetation in the experimental plot exposing bare peat. By July 2007, 15.2% of sod-removal areas were revegetated; by October 2008 cover had risen to 64.6%. Of this cover, purple moor-grass accounted for only 9-11% compared to 78- 79% on control plots. Cover of other rank-forming grass species was also significantly reduced. Sod removal significantly increased the cover of species characteristic of fenlands including sedges Carex spp., rushes Juncus spp., marsh pennywort Hydrocotyle vulgaris and lesser spearwort Ranunculus flammula. It seems likely that sod removal, which lowered the surface of the peat, restored minerotrophic conditions and exposed the historical seed bank stimulating regeneration of some fenland specialists and pioneer species; this resulted in significantly higher species richness on sod removal plots than control plots two years after treatment. There was no demonstrable effect of sod removal on abundance of devil’s-bit scabious Succisa pratensis, the larval food plant of the Annex II listed marsh fritillary butterfly Euphydryas aurinia. We recommend that consideration should be given to artificially seeding devil’s-bit scabious soon after sod removal treatment to promote early recolonisation and to increase plant abundance on the site.

Multiple diversity measures to identify complementary conservation areas for the Baja California peninsular cacti

The Baja California Peninsula is home to 85 species of cacti, of which 54 are endemic, highlighting its importance as a cactus diverse region within Mexico. Many species are under threat due to collection pressure and habitat loss, but ensuring maximal protection of cacti species requires a better understanding of diversity patterns. We assessed species richness, endemism, and phylogenetic and morphological diversity using herbarium records and a molecular phylogeny for 82 species of cacti found in the peninsula. The four diversity measures were estimated for the existing nature reserve network and for 314 hexagrids of 726 km2. Using the hexagrid data, we surveyed our results for areas that best complement the current protected cacti diversity in the Baja California Peninsula. Currently, the natural reserve network in Baja shelters an important amount of the cacti diversity (74% of the species, 85.9% of the phylogenetic diversity, 76% of endemics and all the growth forms). While species richness produced several solutions to complement the diversity protected, by identifying priority species (endemic species with high contribution to overall PD) one best solution is reported. Three areas (San Matías, Magdalena and Margarita Islands and El Triunfo), selected using species richness, PD and endemism, best complement the diversity currently protected, increasing species richness to 89%, PD to 94% and endemism to 89%, and should be considered in future conservation plans. Two of these areas could be included within nature reserves already established.

Urban conservation areas and sustainable development: exploring the relationship

With increasing emphasis being placed on concentrating development in urban areas and improving the quality of life in British cities and towns, the importance of accommodating necessary development without compromising the valued heritage and architectural quality of urban areas is now becoming central to sustainable urban development. Urban conservation policy and practice has the potential to contribute to this and other aspects of sustainability. This paper explores this contribution and develops an analytical framework which draws out the key linkages between conservation area policy and sustainable development. The framework is then used to research the potential and actual contribution of urban conservation policy and practice in England, using a selective survey and two case studies (i.e. Winchester and Basingstoke). The main conclusions from the research are that: Conservation area policy can make a significant contribution to the principles of sustainable development; Most local planning authorities in England have not fully woken-up to this potential and have not developed policies or practices to address it; and Urban conservation policy needs to develop a more proactive approach in which local planning authorities actively guide and encourage new development with regard to use, design, layout, methods of construction, materials and energy efficiency.