The areas of the ocean that lie beyond national jurisdiction limits, also called the high seas, are vulnerable to human activities and currently underrepresented when compared to terrestrial and nearshore1 marine environments under protection. Thus, there is a growing movement among the conservation community to increase measures, such as marine protected areas, that can ensure protection of the largely undiscovered but important biodiversity of the high seas.
Resource Type: ReportsWe generated biodiversity surfaces for both present-day and pre-human landscapes to map spatial patterns of change in a diverse ecological community to calculate the combined biodiversity impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation that accounts for the exact spatial pattern of deforestation. Our spatially-explicit, landscape-scale index of community change shows how the fine-scale configuration of habitat loss sums across a landscape to determine changes in biodiversity at a larger spatial scale. After accounting for naturally occurring within-forest heterogeneity, we estimate that the conversion of 43% of forest to grassland in a 1300 km2 landscape in New Zealand resulted in a 47% change to the beetle community.
Resource Type: Journal PapersThe ability of coral reefs to survive in a globally-warming world may crucially depend on the levels of pollution to which they are exposed, new findings indicate.
Scientists studying reefs that were bleached in the late 1990s by high surface sea temperatures have found a link between recovery rates and the levels of contamination entering coastal waters from developments on the land.
Resource Type: ReportsWith a view to the future, the book points the reader to the Mountain Biodiversity Portal (http://www.mountainbiodiversity.org) that has just been launched by the GMBA and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). This tool has the potential to greatly facilitate access to mountain biodiversity data because it allows users to find GBIF data for specific elevational and thermal belts within their region of interest. A very similar tool already allows users of the World Database on Protected Areas (http://www.wdpa.org) to find GBIF data for a protected area of interest. Thanks to these collaborative efforts, researchers will increasingly get the data they require without the need to carry out time-consuming overlays of species and other data sets for their region of interest. The GMBA/GBIF Mountain Biodiversity Portal is a fine example for the technical possibilities of our time and will certainly help to further stimulate the creative use of georeferenced biodiversity data promoted by this book.
Resource Type: Journal PapersThe range of information on biodiversity currently available via the Internet is reviewed and its accessibility, usefulness and relevance to biodiversity research and to policy decision making assessed. Commercial and non-commercial databases are reviewed. The future of information via the net is also reviewed, in particular the role of the `Clearing House Mechanism' of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Biodiversity Conservation Information System.
Resource Type: Journal PapersAs the importance of mountain spaces is more widely recogised, it seems necessary to establish a coherent definition of these spaces. The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) proposed the first global delineation in 2000. However, certain European countries have used national definitions of mountain spaces since the 1950s. Within the framework of social and economic integration policies at the heart of the European Union, an agreed delineation of European mountain spaces has been established, based on the definition proposed by UNEP-WCMC. The process of adaptation of the global definition to the European context is described, as well as the results for 29 European countries.
Resource Type: Journal PapersChapter from Biodiversity Loss & Conservation in Fragmented Forest Landscapes. The Forests of Montane Mexico and South America.
Resource Type: ReportsThe deep sea is the oldest and largest biome on Earth, yet we have little knowledge of the ecosystems and processes in these dark, hidden depths. Only in the last two decades have new technologies enabled scientists to start exploring this last frontier – and their discoveries are fascinating but alarming: the deep sea is teeming with life but is already showing clear signs of anthropogenic impacts despite its remoteness. Many vulnerable deep-sea habitats and communities are being destroyed by fishing and are under threat from increasing exploitation of their mineral and living resources.
Resource Type: ReportsWe made a complete survey of all the extant populations in Djibouti and to collect samples for genetic analysis with a view conserving the palm for the future.
Our survey revealed that there were a total of 314 adults, 20 juveniles, 134 rosettes, 210 small rosettes (more than 6 leaves) and 465 seedlings (<3 leaves) living in the Bankouale area of Djibouti. These are distributed unequally amongst three valley systems. 65% of the adults, 85% of the juveniles, 75% of the rosettes, 76% of the small rosettes, and 93 % of the seedlings were found in the Bankouale valley.
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