Academic Articles November 4th

Source: Rotten river: life on one of the world’s most polluted waterways – photo essay


The latest academic papers on conservation. If you have a paper that you would like to share, please get in contact with us. Click on the title to follow the link to each article. Please note that some of these articles are behind a paywall.

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Large Chinese land carbon sink estimated from atmospheric carbon dioxide data

  • Source: Nature
  • Author(s): Jing Wang et al.
  • Limiting the rise in global mean temperatures relies on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and on the removal of CO2 by land carbon sinks. Understanding of Chinese land biosphere fluxes has been hampered by sparse data coverage which has resulted in a wide range of a posteriori estimates of flux…

Consider divergent regional perspectives to enhance wildlife conservation across Africa

  • Source: Nature Ecology and Evolution
  • Author(s): Hans Bauer et al.
  • In African wildlife conservation literature, southern and southeastern African voices dominate, giving a false impression of pan-Africanism. We present divergent perspectives from West, Central and the Horn of Africa and argue that empathy towards multiple perspectives offers increased resilience to COVID-19 and other crises…

Wildlife Tourism in Reintroduction Projects: Exploring Social and Economic Benefits of Beaver in Local Settings

  • Source: Journal for Nature Conservation
  • Author(s): Roger Auster, Stewart Barr, Richard Brazier
  • Through a case study of a village in the catchment of a live reintroduction project (Eurasian beaver in England) we reveal how reintroduced species tourism has economic benefit for local business, but the scale of benefit is dependent upon business initiatives that take the opportunity…

Remote spectral detection of biodiversity effects on forest biomass

  • Source: Nature Ecology and Evolution
  • Author(s): Laura Williams et al.
  • Quantifying how biodiversity affects ecosystem functions through time over large spatial extents is needed for meeting global biodiversity goals yet is infeasible with field-based approaches alone. Imaging spectroscopy is a tool with potential to help address this challenge…

Future impacts of climate change on inland Ramsar wetlands

  • Source: Nature Climate Change
  • Author(s): Yi Xi, Shushi Peng, Philippe Ciais, Youhua Chen 
  • The 1971 Ramsar Convention promotes wetland conservation worldwide, yet climate change impacts on wetland extent and associated biodiversity are unclear. Hydrological modelling and soil moisture estimates are used to quantify climate change-driven shifts in wetland area across 1,250 inland Ramsar sites…

Manipulating plant community composition to steer efficient N‐cycling in intensively managed grasslands

  • Source: Journal of Applied Ecology
  • Author(s): Diego Abalos et al.
  • Minimizing nitrogen losses and increasing plant N uptake in agroecosystems is a major global challenge. Ecological concepts from (semi)natural grasslands suggest that manipulating plant community composition using plants species with different traits may represent a promising opportunity…

Natural and anthropogenic correlates of habitat use by wild ungulates in Shuklaphanta National Park, Nepal

  • Source: Global Ecology and Conservation
  • Author(s): Sabhyata Lamichhane, Gopal Khanal, Jhamak Karki, Chandramani Aryal, Suman Acharya
  • Wild ungulate herbivores are crucial for maintaining terrestrial ecosystems and restoring population of top predators like tiger. Thus, it is essential to understand wild ungulates-habitat relationships to devise an effective strategy to conserve their population and top predators like tiger that depend on them…

Aboveground tree carbon stocks in West African semi-arid ecosystems: Dominance patterns, size class allocation and structural drivers

  • Source: Global Ecology and Conservation
  • Author(s): Sylvanus Mensah, Florent Noulèkoun, Expédit Ago
  • The importance of terrestrial ecosystems for carbon sequestration and climate regulation is acknowledged globally. However, the underlying structural drivers are still not well understood, particularly across distinct tropical forest ecosystems where trees species…

Living in seasonally dynamic farmland: The role of natural and semi-natural habitats in the movements and habitat selection of a declining bird

  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): R. Tarjuelo et al.
  • Understanding spatiotemporal variations of movements and habitat selection by animals living in changing, heterogeneous environments under increasing human pressure is crucial for biodiversity conservation. We report here on shifts in habitat selection and movements of the pin-tailed sandgrouse…

Landscapes of coexistence: generating predictive risk models to mitigate human-raptor conflicts in forest socio-ecosystems

  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): Rocío Almuna, J. Cruz, F. Vargas, José Tomás Ibarra
  • The Andean temperate region of Chile is a Global Biodiversity Hotspot where diurnal raptors co-inhabit with humans in rural areas. Here, complaints from farmers on raptor attacks on poultry have steadily increased; however, there is no empirical information about the conflict…

Designing wildlife-vehicle conflict observation systems to inform ecology and transportation studies

  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): Fraser Shilling et al.
  • Globally, wildlife-vehicle conflict (WVC) fragments wildlife populations, kills and injures individual animals, can cause wildlife population declines, and may eventually contribute to local or total extinction of certain species. Preventing WVC begins with recording locations of conflict, such as vehicle crashes, animal carcasses (roadkill), or animal behavior around roads, such as avoidance of roads or crossing-behavior…

Using an occupancy approach to identify poaching hotspots in protected areas in a seasonally dry tropical forest

  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): Douglasde Dias, Átilla Ferreguetti, Flávio Rodrigues
  • Poaching activity has been described in the literature as harmful due to impacts on biodiversity, especially in protected areas. Although the main reason for this activity is subsistence, in many regions motivation goes beyond the limits of food necessity…

On the conservation value of historic canals for aquatic ecosystems

  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): Hsien-Yung Lin, Steven Cooke, Christian Wolter, Nathan Young, Joseph Bennett
  • While fragmentation and habitat loss due to water infrastructure threaten freshwater biodiversity worldwide, historic canals have the potential to contribute to both cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation…

Conservation, wildlife crime, and tough-on-crime policies: Lessons from the criminological literature

  • Source: Biological Conservation
  • Author(s): Lauren Wilson, Rachel Boratto
  • As wildlife crime increasingly threatens global biodiversity, many conservation scientists and practitioners have turned to aggressive land management and criminal justice strategies, particularly use-of-force policies in protected areas and punitive sentencing laws for violations. However, evaluative studies on “tough-on-crime” sentencing policies generally support the conclusion that…

The water, energy, and land footprint of tilapia aquaculture in mexico, a comparison of the footprints of fish and meat

  • Source: Resources, Conservation and Recycling
  • Author(s): P. Guzmán-Luna, P.W. Gerbens-Leenes, S.D.Vaca-Jiménezbc
  • Aquaculture requires natural resources and causes freshwater pollution due to aquafeed, fertilizer, and hormone use. This study assesses the sustainability of aquaculture using the indicators water footprint (WF), energy footprint (EF) and land footprint (LF), comparing results with livestock…

Towards a global-scale soil climate mitigation strategy

  • Source: Nature Communications
  • Author(s): W. Amelung et al.
  • Sustainable soil carbon sequestration practices need to be rapidly scaled up and implemented to contribute to climate change mitigation. We highlight that the major potential for carbon sequestration is in cropland soils, especially those with…

A global coral reef probability map generated using convolutional neural networks

  • Source: Coral Reefs
  • Author(s): Jiwei Li et al.
  • Coral reef research and management efforts can be improved when supported by reef maps providing local-scale details across global extents. However, such maps are difficult to generate due to the broad geographic range of coral reefs, the complexities of relating satellite imagery to geomorphic or ecological realities, and other challenges. However, reef extent maps are one of the most commonly used and most valuable data products from the perspective of…

The value of time‐series data for conservation planning

  • Source: Journal of Applied Ecology
  • Author(s): Isabel García‐Barón et al.
  • Protected areas (PAs) are increasingly being used worldwide for the conservation and management of wildlife. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) aims at ensuring biodiversity persistence while minimizing the threats faced by the species and/or the economic costs related to protection….

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