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Category: Ecosystems

  • Insect Communities Decimated By Forest Destruction

    While the researchers found no clear association between ant functional groups and the level of habitat degradation, all functional groups for termites were observed less frequently in the oil palm plantation and the logged forest than in the old growth forest. It may be that termites are much more dependent on old-growth forests than ants, perhaps given their dependence on cellulose found in the soil or plants.

  • What Became Of The Animals Of The Sargasso Sea?

    At first glance, the animals that live in Sargassum rafts seem isolated from the rest of the world. But, like the seaweed they live in, these animal communities have many links to larger ocean food webs. For example, Sargassum animals provide essential food for sea birds, sea turtles, and bluefin tuna — all long-distance migrators. In fact, Sargassum rafts have been designated as “essential fish habitat” by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

  • Will Climate Change Turn Rain Forests Into Impoverished Savannas?

    We are in a good moment in terms of transforming land-use change in the tropics … but in the present there are areas in the Amazon in which a repeated cycle of deforestation, regrowth and fire has led to a landscape that is highly degraded,

  • Tree Rings Reveal Marine Ecosystem History

    By comparing the tree-ring data to the fish and seabird statistics, the researchers found that years with weak upwelling and lots of tree growth correlated with years when fish and seabird populations suffered.

  • Recognizing Land Rights Of Indigenous Peoples Protects Habitats

    The document, produced by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and the Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education, warned that growing pressure for land and resources was threatening the long-term future of communities that depended on tropical forests for their livelihoods.

  • Modern forests hold signs of prehistoric apocalypse

    When a 10-kilometer-wide object slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago, it created an ecological catastrophe. In the ensuing environmental chaos, dinosaurs died out but mammals survived, setting the stage for the modern world. Now, scientists have confirmed that the plant kingdom suffered similar disparities after the impact

  • Mapping The Trees For The Forest

    The work we’re doing can help put an economic value on forests. Policymakers and economists want to know forest carbon stocks at very fine spatial scales, and countries naturally need to improve their assessment of stocks to participate in a forest carbon market. This is a high-stakes game in the policy realm.

  • Global War On Trees: Report From The Front

    “The war on trees is alive and well unfortunately, but in some countries we are winning battles against the war on trees … I think it is the beginning of the end. There are countries where forests are actually regrowing, including Europe, the US, India, China and Vietnam, and even some in Africa.”

  • Peru Maps Its Forest Carbon Sinks: Where Conservation Meets Economics

    Asner believes that the high-resolution carbon maps he is producing can play a crucial role in changing the economic dynamic in tropical countries. If you know how much carbon is locked up in your forests and vegetation — in Peru’s case, his report estimates the amount at 6.92 billion metric tons — you can better place a value on it. And choose conservation over development.

  • The Dark Side of Almond Use

    Thousands of endangered king salmon in northern California’s Klamath River are threatened by low water levels because water is being diverted to almond farms.