Towards a methodical framework for comprehensively assessing forest multifunctionality

Funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Grant Number: DFG FOR 891/1-3 National Natural Science Foundation of China. Grant Numbers: 30710103907, 30930005, 31170457, 31210103910 Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Sino-German Centre for Research Promotion in Beijing. Grant Number: GZ 986Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Agroforestry: Reconciling Production with Protection of the Environment A Synopsis of Research Literature

This is a synopsis of research literature that investigates the potential of temperate agroforestry as a sustainable production system. Agroforestry is a concept of integrated land use that combines elements of agriculture and forestry. An emphasis on managing rather than reducing complexity promotes a functionally biodiverse system that balances productivity with environmental protection

A multi-functional approach to assessing species interactions in human-modified tropical landscapes

Tropical land-use change via rainforest degradation and agricultural expansion is driving a global extinction crisis. Understanding community dynamics, functional diversity (FD) and species interactions in relation to these land-use changes is essential to both conservation actions and ecological theory. Landscapes are altered at multiple scales, and the changing landscape mosaic impacts biodiversity and in turn potential functional processes and ecosystem services (or dis-services). I use field data combined with functional and modelling statistical approaches, and primarily examine dung beetle communities, but also use bird and ant assemblages to compliment my investigations. I study these communities across a land-use gradient of primary rainforest, selectively logged forest, and adjacent oil palm plantations in Malaysian Borneo. Logging caused significant shifts in community composition but FD of dung beetles and birds was at similar levels compared to primary rainforest. Along logging roads edge effects penetrated 100m into the logged forest interior, with significant declines in species richness, abundance and biomass with increasing proximity to road edges, and a marked change in species composition. Logged forest communities were predominately randomly assembled across three taxonomic groups, with a strong influence of dispersal assembly for dung beetles. The conversion of forest to oil palm, however lead to a significant reduction in FD, greater influence of habitat filtering in the assembly of dung beetle communities, and significant segregation in dung beetle and bird community assembly. The extent of forest cover and proximity to forest were not significant predictors of oil palm yield. Understanding the stability and resilience of FD and the dominant assembly processes emphasises the high value of logged forests as refugia for biodiversity. Nevertheless, better landscape design practices for forestry, specifically road planning, and in-situ habitat conservation within plantations is strongly encouraged. Critically a functional approach to land-use change gives conservation a complete and practical focus

A Primer for Monitoring Water Funds

This document is intended to assist people working on Water Funds to understand their information needs and become familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of various monitoring approaches. This primer is not intended to make people monitoring experts, but rather to help them become familiar with and conversant in the major issues so they can communicate effectively with experts to design a scientifically defensible monitoring program.The document highlights the critical information needs common to Water Fund projects and summarizes issues and steps to address in developing a Water Fund monitoring program. It explains key concepts and challenges; suggests monitoring parameters and an array of sampling designs to consider as a starting-point; and provides suggestions for further reading, links to helpful resources,and an annotated bibliography of studies on the impacts that result from activities commonly implemented in Water Fund projects

Mycorrhizal Interactions for Reforestation: Constraints to Dryland Agroforest in Brazil

Reforestation provides restoration of forest ecosystem services including improved soil fertility, which leads to increased productivity and/or sustainability of the system. Trees also increase the average carbon stocks providing wood supply for local communities; however, C sequestration strategies highlight tree plantations without considering their full environmental consequences, such as losses in stream flow. The productivity of a site is a consequence of their physical, chemical, and biological properties, resulting in natural fertile soils or adequate managed soils for improved quality. Thus, it is required to know the variations in the properties of land-use systems for adoptability of agroforestry innovations. The choice of agroforestry tree species (highly mycorrhizal dependent plants should be selected) would have great implications for the manipulation of arbuscular mycorrhizas’s species. In dry forest, the inevitable consequence of cutting has been the loss of vegetation cover and insufficient scientific information on the capacity to optimize forest recuperation affects agroforestry adoption. To study the biological properties of soils is now of interest; therefore, this paper reviews the literature that has hitherto been published on mycorrhizal interactions for reforestation and points out the use ofmycorrhizal technology as one of the alternatives to improve forest products and environmental quality