Quantifying the Detrimental Impacts of Land-Use and Management Change on European Forest Bird Populations

The ecological impacts of changing forest management practices in Europe are poorly understood despite European forests being highly managed. Furthermore, the effects of potential drivers of forest biodiversity decline are rarely considered in concert, thus limiting effective conservation or sustainable forest management. We present a trait-based framework that we use to assess the detrimental impact of multiple land-use and management changes in forests on bird populations across Europe. Major changes to forest habitats occurring in recent decades, and their impact on resource availability for birds were identified. Risk associated with these changes for 52 species of forest birds, defined as the proportion of each species' key resources detrimentally affected through changes in abundance and/or availability, was quantified and compared to their pan-European population growth rates between 1980 and 2009. Relationships between risk and population growth were found to be significantly negative, indicating that resource loss in European forests is an important driver of decline for both resident and migrant birds. Our results demonstrate that coarse quantification of resource use and ecological change can be valuable in understanding causes of biodiversity decline, and thus in informing conservation strategy and policy. Such an approach has good potential to be extended for predictive use in assessing the impact of possible future changes to forest management and to develop more precise indicators of forest health

F-Theorem without Supersymmetry

The conjectured F-theorem for three-dimensional field theories states that the finite part of the free energy on S^3 decreases along RG trajectories and is stationary at the fixed points. In previous work various successful tests of this proposal were carried out for theories with {\cal N}=2 supersymmetry. In this paper we perform more general tests that do not rely on supersymmetry. We study perturbatively the RG flows produced by weakly relevant operators and show that the free energy decreases monotonically. We also consider large N field theories perturbed by relevant double trace operators, free massive field theories, and some Chern-Simons gauge theories. In all cases the free energy in the IR is smaller than in the UV, consistent with the F-theorem. We discuss other odd-dimensional Euclidean theories on S^d and provide evidence that (-1)^{(d-1)/2} \log |Z| decreases along RG flow; in the particular case d=1 this is the well-known g-theorem.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figures; v2 refs added, minor improvements; v3 refs added, improved section 4.3; v4 minor improvement

Economic downturn results in tick-borne disease upsurge

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The emergence of zoonoses is due both to changes in human activities and to changes in their natural wildlife cycles. One of the most significant vector-borne zoonoses in Europe, tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), doubled in incidence in 1993, largely as a consequence of the socio-economic transition from communism to capitalism and associated environmental changes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To test the effect of the current economic recession, unemployment in 2009 and various socio-economic indices were compared to weather indices (derived from principal component analyses) as predictors for the change in TBE case numbers in 2009 relative to 2004-08, for 14 European countries.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Greatest increases in TBE incidence occurred in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (91, 79 and 45%, respectively). The weather was rejected as an explanatory variable. Indicators of high background levels of poverty, e.g. percent of household expenditure on food, were significant predictors. The increase in unemployment in 2009 relative to 2008 together with 'in-work risk of poverty' is the only case in which a multivariate model has a second significant term.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Background socio-economic conditions determine susceptibility to risk of TBE, while increased unemployment triggered a sudden increase in risk. Mechanisms behind this result may include reduced resistance to infection through stress; reduced uptake of costly vaccination; and more exposure of people to infected ticks in their forest habitat as they make greater use of wild forest foods, especially in those countries, Lithuania and Poland, with major marketing opportunities in such products. Recognition of these risk factors could allow more effective protection through education and a vaccination programme targeted at the economically most vulnerable.</p

Woodland restoration on agricultural land: long-term impacts on soil quality

Woodland restoration is underway globally, to counter the negative soil quality and ecological impacts of agricultural expansion and woodland fragmentation, and restore or enhance biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services. However, we lack information about the long‐term effects of woodland restoration on agricultural soils, particularly at temporal scales meaningful to woodland and soil development. This study utilised soil and earthworm sampling across a chronosequence of sites transitioning from ‘agricultural land’ to ‘secondary woodland’ (50‐110 years) and ‘ancient woodland’ (>400 years), with the goal of quantifying the effects of woodland restoration on agricultural land, on key soil quality parameters (soil bulk density, pH, carbon and nitrogen stocks, and earthworm abundance, biomass, species richness and diversity). Broad‐leaved woodland restoration led to significantly greater soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks compared to arable land, and young (50‐60 years) secondary woodland increased earthworm species and functional diversity compared to both arable and pasture agricultural land. SOC stocks in secondary broad‐leaved woodlands (50‐110 years) were comparable to those found in long‐term ancient woodlands (>400 years). Our findings show that broad‐leaved woodland restoration of agricultural land can lead to meaningful soil ecological improvement and gains in SOC within 50 to 110 years, and provide intel on how restoration activities may be best targeted to maximise soil quality and functions

Landscape structure affects the prevalence and distribution of a tick-borne zoonotic pathogen

Background Landscape structure can affect pathogen prevalence and persistence with consequences for human and animal health. Few studies have examined how reservoir host species traits may interact with landscape structure to alter pathogen communities and dynamics. Using a landscape of islands and mainland sites we investigated how natural landscape fragmentation affects the prevalence and persistence of the zoonotic tick-borne pathogen complex Borrelia burgdorferi(sensu lato), which causes Lyme borreliosis. We hypothesized that the prevalence of B. burgdorferi (s.l.) would be lower on islands compared to the mainland and B. afzelii, a small mammal specialist genospecies, would be more affected by isolation than bird-associated B. garinii and B. valaisiana and the generalist B. burgdorferi (sensu stricto). Methods Questing (host-seeking) nymphal I. Ricinus ticks (n = 6567) were collected from 12 island and 6 mainland sites in 2011, 2013 and 2015 and tested for B. burgdorferi(s.l.). Deer abundance was estimated using dung transects. Results The prevalence of B. burgdorferi (s.l.) was significantly higher on the mainland (2.5%, 47/1891) compared to island sites (0.9%, 44/4673) (P &lt; 0.01). While all four genospecies of B. burgdorferi (s.l.) were detected on the mainland, bird-associated species B. garinii and B. valaisiana and the generalist genospecies B. burgdorferi(s.s.) predominated on islands. Conclusion We found that landscape structure influenced the prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen, with a lower prevalence detected among island sites compared to the mainland. This was mainly due to the significantly lower prevalence of small mammal-associated B. afzelii. Deer abundance was not related to pathogen prevalence, suggesting that the structure and dynamics of the reservoir host community underpins the observed prevalence patterns, with the higher mobility of bird hosts compared to small mammal hosts leading to a relative predominance of the bird-associated genospecies B. garinii and generalist genospecies B. burgdorferi (s.s.) on islands. In contrast, the lower prevalence of B. afzelii on islands may be due to small mammal populations there exhibiting lower densities, less immigration and stronger population fluctuations. This study suggests that landscape fragmentation can influence the prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen, dependent on the biology of the reservoir host

Awareness, concern and willingness to adopt biosecure behaviours: public perceptions of invasive tree pests and pathogens in the UK

The growing incidence of invasive tree pest and disease outbreaks is recognised as an increasing threat to ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Linked to global trade, human movement and climate change, a number of outbreaks have attracted high public and media attention. However, there is surprisingly little evidence characterising the nature of public attentiveness to these events, nor how publics might respond to evolving outbreaks and the management actions taken. This paper presents findings from an online questionnaire involving 1334 respondents nationally-representative of the British public to assess awareness, concern and willingness to adopt biosecure behaviours. Despite revealing low levels of awareness and knowledge, the results indicate that the British public is concerned about the health of trees, forests and woodlands and is moderately willing to adopt biosecure behaviours. A key finding is that membership of environmental organisations and strong place identity are likely to engender higher awareness and levels of concern about tree pests and diseases. Further, those who visit woodlands regularly are likely to be more aware than non-visitors, and gardeners are more likely to be concerned than non-gardeners. Women, older respondents, those with strong place identity and dependence, members of environmental organisations, woodland visitors and gardeners were most likely to express a willingness to adopt biosecure behaviours. A comparison with findings from a survey conducted by the authors 3 years previously shows a decline over time in awareness, concern and willingness

A review of planting principles to identify the right place for the right tree for ‘net zero plus’ woodlands: Applying a place‐based natural capital framework for sustainable, efficient and equitable (SEE) decisions

This is the final version. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record. DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT: This is a review paper and has no original data to archive.We outline the principles of the natural capital approach to decision making and apply these to the contemporary challenge of very significantly expanding woodlands as contribution to attaining net zero emissions of greenhouse gases. Drawing on the case of the UK, we argue that a single focus upon carbon storage alone is likely to overlook the other ‘net zero plus’ benefits which woodlands can deliver. A review of the literature considers the wide variety of potential benefits which woodlands can provide, together with costs such as foregone alternative land uses. We argue that decision making must consider all of these potential benefits and costs for the right locations to be planted with the right trees. The paper closes by reviewing the decision support systems necessary to incorporate this information into policy and decision making. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research CouncilTuring-HSBC-ONS Economic Data Science Awar

Forest biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services

Forests are critical habitats for biodiversity and they are also essential for the provision of a wide range of ecosystem services that are important to human well-being. There is increasing evidence that biodiversity contributes to forest ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services. Here we provide a review of forest ecosystem services including biomass production, habitat provisioning services, pollination, seed dispersal, resistance to wind storms, fire regulation and mitigation, pest regulation of native and invading insects, carbon sequestration, and cultural ecosystem services, in relation to forest type, structure and diversity. We also consider relationships between forest biodiversity and multifunctionality, and trade-offs among ecosystem services. We compare the concepts of ecosystem processes, functions and services to clarify their definitions. Our review of published studies indicates a lack of empirical studies that establish quantitative and causal relationships between forest biodiversity and many important ecosystem services. The literature is highly skewed; studies on provisioning of nutrition and energy, and on cultural services, delivered by mixed-species forests are under-represented. Planted forests offer ample opportunity for optimising their composition and diversity because replanting after harvesting is a recurring process. Planting mixed-species forests should be given more consideration as they are likely to provide a wider range of ecosystem services within the forest and for adjacent land uses. This review also serves as the introduction to this special issue of Biodiversity and Conservation on various aspects of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services