41 research outputs found
Large‐scale impacts of selective logging on canopy tree beta‐diversity in the Brazilian Amazon
Selective logging is one of the largest drivers of tropical forest degradation. While logged forests often retain high alpha-diversity of tropical trees at local spatial scales, understanding how selective logging impacts tree beta-diversity and community composition across far larger spatial scales remains a key unresolved question.
We leverage large datasets of more than 155,000 adult trees over 35 cm DBH covering 3100 ha of Amazonian rainforest to inform simulations of selective logging harvests across a gradient of logging intensity (0–40 m3 ha−1). These simulations incorporate real world price data, account for all forest damage throughout the harvest process and assume preferential harvest of the most valuable stems. We use the simulations to assess how selective logging affects canopy tree beta-diversity and composition across large spatial scales, whether nestedness or turnover of species best explains variation in communities across space, and how the spatial scale of sampling influences observed beta-diversity effects.
Selective logging had minimal impacts on beta-diversity across the canopy tree community, but caused substantial subtractive heterogenization in community composition for larger trees, in particular very large trees over 110 cm DBH. Turnover is the dominant component of tree beta-diversity in unlogged and logged forests. Increasing the spatial grain of sampling reduced the observed importance of logging in explaining patterns of beta-diversity in very large tree communities.
Synthesis and applications. Minimal impacts on tree beta-diversity across large spatial scales points towards the retention of substantial conservation value in logged tropical forests. Strong subtractive heterogenization in very large trees indicates the breakdown of broad scale patterns of composition with potential negative consequences for recruitment processes, fauna reliant upon emergent trees, and other ecosystem functions and services. Avoiding large-scale erosion of very large tree community composition in the Amazon requires stronger conservation policies, including enforced retention or maximum cutting diameters
Land-sharing logging is more profitable than land sparing in the Brazilian Amazon
Selective logging is pervasive across the tropics and a key driver of forest degradation. Two competing harvest management strategies have been proposed: Land sharing via low-intensity logging throughout a concession; and high-intensity land-sparing logging across a smaller area, protecting part of the concession as primary forest. Empirical research points to land sparing being more optimal for maintaining biodiversity and carbon, especially under secure land tenure, but a key question for forest-based economies is how each strategy affects the profitability of logging. We combine detailed financial data with harvest simulations to assess the profitability of land-sharing and land-sparing logging in the Brazilian Amazon. Under business-as-usual, land-sharing is significantly more profitable than land-sparing logging, whether sparing is conducted in a single block or targeting the highest-density timber stocks, highlighting a conflict between economic and conservation priorities. Land-sharing logging is also more profitable than hybrid strategies whereby a mix of land-sharing and land-sparing logging is employed. Conservation-based restrictions that apply quotas on species in different size classes reduces the opportunity cost of land sparing, but even under tight restrictions land sharing remains more profitable and land sparing often returns a loss. Additional financial incentives, including timber certification schemes and carbon-based payment for ecosystem services, are needed to bridge the opportunity cost of land-sparing logging and minimise ecological damage to tropical rainforests
Measurement of (anti)deuteron and (anti)proton production in DIS at HERA
The first observation of (anti)deuterons in deep inelastic scattering at HERA
has been made with the ZEUS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 300--318 GeV
using an integrated luminosity of 120 pb-1. The measurement was performed in
the central rapidity region for transverse momentum per unit of mass in the
range 0.3<p_T/M<0.7. The particle rates have been extracted and interpreted in
terms of the coalescence model. The (anti)deuteron production yield is smaller
than the (anti)proton yield by approximately three orders of magnitude,
consistent with the world measurements.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, submitted to Nucl. Phys.
Observation of Scaling Violations in Scaled Momentum Distributions at HERA
Charged particle production has been measured in deep inelastic scattering
(DIS) events over a large range of and using the ZEUS detector. The
evolution of the scaled momentum, , with in the range 10 to 1280
, has been investigated in the current fragmentation region of the Breit
frame. The results show clear evidence, in a single experiment, for scaling
violations in scaled momenta as a function of .Comment: 21 pages including 4 figures, to be published in Physics Letters B.
Two references adde
D* Production in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
This paper presents measurements of D^{*\pm} production in deep inelastic
scattering from collisions between 27.5 GeV positrons and 820 GeV protons. The
data have been taken with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The decay channel
(+ c.c.) has been used in the study. The
cross section for inclusive D^{*\pm} production with
and is 5.3 \pms 1.0 \pms 0.8 nb in the kinematic region
{ GeV and }. Differential cross
sections as functions of p_T(D^{*\pm}), and are
compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations based on the photon-gluon
fusion production mechanism. After an extrapolation of the cross section to the
full kinematic region in p_T(D^{*\pm}) and (D^{*\pm}), the charm
contribution to the proton structure function is
determined for Bjorken between 2 10 and 5 10.Comment: 17 pages including 4 figure
Observation of Events with an Energetic Forward Neutron in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
In deep inelastic neutral current scattering of positrons and protons at the center of mass energy of 300 GeV, we observe, with the ZEUS detector, events with a high energy neutron produced at very small scattering angles with respect to the proton direction. The events constitute a fixed fraction of the deep inelastic, neutral current event sample independent of Bjorken x and Q2 in the range 3 · 10-4 \u3c xBJ \u3c 6 · 10-3 and 10 \u3c Q2 \u3c 100 GeV2
Sparing land for secondary forest regeneration protects more tropical biodiversity than land sharing in cattle farming landscapes
Effectively managing farming to meet food demand is vital for the future of biodiversity. Increasing yields on existing farmland can allow the abandonment (sparing) of low-yielding areas that subsequently recover as secondary forest. A key question is whether such “secondary sparing” conserves biodiversity more effectively than retaining wildlife-friendly habitat within farmland (“land sharing”). Focusing on the Colombian Choco-Andes, a global hotspot of threatened biodiversity, and on cattle farming, we examined the outcomes of secondary sparing and land sharing via simulated scenarios that maintained constant landscape-wide production and equal within-pasture yield: (1) for species and functional diversity of dung beetles and birds; (2) for avian phylogenetic diversity; and (3) across different stages of secondary forest regeneration, relative to spared primary forests. Sparing older secondary forests (15–30 years recovery) promotes substantial species, functional, and phylogenetic (birds only) diversity benefits for birds and dung beetles compared to land sharing. Species of conservation concern had higher occupancy estimates under land-sparing compared to land-sharing scenarios. Spared secondary forests accumulated equivalent diversity to primary forests for dung beetles within 15 years and within 15–30 years for birds, highlighting the need for longer term protection to maximize the biodiversity gains of secondary sparing. Promoting the recovery and protection of large expanses of secondary forests under the land-sparing model provides a critical mechanism for protecting tropical biodiversity, with important implications for concurrently assisting in the delivery of global targets to restore 350 million hectares of forested landscapes. Edwards et al. use landscape simulations from bird and dung beetle field data to reveal functional, phylogenetic, and species diversity benefits of secondary forest sparing outweigh land sharing. Sparing tracks of secondary forest recovers similar biodiversity to primary sparing in 15–30 years, assisting global restoration and conservation goals
Measurement of the E**2(T,jet) / Q**2 dependence of forward jet production at HERA
The forward-jet cross section in deep inelastic ep scattering has been
measured using the ZEUS detector at HERA with an integrated luminosity of 6.36
pb^-1. The jet cross section is presented as a function of jet transverse
energy squared, E(T,jet)^2, and Q^2 in the kinematic ranges
10^-2<E(T,jet)^2/Q^2<10^2 and 2.5 10^-4<x<8.0 10^-2. Since the perturbative QCD
predictions for this cross section are sensitive to the treatment of the
log(E_T/Q)^2 terms, this measurement provides an important test. The measured
cross section is compared to the predictions of a next-to-leading order pQCD
calculation as well as to various leading-order Monte Carlo models. Whereas the
predictions of all models agree with the measured cross section in the region
of small E(T,Jet)^2/Q^2, only one model, which includes a resolved photon
component, describes the data over the whole kinematic range.Comment: 8 pages including 3 figure