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

A molecular-based identification resource for the arthropods of Finland

To associate specimens identified by molecular characters to other biological knowledge, we need reference sequences annotated by Linnaean taxonomy. In this study, we (1) report the creation of a comprehensive reference library of DNA barcodes for the arthropods of an entire country (Finland), (2) publish this library, and (3) deliver a new identification tool for insects and spiders, as based on this resource. The reference library contains mtDNA COI barcodes for 11,275 (43%) of 26,437 arthropod species known from Finland, including 10,811 (45%) of 23,956 insect species. To quantify the improvement in identification accuracy enabled by the current reference library, we ran 1000 Finnish insect and spider species through the Barcode of Life Data system (BOLD) identification engine. Of these, 91% were correctly assigned to a unique species when compared to the new reference library alone, 85% were correctly identified when compared to BOLD with the new material included, and 75% with the new material excluded. To capitalize on this resource, we used the new reference material to train a probabilistic taxonomic assignment tool, FinPROTAX, scoring high success. For the full-length barcode region, the accuracy of taxonomic assignments at the level of classes, orders, families, subfamilies, tribes, genera, and species reached 99.9%, 99.9%, 99.8%, 99.7%, 99.4%, 96.8%, and 88.5%, respectively. The FinBOL arthropod reference library and FinPROTAX are available through the Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility (www.laji.fi) at https://laji.fi/en/theme/protax. Overall, the FinBOL investment represents a massive capacity-transfer from the taxonomic community of Finland to all sectors of society.</p

Populations and communities in human modified forest landscapes

Abstract Alteration of natural habitat usually has two kinds of effects on the populations living in the area. No single organism is able to survive or reproduce without its habitat, so it is very easy to understand and predict direct habitat loss effects. Moreover, fragmentation effects can enhance the effects of pure habitat loss, and in some cases, the effects of fragmentation can exceed the effects of habitat loss. In addition, harvesting by humans has significantly shaped wildlife populations and done so probably well before any other human activity. Different types of anthropogenic change in nature often happen simultaneously and their separate effects are not necessarily easily disentangled. I studied the effects of forest fragmentation on bird populations and communities on different levels, as well as the effects of harvesting on grouse populations. My results suggest that in natural systems there is always a multitude of factors influencing the population distribution and abundance. This complexity makes it difficult to discern and predict the consequences of human activities, and any additional human activity, such as habitat fragmentation or harvesting, can cause seemingly unexpected population consequences. My results also suggest that considering protected areas in isolation of the matrix is not sufficient to understanding species distribution and abundance within the conservation network. All management practices in commercial forests affect the landscape where protected areas are embedded, but simultaneously, conservation actions also influence the management planning. Therefore, an integrated approach is needed to sustain forest biodiversity. Finally, I showed that there are marked differences in responses to fragmentation among regions and among ecologically different species, which are partly associated with the evolutionary history of the biota in different regions. Therefore, patterns and processes in one region may not be transferrable to other regions. Moreover, disentangling the fragmentation effects on bird species requires careful consideration when selecting for research a combination of life-history variables that can distinguish among the underlying demographic mechanisms, because the mechanisms and the variables susceptible to these mechanisms may vary among regions.Tiivistelmä Eliön habitaatin muokkaamisella on yleensä kahdentyyppisiä seurauksia. Habitaatin hävittämisen seuraukset ovat suoraviivaisia, koska yksikään laji ei pysty säilymään elossa tai lisääntymään ilman lajityypillistä habitaattiaan. Pirstoutumisvaikutukset puolestaan voivat voimistaa habitaatin hävittämisen vaikutusta ja olla joissakin tapauksissa jopa niitä voimakkaampia. Lisäksi metsästys on muokannut eläinpopulaatioita luultavasti ensimmäisenä ihmistoiminnan muotona. Erilaiset ihmistoiminnan vaikutukset ovat usein yhtäaikaisia, eikä niiden vaikutuksia ole aina helppoa erottaa toisistaan. Tutkin väitöskirjatyössäni metsien pirstoutumisen vaikutuksia lintupopulaatioihin ja – yhteisöihin sekä metsästyksen vaikutuksia kanalintupopulaatioihin. Tulosteni mukaan luonnonoloissa on aina useita tekijöitä vaikuttamassa populaation kokoon ja levinneisyyteen. Tämä tekee ihmistoiminnan vaikutuksista hyvin vaikeasti ennustettavia. Niin ikään tulosteni mukaan suojelualueiden lajiston levinneisyyttä ja runsautta ei voi ymmärtää, mikäli ympäröivien alueiden ominaisuuksia ei oteta huomioon. Osoitin myös, että vasteissa pirstoutumiseen on huomattavia eroja maantieteellisten alueiden ja ekologisesti erilaisten linturyhmien välillä, mitkä osaltaan johtuvat eri alueiden erilaisesta evolutiivisesta historiasta. Tästä syystä vasteita pirstoutumiseen ei voida välttämättä yleistää alueelta toiselle. Tulosteni mukaan pirstoutumisvaikutusten erottelu vaatii huolellista tutkimuksen suunnittelua, jotta lajeihin vaikuttavat demografiset tekijät voidaan tunnistaa, koska näissä voi olla huomattavaa alueellista vaihtelua

The ability of forest reserves to maintain original fauna – why has the Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita abietinus) disappeared from eastern central Finland?

We studied the occurrence of Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita at the Finnish and Rus-sian border at ca. 65° N. This species shows an interesting distribution in the region, being virtually absent from the Finnish side (Kainuu) but being a common breeder on the Rus-sian side (Viena). However, the species has been equally numerous on both sides of the border. In our study area, the landscape is structurally different on opposite sides of the border: in Russia, there is a continuous "green belt" of old-growth forests, whereas in Fin-land old-growth forests are embedded in a matrix of managed forests. However, fragmen-tation may not solely explain the difference in Chiffchaff abundance, because bird species even more strictly dependent on old-growth forests are either nearly equally or were even more abundant in Finland than in Russia. We suggest that the decline of the Finnish Chiffchaff population is due to multiple reasons, including the northern location. Frag-mentation has probably provided the final push resulting in a crash in the Kainuu Chiffchaff population. This study underlines the need for detailed species-specific autecological knowledge in predicting fragmentation effects. Furthermore, a change in subspecific composition of Finnish and Swedish Chiffchaffs is apparently taking place. The ecologically different yet morphologically similar Ph. c. collybita may replace the na-tive Ph. c. abietinus

Consumer perceptions of local and organic foods

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