A systematic map of research exploring the effect of greenspace on mental health

The past 35 years has seen an accumulation of empirical evidence suggesting a positive association between greenspace and mental health. Existing reviews of evidence are narrow in scope, and do not adequately represent the broad range of disciplines working in this field. This study is the first systematic map of studies investigating greenspace effects on mental health. A total of 6059 papers were screened for their relevance, 276 of which met inclusion criteria for the systematic map.The map revealed several methodological limitations hindering the practical applications of research findings to public health. Critically, the majority of studies used cross-sectional mental health data which makes causal inference about greenspace effects challenging. There are also few studies on the micro-features that make up greenspaces (i.e., their “quality”), with most focussing only on “quantity” effects on mental health. Moreover, few studies adopted a multi-scale approach, meaning there is little evidence about at which spatial scale(s) the relationship exists. A geographic gap in study location was also identified, with the majority of studies clustered in European countries and the USA.Future research should account for both human and ecological perspectives of “quality” using objective and repeatable measures, and consider the potential of scale-dependent greenspace effects to ensure that management of greenspace is compatible with wider scale biodiversity targets. To establish the greenspace and metal health relationship across a life course, studies should make better use of longitudinal data, as this enables stronger inferences to be made than more commonly used cross-sectional data

An analytical framework for spatially targeted management of natural capital

A major sustainability challenge is determining where to target management to enhance natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides. Achieving this understanding is difficult, given that the effects of most actions vary according to wider environmental conditions; and this context dependency is typically poorly understood. Here, we describe an analytical framework that helps meet this challenge by identifying both why and where management actions are most effective for enhancing natural capital across large geographic areas. We illustrate the framework’s generality by applying it to two examples for Britain: pond water quality and invasion of forests by rhododendron

A robust and readily implementable method for the meta-analysis of response ratios with and without missing standard deviations

The log response ratio, lnRR, is the most frequently used effect size statistic for meta-analysis in ecology. However, often missing standard deviations (SDs) prevent estimation of the sampling variance of lnRR. We propose new methods to deal with missing SDs via a weighted average coefficient of variation (CV) estimated from studies in the dataset that do report SDs. Across a suite of simulated conditions, we find that using the average CV to estimate sampling variances for all observations, regardless of missingness, performs with minimal bias. Surprisingly, even with missing SDs, this simple method outperforms the conventional approach (basing each effect size on its individual study-specific CV) with complete data. This is because the conventional method ultimately yields less precise estimates of the sampling variances than using the pooled CV from multiple studies. Our approach is broadly applicable and can be implemented in all meta-analyses of lnRR, regardless of ‘missingness’

Historical data reveal contrasting habitat amount relationships with plant biodiversity

Assessing habitat loss effects on biodiversity is a major focus of ecological research. The relationship between habitat amount and biodiversity, postulated in the habitat amount hypothesis, is usually assessed at one point in time, which does not account for habitat loss as a temporal process. We examined habitat amount effects at two time periods, 1930s and 2010s, using plant data from three semi-natural habitats: calcareous grassland, heathland and broadleaved woodland, across Dorset, southern England. Woodlands, which changed little in area over the time period, showed minimal effects of habitat amount on species occurrence in both time periods. For grassland and heathland, which had undergone severe losses over the study period, we found the expected positive relationship in the 2010s, but the relationship was negative for these habitats in the 1930s. We explored possible reasons for this result. Total perimeter-to-area ratio (TPAR) showed positive effects in the 1930s for grassland and heathland, suggesting effects of habitat configuration, specifically edge. However, TPAR was highly correlated with habitat amount so this finding is speculative. One possible explanation for the relationships with habitat amount, and the change between the two periods could be the quality of the surrounding matrix. In the 1930s, the landscape was less intensified and was dominated by semi-natural habitats, whereas by the 2010s much had been converted to arable and intensive grasslands. We speculate that species could likely utilise the matrix to a greater degree in the 1930s compared with the 2010s when the matrix was more hostile, thereby decreasing the importance of habitat amount in the 1930s compared with the 2010s. These findings have important implications for conservation, as they show the importance of context (i.e. matrix quality) in determining the relationship between habitat amount and biodiversity

A global database for metacommunity ecology, integrating species, traits, environment and space

The use of functional information in the form of species traits plays an important role in explaining biodiversity patterns and responses to environmental changes. Although relationships between species composition, their traits, and the environment have been extensively studied on a case-by-case basis, results are variable, and it remains unclear how generalizable these relationships are across ecosystems, taxa and spatial scales. To address this gap, we collated 80 datasets from trait-based studies into a global database for metaCommunity Ecology: Species, Traits, Environment and Space; “CESTES”. Each dataset includes four matrices: species community abundances or presences/absences across multiple sites, species trait information, environmental variables and spatial coordinates of the sampling sites. The CESTES database is a live database: it will be maintained and expanded in the future as new datasets become available. By its harmonized structure, and the diversity of ecosystem types, taxonomic groups, and spatial scales it covers, the CESTES database provides an important opportunity for synthetic trait-based research in community ecology

Drivers of the composition and diversity of carabid functional traits in UK coniferous plantations.

Functional diversity (FD) is increasingly used as a metric to evaluate the impact of forest management strategies on ecosystem functioning. Management interventions that aim to maximise FD require knowledge of multiple environmental drivers of FD, which have not been studied to date in temperate coniferous production forests. We quantified the relative importance of abiotic (forest management) and biotic (ground vegetation community) drivers of carabid FD and trait distribution in 44 coniferous plantation forest stands across the UK. Carabid FD declined with canopy cover and carabid body length correlated negatively with the percentage of open semi-natural area surrounding a plot. We conclude that forest management could enhance carabid FD through initiatives that emulate natural disturbance regimes through gap creation. We found that neither functional nor taxonomic metrics of vegetation diversity correlated with carabid FD, suggesting that restoration of plant communities, a major goal of forest restoration efforts, will not necessarily enhance carabid FD in coniferous plantations

A horizon scan of issues affecting UK forest management within 50 years

Forests are in the spotlight: they are expected to play a pivotal role in our response to society’s greatest challenges, such as the climate and biodiversity crises. Yet, the forests themselves, and the sector that manages them, face a range of interrelated threats and opportunities. Many of these are well understood, even if the solutions remain elusive. However, there are also emerging trends that are currently less widely appreciated. We report here the results of a horizon scan to identify developing issues likely to affect UK forest management within the next 50 years. These are issues that are presently under-recognized but have potential for significant impact across the sector and beyond. As the forest management sector naturally operates over long timescales, the importance of using good foresight is self-evident. We followed a tried-and-tested horizon scanning methodology involving a diverse Expert Panel to collate and prioritize a longlist of 180 issues. The top 15 issues identified are presented in the Graphical Abstract. The issues represent a diverse range of themes, within a spectrum of influences from environmental shocks and perturbations to changing political and socio-economic drivers, with complex emerging interactions between them. The most highly ranked issue was ‘Catastrophic forest ecosystem collapse’, reflecting agreement that not only is such collapse a likely prospect but it would also have huge implications across the sector and wider society. These and many of the other issues are large scale, with far-reaching implications. We must be careful to avoid inaction through being overwhelmed, or indeed to merely focus on ‘easy wins’ without considering broader ramifications. Our responses to each of the challenges and opportunities highlighted must be synergistic and coherent, involving landscape-scale planning. A more adaptive approach to forest management will be essential, encouraging continual innovation and learning. The 15 horizon scan issues presented here are a starting point on which to build further research, prompt debate and action, and develop evidence-based policy and practice. We hope that this stimulates greater recognition of how our forests and sector may need to change to be fit for the future. In some cases, these changes will need to be fundamental and momentous

A horizon scan of issues affecting UK forest management within 50 years

Forests are in the spotlight: they are expected to play a pivotal role in our response to society’s greatest challenges, such as the climate and biodiversity crises. Yet, the forests themselves, and the sector that manages them, face a range of interrelated threats and opportunities. Many of these are well understood, even if the solutions remain elusive. However, there are also emerging trends that are currently less widely appreciated. We report here the results of a horizon scan to identify developing issues likely to affect UK forest management within the next 50 years. These are issues that are presently under-recognized but have potential for significant impact across the sector and beyond. As the forest management sector naturally operates over long timescales, the importance of using good foresight is self-evident. We followed a tried-and-tested horizon scanning methodology involving a diverse Expert Panel to collate and prioritize a longlist of 180 issues. The top 15 issues identified are presented in the Graphical Abstract. The issues represent a diverse range of themes, within a spectrum of influences from environmental shocks and perturbations to changing political and socio-economic drivers, with complex emerging interactions between them. The most highly ranked issue was ‘Catastrophic forest ecosystem collapse’, reflecting agreement that not only is such collapse a likely prospect but it would also have huge implications across the sector and wider society. These and many of the other issues are large scale, with far-reaching implications. We must be careful to avoid inaction through being overwhelmed, or indeed to merely focus on ‘easy wins’ without considering broader ramifications. Our responses to each of the challenges and opportunities highlighted must be synergistic and coherent, involving landscape-scale planning. A more adaptive approach to forest management will be essential, encouraging continual innovation and learning. The 15 horizon scan issues presented here are a starting point on which to build further research, prompt debate and action, and develop evidence-based policy and practice. We hope that this stimulates greater recognition of how our forests and sector may need to change to be fit for the future. In some cases, these changes will need to be fundamental and momentous

Unpacking ecosystem service bundles: towards predictive mapping of synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services

Multiple ecosystem services (ES) can respond similarly to social and ecological factors to form bundles. Identifying key social-ecological variables and understanding how they co-vary to produce these consistent sets of ES may ultimately allow the prediction and modelling of ES bundles, and thus, help us understand critical synergies and trade-offs across landscapes. Such an understanding is essential for informing better management of multi-functional landscapes and minimising costly trade-offs. However, the relative importance of different social and biophysical drivers of ES bundles in different types of social-ecological systems remains unclear. As such, a bottom-up understanding of the determinants of ES bundles is a critical research gap in ES and sustainability science. Here, we evaluate the current methods used in ES bundle science and synthesize these into four steps that capture the plurality of methods used to examine predictors of ES bundles. We then apply these four steps to a cross-study comparison (North and South French Alps) of relationships between social-ecological variables and ES bundles, as it is widely advocated that cross-study comparisons are necessary for achieving a general understanding of predictors of ES associations. We use the results of this case study to assess the strengths and limitations of current approaches for understanding distributions of ES bundles. We conclude that inconsistency of spatial scale remains the primary barrier for understanding and predicting ES bundles. We suggest a hypothesis-driven approach is required to predict relationships between ES, and we outline the research required for such an understanding to emerge

Evaluation of strategies for conserving biodiversity in temperate and boreal forests

Halting biodiversity loss and the associated decline of ecosystem functioning is one of the greatest challenges faced by mankind. The globally adopted Aichi Biodiversity Targets for 2011-2020, issuing from the 10th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, represent the strongest global commitment to this challenge. For forest ecosystems, biodiversity decline can be halted only with i) sustainable management of multifunctional production forests (Target 7), ii) formation of well-connected systems of protected areas (Target 11), and iii) forest restoration (Target 15). Reaching these targets for the world’s forests requires a sound empirical understanding of the functioning and the relative importance of forests under different management regimes. Indeed, environmental policy should be informed by robust scientific evidence. This thesis addresses knowledge gaps that exist in the evidence-base for sustainable forest management and conservation in temperate and boreal forests.Chapter 2 quantifies the recovery rates of different functional groups of beetles, lichens and fungi to forest restoration measures in temperate and boreal regions across the world. A systematic review and meta-analysis identifies functional-group-specific relationships in the response of species richness to stand age after forest disturbance, with some groups requiring around a century of stand continuity for recovery to old-growth levels. The slow recovery of these functional groups makes old-growth forest an effectively irreplaceable biodiversity resource that should be exempted from restoration offset initiatives.Chapter 3 compares the biodiversity value of overmature even-aged planted and old-growth forest stands for ectomycorrhizal fungi in the New Forest National Park, UK. Overmature plantations are those beyond economic maturity, acquiring some of the structural characteristics of old-growth forests and there is increasing interest in their setting aside as a means of preserving species associated with old-growth forests. Analysis of 3 years of field data shows that setting aside of overmature planted forest is an effective means of conserving ectomycorrhizal communities associated with old-growth forests, given temporal continuity in the order of a century. This holds out particular promise for historically deforested regions such as the UK, where little old-growth forest remains and much planted forest exceeds a century in age.Chapter 4 investigates the relative importance of abiotic and biotic drivers of carabid functional trait diversity and composition for coniferous production forests across the UK. Analysis of the dataset of the UK Forestry Commission’s Biodiversity Assessment Project (BAP 1995-1999) contradicts previous studies in showing that ground vegetation diversity is not an important determinant of carabid functional diversity. This result suggests that restoration of plant communities, a major goal of forest restoration efforts, will not necessarily enhance carabid diversity in coniferous plantations. Canopy cover was the most important variable, tending to drive down carabid diversity.Chapter 5 collates an evidence base that will inform forest biodiversity conservation and policy-making in Japan. Four management interventions, outlined in Japan’s National Biodiversity Strategy, are assessed by systematic review and meta-analysis for their impacts on species richness, abundance and composition. The work provides general guidance for forest biodiversity conservation in Japan, and it highlights a major knowledge gap in a widely used contemporary intervention known as ‘satoyama’