SUSTAINABLE DEYELOPMENT AND NATURĘ CONSERVATION - THE NECESSITY FOR COMPROMISE INSTEAD OF CONFRONTATION

Some new ecological terms have recently madę a brilliant carrier, among which the concepts of the “sustainable use” of natural resources and “biological diversity” (biodiversity) are the most popular. Although very useful, both concepts, as every kind of tool, are often misunderstood or improperly applied, which may bring about serious harm to naturę and perhaps also to the long-term prosperity of humans. It is chiefly the lack of a commonly accepted interpretation of the relationship between the two fundamental concepts of Sustainable Development (SD) and Naturę Conservation (NC) that causes much confusion. These two forms of human activity are treated by extremists as mutually exclusive, although others perceive them as being compensatory or even partly complementary to each other in the long-term. Neither is there any agreement on to what extent NC constitutes part of sustainability: either the whole of its scope lies within activities promoting SD, or only a part of (active) conservation falls within its framework. Such unclear theoretical aspects, which have so far been overlooked, may result in inappropriate practical recommendations and wrong administrative decisions.Uncertainty of this sort does not help communication between people. It is especially confusing that there are several versions of both of these notions. As human influence on the State of environment usually has serious economic and ecological conseąuences, morę clarity on this point is vital.   &nbsp

Spatial protection of nature in the light of the threats of upcoming decades

We live in a period of “global revolution” , when we have to start to act in a different way from models of the past millennia. The effects of overabundance of people and excessive consumption by some of them, such as: change of climate, pollution of the environment, destruction of biotopes, extinction of species etc., force us to modify the tasks and methods o f nature protection. It becomes urgent to treat equivalently active (manipulative) protection and traditional passive (preservational) conservation, as well as ex situ and in situ protection, although this attitude leads to various problems. Spatial protection requires counteraction against new threats based on novel concepts (such as e.g. minimal viable population, m etapopulational model etc.) and unifying the creation of a netw ork of protected areas with moderate exploitation of natural resources outside them. An adjustm ent of distribution, size and internal variation of protected areas to threats arising from predicted changes in natural conditions is required. The necessity of reintroducing new species and of reconstructing vanished biotopes has been justified, as well as the need to carry out nature protection on a landscape scale, also in areas which are exploited economically, but there is also a need to hinder the invasion of alien species. All this requires an equal treatment of nature protection tasks in the realisation of proecoiogical policy of the State.Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 dofinansowane zostało ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę

Species abundance patterns in an ecosystem simulation studied through Fisher's logseries

We have developed an individual-based evolving predator-prey ecosystem simulation that integrates, for the first time, a complex individual behaviour model, an evolutionary mechanism and a speciation process, at an acceptable computational cost. In this article, we analyse the species abundance patterns observed in the communities generated by our simulation, based on Fisher's logseries. We propose a rigorous methodology for testing abundance data against the logseries. We show that our simulation produces coherent results, in terms of relative species abundance, when compared to classical ecological patterns. Some preliminary results are also provided about how our simulation is supporting ecological field results

Patterns of predator behaviour and wood warbler Phylloscopus sibilatrix nest survival in a primaeval forest

Understanding the foraging behaviour of predators is key to interpreting the role of anti-predator adaptations of birds in reducing nest losses. Conducting research in primeval habitats, with low direct human interference, is particularly valuable in the understanding of predator-prey interactions. Using nest cameras, we investigated the identity and behaviour of potential and actual predators appearing at Wood Warbler Phylloscopus sibilatrix nests, and the importance of different predator groups for nest survival, in the primeval part of Białowieża Forest (Poland). Mammals formed the main predator group (30 of 32 nest depredations), particularly medium-sized carnivores (24 of 32), which attacked nests more frequently than merely passing by. This contrasted with other species, especially small rodents that were commonly recorded near nests but rarely attacked them. Most nest attacks (22 of 32) took place at night and nest survival did not depend on nest visibility, indicating a reduced utility of nest concealment in defence against predators using mainly sound or olfaction when hunting. Daily nest survival declined strongly with nest progression (from egg-laying to fledging of chicks), likely due to increased predator detection of nests containing older and louder chicks, and not due to increasing parental activity at nests during the day. The set of actual nest predators differed from some previous studies in human-transformed habitats, showing that Wood Warblers may face differing threats in modified versus near-pristine environments

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

SUSTAINABLE DEYELOPMENT AND NATURĘ CONSERVATION - THE NECESSITY FOR COMPROMISE INSTEAD OF CONFRONTATION

Some new ecological terms have recently madę a brilliant carrier, among which the concepts of the “sustainable use” of natural resources and “biological diversity” (biodiversity) are the most popular. Although very useful, both concepts, as every kind of tool, are often misunderstood or improperly applied, which may bring about serious harm to naturę and perhaps also to the long-term prosperity of humans. It is chiefly the lack of a commonly accepted interpretation of the relationship between the two fundamental concepts of Sustainable Development (SD) and Naturę Conservation (NC) that causes much confusion. These two forms of human activity are treated by extremists as mutually exclusive, although others perceive them as being compensatory or even partly complementary to each other in the long-term. Neither is there any agreement on to what extent NC constitutes part of sustainability: either the whole of its scope lies within activities promoting SD, or only a part of (active) conservation falls within its framework. Such unclear theoretical aspects, which have so far been overlooked, may result in inappropriate practical recommendations and wrong administrative decisions.Uncertainty of this sort does not help communication between people. It is especially confusing that there are several versions of both of these notions. As human influence on the State of environment usually has serious economic and ecological conseąuences, morę clarity on this point is vital.   &nbsp