scholarly journals Humboldt’s enigma: What causes global patterns of mountain biodiversity?

Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 365 (6458) ◽  
pp. 1108-1113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Rahbek ◽  
Michael K. Borregaard ◽  
Robert K. Colwell ◽  
Bo Dalsgaard ◽  
Ben G. Holt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Mountain Regions ◽  
Land Area ◽  
Tropical Mountains ◽  
Global Patterns ◽  
Terrestrial Biodiversity ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Climatic Characteristics

Mountains contribute disproportionately to the terrestrial biodiversity of Earth, especially in the tropics, where they host hotspots of extraordinary and puzzling richness. With about 25% of all land area, mountain regions are home to more than 85% of the world’s species of amphibians, birds, and mammals, many entirely restricted to mountains. Biodiversity varies markedly among these regions. Together with the extreme species richness of some tropical mountains, this variation has proven challenging to explain under traditional climatic hypotheses. However, the complex climatic characteristics of rugged mountain regions differ fundamentally from those of lowland regions, likely playing a key role in generating and maintaining diversity. With ongoing global changes in climate and land use, the role of mountains as refugia for biodiversity may well come under threat.

scholarly journals Strategic land-use planning instruments in tropical regions: state of the art and future research.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Oliveira ◽  
Patrick Meyfroidt
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Land Systems ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Research Domains

Abstract Human-induced activities are threatening the socio-economic and ecological sustainability of land systems globally, including in tropical regions. Authorities in these regions prepare and implement land-use plans to select and organize land uses in a way that will meet the needs of local communities while safeguarding ecosystems services. To this end, land-use planning is used to assess, manage and monitor the physical, social and economic conditions of territories and thus assist agribusiness, smallholder farmers and other land users in their land-based activities. There is, however, a lack of systematic studies identifying strategic oriented land-use planning instruments and further detailing the extent of their effectiveness in supporting land governance. Here, we contribute to address this gap by reviewing academic and grey literature with a geographic scope on tropical regions. We conclude by sketching future research domains intended to expand the role of strategic planning approaches in land governance in the tropics.

Land use shapes the relationship between tree cover and carbon stocks in the tropics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manan Bhan ◽  
Steffen Fritz ◽  
Simone Gingrich ◽  
Karlheinz Erb
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
Land Use Impacts ◽  
Carbon Modelling ◽  
Land Use Effects ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
The Relationship

<p>Tree cover (TC) and biomass carbon stocks (CS) are key parameters for characterizing the states and dynamics of tropical ecosystems. Despite the presence of several datasets with high spatial resolution, differences among data products prevail and systemic inter-relations between TC and CS remain poorly quantified. Further, the role of land use in explaining disagreements among datasets remains largely unexplored. Here, by combining established spatially-explicit estimates of TC and CS over contemporary timescales, we analyse uncertainties between these two ecosystem parameters across the global tropics (~ 23.4°N to 23.4°S). We quantify land use effects by contrasting actual and potential (ie. in the hypothetical absence of land use) states of vegetation and by correlating TC and CS changes with land use intensity. Our results show that land use strongly alters both TC and CS, with disproportionate impacts on CS and large variations across tropical ecozones. Differences between potential and actual vegetation CS remain above 50% across the tropics except for rainforests (34%). Differences within corresponding TC estimates are more variable, and higher among sparsely-vegetated landscapes (81% for shrublands), highlighting the overwhelming extent of land use impacts. Cross-comparisons across available TC and CS datasets reveal large spatial disagreements. More than a third of all identified co-located TC and CS change datasets show disagreements in the direction of change (Gain vs Loss), and these divergences persist as a function of land use intensities. Our results provide a characterization of the prevailing uncertainty structures of input datasets and the spatial patterns of land use-induced disturbances at the pixel and ecozone-levels. This assumes added significance in light of the stock-taking exercises envisaged as part of the Paris Agreement, the advancement of terrestrial carbon modelling initiatives as well as emerging, novel remote sensing products.</p>

MOUNTAIN REGIONS OF RUSSIA: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. THE KEY ROLE OF THE UNESCO MAB-6 MOUNTAIN PROJECT

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
YU.P. BADENKOV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Global Changes ◽  
Agenda 21 ◽  
Mountain Regions ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
Mountain Environment ◽  
Model Law ◽  
Global Agenda ◽  
Mountain Development ◽  
The Impact

Project No. 6 "Human Impact on Mountain Ecosystems" of the UNESCO "Man and the Biosphere" Program had its own peculiarities of implementation, both in the international and in the Russian context. It went far beyond environmental problems and was initially focused on the sustainable mountain development issues, assessing the impact of global changes on the mountain environment, economy, and population. Fragile mountain areas occupy a special position in the global Agenda 21 and national strategies for regional development. The specificity of the Soviet and Russian experience in the development and evolution of the MAB-6 project and the role of mountain biosphere reserves in Russia in the preservation of biological and cultural heritage are considered. The adoption in 2020 by the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly of the Model Law "On the Development and Protection of Mountainous Territories of the CIS" opens up new prospects for the development of mountain regions and testifies to the relevance of scientific approaches laid in the foundation of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program and the MAB-6 mountain project, in particular.

scholarly journals Latitude, elevational climatic zonation and speciation in New World vertebrates

2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1726) ◽  
pp. 194-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Daniel Cadena ◽  
Kenneth H. Kozak ◽  
Juan Pablo Gómez ◽  
Juan Luis Parra ◽  
Christy M. McCain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Climatic Variation ◽  
Temperate Zone ◽  
Sister Species ◽  
Tropical Species ◽  
Biodiversity Hotspots ◽  
Tropical Mountains ◽  
Evolutionary Conservatism ◽  
The Tropics

Many biodiversity hotspots are located in montane regions, especially in the tropics. A possible explanation for this pattern is that the narrow thermal tolerances of tropical species and greater climatic stratification of tropical mountains create more opportunities for climate-associated parapatric or allopatric speciation in the tropics relative to the temperate zone. However, it is unclear whether a general relationship exists among latitude, climatic zonation and the ecology of speciation. Recent taxon-specific studies obtained different results regarding the role of climate in speciation in tropical versus temperate areas. Here, we quantify overlap in the climatic distributions of 93 pairs of sister species of mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles restricted to either the New World tropics or to the Northern temperate zone. We show that elevational ranges of tropical- and temperate-zone species do not differ from one another, yet the temperature range experienced by species in the temperate zone is greater than for those in the tropics. Moreover, tropical sister species tend to exhibit greater similarity in their climatic distributions than temperate sister species. This pattern suggests that evolutionary conservatism in the thermal niches of tropical taxa, coupled with the greater thermal zonation of tropical mountains, may result in increased opportunities for allopatric isolation, speciation and the accumulation of species in tropical montane regions. Our study exemplifies the power of combining phylogenetic and spatial datasets of global climatic variation to explore evolutionary (rather than purely ecological) explanations for the high biodiversity of tropical montane regions.

scholarly journals The Role of Coffee Based Agroforestry System in Tree Diversity Conservation in Eastern Uganda

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Worku Janka Negawo ◽  
Dejene Nigatu Beyene
Keyword(s):  
Tree Species ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Agroforestry System ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Land Area ◽  
Forest Reserve ◽  
Exotic Tree ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Eastern Uganda

Abstract Agroforestry farming system comprises considerable cultivated land area in the tropics. Despite the economic and social benefits of the system for farmers, it is also known to have an important role in the conservation of tree species. This study aims to evaluate the composition and distribution of tree species in coffee based agroforestry system to determine the potential for biodiversity conservation. To address the objective of this study, 57 sample plots in farmers’ coffee field and 12 sample plots in forest reserve were surveyed in Eastern Uganda. The result shows that the number of indigenous tree species in coffee farms was lower than that of forest reserve. Similarly, tree species richness per plot, Shannon and Simpson diversity indexes of forest reserve were significantly (p≤0.05) higher than that of coffee farms. However, with the inclusion of exotic tree species, coffee farms were found to be significantly higher than that of forest reserve for the above diversity indexes. On the other hand, the distribution of tree species in the coffee farms were mainly dominated by few tree species indicating the need for measures that ensure the sustainability of those less represented tree species.

scholarly journals Food security among dryland pastoralists and agropastoralists: The climate, land-use change, and population dynamics nexus

2021 ◽  
pp. 205301962110075
Author(s):  
Ilan Stavi ◽  
Joana Roque de Pinho ◽  
Anastasia K Paschalidou ◽  
Susana B Adamo ◽  
Kathleen Galvin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Food Utilization ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Food Security Status ◽  
Global Action ◽  
Land Use And Management

During the last decades, pastoralist, and agropastoralist populations of the world’s drylands have become exceedingly vulnerable to regional and global changes. Specifically, exacerbated stressors imposed on these populations have adversely affected their food security status, causing humanitarian emergencies and catastrophes. Of these stressors, climate variability and change, land-use and management practices, and dynamics of human demography are of a special importance. These factors affect all four pillars of food security, namely, food availability, access to food, food utilization, and food stability. The objective of this study was to critically review relevant literature to assess the complex web of interrelations and feedbacks that affect these factors. The increasing pressures on the world’s drylands necessitate a comprehensive analysis to advise policy makers regarding the complexity and linkages among factors, and to improve global action. The acquired insights may be the basis for alleviating food insecurity of vulnerable dryland populations.

Conservation and privatization decisions in land reform of New Zealand’s high country

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Adena R Rissman ◽  
Molly C Daniels ◽  
Peter Tait ◽  
Xiaojing Xing ◽  
Ann L Brower
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Conservation Easement ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Lower Productivity ◽  
Ecological Values

Summary Neoliberal land reforms to increase economic development have important implications for biodiversity conservation. This paper investigates land reform in New Zealand’s South Island that divides leased state-owned stations (ranches) with private grazing leases into state-owned conservation land, private land owned by the former leaseholder and private land under protective covenant (similar to conservation easement). Conserved lands had less threatened vegetation, lower productivity, less proximity to towns and steeper slopes than privatized lands. Covenants on private land were more common in intermediate zones with moderate land-use productivity and slope. Lands identified with ecological or recreational ‘significant inherent values’ were more likely to shift into conserved or covenant status. Yet among lands with identified ecological values, higher-threat areas were more likely to be privatized than lower-threat areas. This paper makes two novel contributions: (1) quantitatively examining the role of scientific recommendations about significant inherent values in land reform outcomes; and (2) examining the use of conservation covenants on privatized land. To achieve biodiversity goals, it is critical to avoid or prevent the removal of land-use restrictions beyond protected areas.

The role of bacterial communities in shaping Cd-induced hormesis in ‘living’ soil as a function of land-use change

2020 ◽  
pp. 124996
Author(s):  
Diwu Fan ◽  
Shengyan Wang ◽  
Yanhui Guo ◽  
Jian Liu ◽  
Evgenios Agathokleous ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Bacterial Communities
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document