scholarly journals An Approach for Creating Site-Specific Planting Palettes to Support Pollinators in the Sky Islands

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 117862212095026
Author(s):  
Carianne Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Sky Islands ◽  
Island Region ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Botanical Species ◽  
Restoration Techniques ◽  
Pollinator Conservation ◽  
Sky Island

Restoration practitioners are challenged to continually modify and adapt their approaches to restoration by considering a greater diversity of restoration techniques and broader suites of plant species. Presented herein is a pollinator planting palette design approach that leverages botanical species richness to assist pollinator conservation efforts in the uniquely biodiverse Sky Island region.

scholarly journals Wildlife Use of Drainage Structures Under 2 Sections of Federal Highway 2 in the Sky Island Region of Northeastern Sonora, Mexico

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 117862212098872
Author(s):  
Mirna Manteca-Rodríguez ◽  
Ricardo E Félix-Burruel ◽  
Cecilia Aguilar-Morales ◽  
Juan Carlos Bravo ◽  
Myles Traphagen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Index ◽  
Black Bear ◽  
Island Region ◽  
Wildlife Use ◽  
Field Assessment ◽  
Federal Highway ◽  
Wildlife Migration ◽  
Trail Cameras ◽  
Sky Island ◽  
Wildlife Mortality

Roads and highways are 1 of the most significant obstacles affecting wildlife movement by fragmenting habitat, altering wildlife migration and use of habitat, while also being a danger to wildlife and humans caused by wildlife-vehicle interactions. To mitigate wildlife mortality on highway sections and to minimize death and injury to motorists as well, road ecologists have proposed structures adapted for the safe passage of wildlife across roads. In this study, photographic sampling was conducted using trail cameras to quantify wildlife activity and use of existing culverts, bridges, and drainages within 2 separate sections of Mexico Federal Highway 2 where previous field assessment had observed high levels of activity. These sections are important areas for the conservation of wildlife, and they are known to be biological corridors for rare species of concern such as jaguar, black bear, and ocelot. The trail cameras were operated for 1 year to document the annual cycle of wildlife movement through the area. With the photographs obtained, a database was created containing the information from each wildlife-culvert interaction. Prior to sampling, an inventory of existing culverts was conducted that measured height, width, volume, and surrounding habitat to assign a hypothesized use quality index. After testing for significant differences in use index among culverts, we recognized that all culverts were equally important for moving wildlife, and that there were no significant differences in the use of culverts by the quality index.

scholarly journals Family graveyards form underappreciated local plant diversity hotspots in China's agricultural landscapes

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Gong ◽  
Liangtao Li ◽  
Jan C. Axmarcher ◽  
Zhenrong Yu ◽  
Yunhui Liu
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Habitat Islands ◽  
Local Plant ◽  
Ecological Functioning

AbstractIn the intensively farmed, homogenous agricultural landscape of the North China Plain, family graveyards form distinct cultural landscape features. In addition to their cultural value, these graveyards represent semi-natural habitat islands whose potential roles in biodiversity conservation and ecological functioning has remained poorly understood. In this study, we investigated plant species richness on 199 family graveyards of different ages and sizes. In accordance with biogeography theory, both overall and insect-pollinated plant species richness increased with area and age of graveyards. Even small graveyards show a strong potential for conserving local plant richness, and a mosaic of both large and small family graveyards could play an important role in the conservation of farmland biodiversity and related ecosystem functions. The launch of agri-environmental measures that conserve and create semi-natural habitats, in turn benefitting agricultural biodiversity and ecological functioning, has proven difficult in China due to the shortage of dispensable arable land. Given the great value of family graveyards as semi-natural habitats reflected in our study, we propose to focus preliminary efforts on conserving these landscape features as existing, widespread and culturally important semi-natural habitat islands. This would represent an effective, complementary policy to a subsequent re-establishment of other semi-natural habitats for the conservation of biodiversity and ecological functioning in agricultural landscapes.

scholarly journals Global patterns and drivers of alpine plant species richness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Testolin ◽  
Fabio Attorre ◽  
Peter Borchardt ◽  
Robert F. Brand ◽  
Helge Bruelheide ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Alpine Plant ◽  
Global Patterns
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