News
Conservation strategies must adapt when landscapes change |
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- Agriculture provides societies with food and biomass, but where agriculture expands into tropical and subtropical forests, biodiversity losses can be large. - Understanding how exactly agriculture impacts biodiversity is therefore critically important for helping farmers and planners to find ways to avoid biodiversity losses. Read more... |
Topographic correction matters: Land-cover mapping in the Caucasus |
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Our study found that topographic correction matters for land-cover mapping, especially for discriminating forest typesin steep terrain, and examinedthree decades of Landsat imagery revealingthat cropland loss was the most prevalentland-cover change in the Caucasus. |
Does conflict inhibit connectivity for big cats? |
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Maintaining connectivity is among important conservation measures against habitat fragmentation. Yet, conflict risk may compromise the functionality of corridors. In this study, we show that by ignoring human-leopard conflict, safe corridors are substantially overestimated in NE Iran. |
Land grabs lead to increasing deforestation in the tropics |
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Land acquisitions in the tropics by multinational companies or countries have been a growing phenomenon recently, but it remains unclear whether that leads to more deforestation. A new study, led by Kyle Davis from the University of Delaware, analyzed over 82,000 individual land deals in 15 tropical countries to show that land deals do indeed target areas with disproportionally high forest cover and that once deals are made they lead to increased deforestation. This emphasizes the need for stronger policies curbing the negative environmental impacts of land deals. |
Post-Soviet rewilding in the Eurasia steppes results in increasing landscape connectivity |
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In the steppes of Kazakhstan, large-scale passive rewilding maybe taking place, substantially increasing protected area connectivity! Using a unique combination of satellite imagery and historic topographic maps we developed a set of spatial indicators that allowed to spatially assess post-Soviet trends in human influence. |
Spy satellites reveal species’ declines |
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Species’ responses to land use conversions can occur on timescales not previously observed for mammals. Marmot burrow densities declined for over 60 years following agricultural conversions. To demonstrate these remarkable long-term responses, we relied on a novel data source for conservation - Corona spy satellite imagery from the Cold War. |
PhD Position on biodiversity responses to land-use change in the former Soviet Union |
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The Conservation Biology department at the University of Göttingen (Germany) seeks highly qualified and motivated candidates for a PhD Position on biodiversity responses to Application deadline: 30 June 2020 |
Cropland distribution and local climate shape bird beta diversity |
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Using generalized dissimilarity models we find that cropland distribution and local climate characteristics are important factors in shaping beta diversity of birds in the South American Dry Chaco. |
Increasing joint impacts of habitat destruction and hunting on mammals in the Gran Chaco |
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Habitat destruction and overexploitation – the main threats to biodiversity worldwide – are increasingly affecting several mammal species in the same areas. In such areas, the total effect of both threats may be even larger than the sum of the parts, likely resulting in fast biodiversity loss. Our work identifies priority areas for protection, as well as hotspots were one or both threats should be managed in order to save the imperiled biodiversity of the Chaco. |
Trade in soybean and beef affect Jaguars more than trafficking |
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The increasing trade in jaguar body parts to China have drawn global conservation attention. However, we argue that the trade in soybean and beef pose far greater threats to jaguars through increasing habitat destruction and direct killing that they promote. Conservation should focus on these threats and their interactions with trafficking. |
Cattle systems in the Dry Chaco |
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Cattle production has major impacts on the environment, but these impacts vary depending on the cattle production systems. Data on these systems are notoriously scarce, which is a real obstacle for context-specific impact assessments and spatial planning. Here, we developed a novel approach that combines vaccination data, which contains detailed information on the location and composition of cattle herds, with fine-scale land-cover information to map cattle production systems. |
A novel Landsat-derived index shows a 73% drop in grazing pressure on the Eurasian steppe |
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Producing food while maintaining biodiversity is a global challenge and fierce debates exist about the optimal strategy to do so. We show that the best strategy depends on both species response to agriculture as well as the productive capacity of land. |
Maintaining biodiversity may take multiple land use strategies |
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Producing food while maintaining biodiversity is a global challenge and fierce debates exist about the optimal strategy to do so. We show that the best strategy depends on both species response to agriculture as well as the productive capacity of land. |
Fires scorching Bolivia's Chiquitano forest |
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The Chiquitano dry Forest, the world’s largest and best preserved tropical dry forest, has lost a staggering 1.4 million ha (~12 of its total area) to forest fires over weeks in 2019. The Bolivian government should revise the legislation encouraging agricultural expansion to protect these unique forest. |
Mapping marmots from space |
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We used Google Earth and Bing images to map the distribution of Bobak marmot (Marmota bobak) across its range in Kazakhstan and southern Russia (~950,000 km2). Our ground-truth survey showed that the imagery we used are suitable for detection marmot burrows form space. Based on we occurrence data we built habitat models and derived a new population estimate for the species in Kazahkstan. |
Land-use change caused a tremendous increase in steppe fires in Kazakhstan |
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Dissolution of the Soviet Union resulted in an unprecedented cropland and grazing abandonment. We detected a sevenfold increase in burned area in northern Kazahkstan using Landsat imagery. This change in fire regimes can be attributed to post-Soviet land-use change. |
Connectivity or isolation? Wisent reintroductions in Poland |
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In this study, we developed an approach to identify candidate reintroduction sites to increase connectivity as well as to serve as potential reservoirs. We used European bison (wisents) as an example and mapped 47 reintroduction candidate sites in Poland. |
Assessing the impacts of deforestation on collared peccaries at the population and individual level |
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In this study, we developed an approach to identify candidate reintroduction sites to increase connectivity as well as to serve as potential reservoirs. We used European bison (wisents) as an example and mapped 47 reintroduction candidate sites in Poland. |
Mapping habitat suitability directly from the Landsat archive |
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We show that Landsat-based spectral-temporal metrics can significantly improve habitat assessments for large mammals when compared to land-cover maps, better capturing fine scale variation and temporal dynamics in habitat conditions. |
