Suchergebnisse

Many conservationists associate China with substantial environmental problems linked to the country's rapid economic development and the associated pollution and exploitation of its natural resources. Nonetheless, recent migrations of large parts of China's rural population into the booming cities has created vast, increasingly depopulated rural areas, in turn allowing the central government to instigate a series of measures aimed at improving the environmental conditions of rural landscapes across the country. These measures range from a strict protection of remaining mature forests to a restructuring of rural landscapes through globally unprecedented reforestation campaigns that are commonly aimed at reducing soil erosion and flooding. The potential of the resulting landscape changes to enhance biodiversity and associated ecosystem services has received limited attention to date. Here, we present results from our studies of plant, predatory ground beetle and geometrid moth assemblages and of their diversity patterns across forested and agricultural landscapes in northern and north-eastern China over the last decade. We illustrate the potential of secondary and plantation forest landscape to harbor insect and plant assemblages of similar, or even higher species richness in comparison to assemblages recorded in large mature forests remnants, and we demonstrate a strong local recruitment patterns of species assemblages in our study region. We also show that turnover across the different taxonomic groups is highly linked to climatic conditions and the wider landscape context, while cross-taxon links are generally weak. We discuss the implications of our findings for the conservation and potential enhancement of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services across the study region. ; peerReviewed

Are we entering a new 'Golden Age' of biogeography, with continued development of infrastructure and ideas? We highlight recent developments, and the challenges and opportunities they bring, in light of the snapshot provided by the 7th biennial meeting of the International Biogeography Society (IBS 2015). We summarize themes in and across 15 symposia using narrative analysis and word clouds, which we complement with recent publication trends and 'research fronts'. We find that biogeography is still strongly defined by core sub-disciplines that reflect its origins in botanical, zoological (particularly bird and mammal), and geographic (e.g., island, montane) studies of the 1800s. That core is being enriched by large datasets (e.g. of environmental variables, 'omics', species' occurrences, traits) and new techniques (e.g., advances in genetics, remote sensing, modeling) that promote studies with increasing detail and at increasing scales; disciplinary breadth is being diversified (e.g., by developments in paleobiogeography and microbiology) and integrated through the transfer of approaches and sharing of theory (e.g., spatial modeling and phylogenetics in evolutionary–ecological contexts). Yet some subdisciplines remain on the fringe (e.g., marine biogeography, deep-time paleobiogeography), new horizons and new theory may be overshadowed by popular techniques (e.g., species distribution modelling), and hypotheses, data, and analyses may each be wanting. Trends in publication suggest a shift away from traditional biogeography journals to multidisciplinary or open access journals. Thus, there are currently many stewardship of, the planet (e.g., Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). As in the past, biogeographers doubtless will continue to be engaged by new data and methods in exploring the nexus between biology and geography for decades into the future. But golden ages come and go, and they need not touch every domain in a discipline nor affect subdisciplines at the same time; moreover, what appears to be a Golden Age may sometimes have an undesirable 'Midas touch'. Contexts within and outwith biogeography—e.g., methods, knowledge, climate, biodiversity, politics—are continually changing, and at times it can be challenging to establish or maintain relevance. In so many races with the Red Queen, we suggest that biogeography will enjoy greatest success if we also increasingly engage with the epistemology of our discipline ; Peer reviewed

Are we entering a new 'Golden Age' of biogeography, with continued development of infrastructure and ideas? We highlight recent developments, and the challenges and opportunities they bring, in light of the snapshot provided by the 7th biennial meeting of the International Biogeography Society (IBS 2015). We summarize themes in and across 15 symposia using narrative analysis and word clouds, which we complement with recent publication trends and 'research fronts'. We find that biogeography is still strongly defined by core sub-disciplines that reflect its origins in botanical, zoological (particularly bird and mammal), and geographic (e.g., island, montane) studies of the 1800s. That core is being enriched by large datasets (e.g. of environmental variables, 'omics', species' occurrences, traits) and new techniques (e.g., advances in genetics, remote sensing, modeling) that promote studies with increasing detail and at increasing scales; disciplinary breadth is being diversified (e.g., by developments in paleobiogeography and microbiology) and integrated through the transfer of approaches and sharing of theory (e.g., spatial modeling and phylogenetics in evolutionary-ecological contexts). Yet some subdisciplines remain on the fringe (e.g., marine biogeography, deep-time paleobiogeography), new horizons and new theory may be overshadowed by popular techniques (e.g., species distribution modelling), and hypotheses, data, and analyses may each be wanting. Trends in publication suggest a shift away from traditional biogeography journals to multidisciplinary or open access journals. Thus, there are currently many opportunities and challenges as biogeography increasingly addresses human impacts on, and stewardship of, the planet (e.g., Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). As in the past, biogeographers doubtless will continue to be engaged by new data and methods in exploring the nexus between biology and geography for decades into the future. But golden ages come and go, and they need not touch every domain in a discipline nor affect subdisciplines at the same time; moreover, what appears to be a Golden Age may sometimes have an undesirable 'Midas touch'. Contexts within and outwith biogeography-e.g., methods, knowledge, climate, biodiversity, politics-are continually changing, and at times it can be challenging to establish or maintain relevance. In so many races with the Red Queen, we suggest that biogeography will enjoy greatest success if we also increasingly engage with the epistemology of our discipline.

Are we entering a new 'Golden Age' of biogeography, with continued development of infrastructure and ideas? We highlight recent developments, and the challenges and opportunities they bring, in light of the snapshot provided by the 7th biennial meeting of the International Biogeography Society (IBS 2015). We summarize themes in and across 15 symposia using narrative analysis and word clouds, which we complement with recent publication trends and 'research fronts'. We find that biogeography is still strongly defined by core sub-disciplines that reflect its origins in botanical, zoological (particularly bird and mammal), and geographic (e.g., island, montane) studies of the 1800s. That core is being enriched by large datasets (e.g. of environmental variables, 'omics', species' occurrences, traits) and new techniques (e.g., advances in genetics, remote sensing, modeling) that promote studies with increasing detail and at increasing scales; disciplinary breadth is being diversified (e.g., by developments in paleobiogeography and microbiology) and integrated through the transfer of approaches and sharing of theory (e.g., spatial modeling and phylogenetics in evolutionary–ecological contexts). Yet some subdisciplines remain on the fringe (e.g., marine biogeography, deep-time paleobiogeography), new horizons and new theory may be overshadowed by popular techniques (e.g., species distribution modelling), and hypotheses, data, and analyses may each be wanting. Trends in publication suggest a shift away from traditional biogeography journals to multidisciplinary or open access journals. Thus, there are currently many opportunities and challenges as biogeography increasingly addresses human impacts on, and stewardship of, the planet (e.g., Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). As in the past, biogeographers doubtless will continue to be engaged by new data and methods in exploring the nexus between biology and geography for decades into the future. But golden ages come and go, and they need not touch every domain in a discipline nor affect subdisciplines at the same time; moreover, what appears to be a Golden Age may sometimes have an undesirable 'Midas touch'. Contexts within and outwith biogeography—e.g., methods, knowledge, climate, biodiversity, politics—are continually changing, and at times it can be challenging to establish or maintain relevance. In so many races with the Red Queen, we suggest that biogeography will enjoy greatest success if we also increasingly engage with the epistemology of our discipline.