Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

Ambio 2020 Jul 3. Epub 2020 Jul 3.

Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Av. André Araújo, 2936, Manaus, AM, CEP 69.067-375, Brazil.

National parks are under attack in many parts of the world, including Brazil, which the Convention on Biodiversity ranks as the world's most biodiverse country. Brazil has been experiencing an unprecedented environmental crisis, and the political situation in the country favors approval of environmentally damaging measures by both the legislative and executive branches of government. A new and largely unreported setback is a proposal in the National Congress for a road cutting the Iguaçu National Park in two. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jun 27. Epub 2020 Jun 27.

Finnish Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Oulu, Finland.

The inherently unknown future development of a Nordic bio-economy was studied with four scenarios applied in an ecosystem service assessment framework. This framework couples CORINE land use cover with estimates of 15 final ecosystem services from the CICES 5.1 classification in biophysical and monetary terms. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jun 23. Epub 2020 Jun 23.

Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland.

Landowners can intentionally impair biodiversity values occurring on their land to pre-empt biodiversity protection. This often leads to significant negative effects on biodiversity. We studied whether landowners in Finland engaged in pre-emptive loggings after they were notified that their wooded mires are candidate sites for a mire protection program. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jun 15. Epub 2020 Jun 15.

Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego Zoo, 15600 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido, CA, 92027, USA.

The terms 'coexistence', 'tolerance,' and 'acceptance' appear frequently in conservation literature, but lack consistent characterization, making them difficult to apply across intervention frameworks. This review aims to describe the common characterizations of these three terms using Africa-based research as a case study. Through systematic lexical searches, we identified 392 papers containing one or more of the three terms. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jun 13. Epub 2020 Jun 13.

Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Gaustadalleen 21, 0348, Oslo, Norway.

Reduced emissions of nitrogen (N) in Europe have resulted in decreasing atmospheric deposition since 1990. Long-term data (1988-2017) from four small Norwegian catchments located along gradients in N deposition, rainfall, and organic carbon (C) show different responses to 25-30% reductions in N deposition during the same period. At three sites the decreased N deposition caused reduced leaching of nitrate to surface water, whereas the westernmost site showed no decrease, probably due to thin soils with low C:N ratio, poor vegetation cover and high precipitation. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jun 10. Epub 2020 Jun 10.

Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, and African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 7700, South Africa.

There is a long history of fire management in African savannas, but knowledge of historical and current use of fire is scarce in savanna-woodland biomes. This study explores past and present fire management practices and perceptions of the Khwe (former hunter-gatherers) and Mbukushu (agropastoralists) communities as well as government and non-government stakeholders in Bwabwata National Park in north-east Namibia. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were used in combination with satellite data (from 2000 to 2015), to investigate historical and current fire management dynamics. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jun 3. Epub 2020 Jun 3.

Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, 8600, Silkeborg, Denmark.

Diffusive losses of nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural areas have detrimental effects on freshwater and marine ecosystems. Mitigation measures treating drainage water before it enters streams hold a high potential for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus losses from agricultural areas. To achieve a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges characterising current and new drainage mitigation measures in oceanic and continental climates, we reviewed the nitrate and total phosphorus removal efficiency of: (i) free water surface constructed wetlands, (ii) denitrifying bioreactors, (iii) controlled drainage, (iv) saturated buffer zones and (v) integrated buffer zones. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jun 2. Epub 2020 Jun 2.

State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, XinJieKouWai St., HaiDian District, Beijing, 100875, China.

Ecosystems respond to climatic and anthropogenic forcings with regime shifts and reorganizations of their system structures. In river basins, changes in sediment transport can have cascading effects that cause ecosystem regime shifts. The Yellow River, once the world's most sediment-rich river, has experienced dramatic regime shifts. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 29. Epub 2020 May 29.

Teagasc, Department of Soils, Environment and Land Use, Johnstown Castle Research Centre, Wexford, Ireland.

Concerns over the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in farmland have prompted the development of agri-environment policy measures aimed at reducing farming pressure and maintaining semi-natural habitats in farmed landscapes. However, further knowledge is needed to guarantee successful agri-environment measures implementation. The current study assessed the quantity and the quality of semi-natural habitats in farms across a gradient of farming intensities in two contrasting regions in Ireland. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 25. Epub 2020 May 25.

Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, David Attenborough Building, Pembroke Street, Cambridge, CB2 3QZ, UK.

Each year, hunters from 12 of the 27 European Union (EU) countries and the UK shoot over 6 million large game mammals, 12 million rabbits and hares and over 80 million birds. They support an international game meat market worth over 1.1 thousand million Euros. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 25. Epub 2020 May 25.

AGH University of Science and Technology, al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059, Kraków, Poland.

Mitigation of eutrophication, intensified by excessive nutrient load discharge in wastewaters regulated by restrictive legal requirements, remains one of today's most important global problems. Despite implementation of the Water Framework Directive, the Urban Wastewater Directive and the HELCOM recommendations, the actual condition of surface water is still not satisfactory. In response to the above, the study presents an alternative approach for surface water protection against eutrophication based on the selection of appropriate nutrient removal technologies. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 25. Epub 2020 May 25.

Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7013, 75007, Uppsala, Sweden.

Uncertain future payoffs and irreversible costs characterize investment in climate change adaptation and mitigation. Under these conditions, it is relevant to analyze investment decisions in a real options framework, as this approach takes into account the economic value associated with investment time flexibility. In this paper, we provide an overview of the literature adopting a real option approach to analyze investment in climate change adaptation and mitigation, and examine how the uncertain impacts of climate change on the condition of the human environment, risk preferences, and strategic interactions among decisions-makers have been modeled. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 25. Epub 2020 May 25.

Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden.

Ethiopia aims to restore 15 million ha degraded forests and woodlands, but effects on the potentially contrasting goals of long-term carbon storage, biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods are unknown. To quantify the effects of grazing exclusion on vegetation and fire behaviour, we established six 30 × 30 m fenced exclosures with grazed controls, in a mesic wooded savanna. Experimental burns were done after 1. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 12. Epub 2020 May 12.

Area of Toxicology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Murcia, Campus Espinardo, 30100, Murcia, Spain.

Birds of prey, owls and falcons are widely used as sentinel species in raptor biomonitoring programmes. A major current challenge is to facilitate large-scale biomonitoring by coordinating contaminant monitoring activities and by building capacity across countries. This requires sharing, dissemination and adoption of best practices addressed by the Networking Programme Research and Monitoring for and with Raptors in Europe (EURAPMON) and now being advanced by the ongoing international COST Action European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 8. Epub 2020 May 8.

School of Life Sciences and the Centre for Compassionate Conservation, University of Technology Sydney, PO BOX 123, Ultimo, NSW, 2007, Australia.

In light of escalating threats to biodiversity, conflicts between humans and large carnivores in production landscapes must be resolved. We explore how interactions between humans, large carnivores, and livestock can be modified to promote coexistence. We identify four rationales for building coexistence capacities in extensive rangeland livestock production systems: (1) livestock production is a dominant terrestrial land use; (2) large carnivores provide critical contributions to ecological functions; (3) the persecution of large carnivores has high ethical, welfare, reputational and social costs; and (4) a growing body of evidence shows that lethal control can be counterproductive to reducing predation risk. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 8. Epub 2020 May 8.

WorldFish, Jalan Batu Maung, Batu Maung, 11960, Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia.

A greater understanding of gendered roles in fisheries is necessary to value the often-hidden roles that women play in fisheries and households. We examine women's contributions to household food and income using focus group discussions, market surveys, and landings data in six communities in Timor-Leste. Women were actively fishing more days per month than men. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 8. Epub 2020 May 8.

University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.

The use of moored Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) in small-scale fisheries is a potential solution to food security concerns, economic development needs, and the overexploitation of nearshore coastal fisheries in the Eastern Caribbean. However, moored FADs also generate novel and largely unstudied governance challenges involving (1) the provisioning of FADs, (2) fisheries resource appropriation, (3) human wellbeing, and (4) food web impacts. We examine the relative performance of three governance scenarios to address these challenges: private-individual, community-based, and top-down governance. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 8. Epub 2020 May 8.

Faculty of Wildlife Sciences, Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, P.O. Box 18, Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, 248001, India.

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) has emerged as a promising tool to participatory natural resource management and sharing of benefits among the stakeholders. However, very few successful models of PES are available for replication. This study deals with an analysis of a PES model currently operational in the Dhauladhar Range, Western Himalaya, where upstream villagers are paid for maintaining the spring-shed that supplies drinking water to the downstream township. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 6. Epub 2020 May 6.

School of Geography, University of Melbourne, 221 Bouverie Street, Carlton, VIC, 3053, Australia.

Indigenous people play an integral role in shaping natural environments, and the disruption to Indigenous land management practices has profound effects on the biosphere. Here, we use pollen, charcoal and dendrochronological analyses to demonstrate that the Australian landscape at the time of British invasion in the 18th century was a heavily constructed one-the product of millennia of active maintenance by Aboriginal Australians. Focusing on the Surrey Hills, Tasmania, our results reveal how the removal of Indigenous burning regimes following British invasion instigated a process of ecological succession and the encroachment of cool temperate rainforest (i. Read More

Ambio 2020 May 6. Epub 2020 May 6.

National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba City, Ibaraki, 305-8506, Japan.

The conceptualization of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) framework represented a major leap in scenario development in the context of global environmental change and sustainability, providing significant advances from the previous scenario frameworks-especially the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. It is highly likely that the SSP concept, along with its scenario narratives and their respective results, including land-use change projections, will play a substantial role in the forthcoming Sixth Assessment Report by the IPCC. Here, we offer some insights that could make the SSPs' projected future changes in global land use more comprehensive and also help improve the interpretability of such projections. Read More

Ambio 2020 Apr 24. Epub 2020 Apr 24.

School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland, Auckland Mail Centre, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand.

The United Kingdom Government intends to require land development in England to contribute to improving biodiversity values. The basis for this, the offsetting of impacts on biodiversity, stems from and reinforces a neoliberal economic approach, fits with the privatising of conservation, and at a landscape level may improve biodiversity values. However, challenging decision-makers is the current lack of robust evidence that offsetting works, meaning allowing development despite uncertain future biodiversity benefits. Read More

Ambio 2020 Apr 20. Epub 2020 Apr 20.

UWA School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia (M004), 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia.

Reductions in global bee populations are threatening the pollination benefits to both the planet and people. Whilst the contribution of bee pollination in promoting sustainable development goals through food security and biodiversity is widely acknowledged, a range of other benefits provided by bees has yet to be fully recognised. We explore the contributions of bees towards achieving the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Read More

Ambio 2020 Apr 20. Epub 2020 Apr 20.

Research and Development, Oceanography, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Sven Källfelts Gata 15, 426 71, Västra Frölunda, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Dense blooms of diazotrophic filamentous cyanobacteria are formed every summer in the Baltic Sea. We estimated their contribution to nitrogen fixation by combining two decades of cyanobacterial biovolume monitoring data with recently measured genera-specific nitrogen fixation rates. In the Bothnian Sea, estimated nitrogen fixation rates were 80 kt N year, which has doubled during recent decades and now exceeds external loading from rivers and atmospheric deposition of 69 kt year. Read More

Ambio 2020 Apr 11. Epub 2020 Apr 11.

Marine Biology Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 8675 Discovery Way, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.

There is a scale mismatch between mangrove conservation and carbon emission mitigation policies despite mangroves contributing disproportionally to global carbon sequestration. Using Mexico as a case study in the integration of these scales, we estimate mangrove carbon value and deforestation rates at the municipio (local government) scale and develop a prioritization model that indicates where to focus conservation efforts. By using previously published global models of carbon stocks, Mexico-specific carbon sequestration data, and calculating gross deforestation, we found that the current rate of deforestation will result in a social cost of 392. Read More

Ambio 2020 Apr 7. Epub 2020 Apr 7.

Guangxi Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Conservation, College of Forestry, Guangxi University, Daxuedonglu 100, Nanning, 530004, China.

Low-intensity agriculture is important for the conservation of many European habitats and species. However, biodiverse farmlands-also referred to as high nature value (HNV) farmlands-are threatened by years of agricultural intensification and land abandonment. Considering the ongoing changes in land-cover-evident throughout Europe-it is important to assess how land transformation is affecting HNV farmlands. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar 16. Epub 2020 Mar 16.

Animal Behavior and Cognition Programme, School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science Campus, Bangalore, Karnataka, 560012, India.

The perceptions of wildlife managers regarding human-wildlife conflict (HWC) scenarios are likely to affect the outcomes of conflict mitigation measures. We studied the attitudes and perceptions of forest department personnel regarding the management of human-rhesus macaque conflict (HRMC) in Himachal Pradesh, northern India. We collected data through a questionnaire survey and used frameworks from organizational psychology to draw insights from our results. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar 16. Epub 2020 Mar 16.

Instituto Prístino, Rua Santa Maria Goretti, 86, Barreiro, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, CEP 30642-020, Brazil.

Irreversible losses of natural areas and damage to ecosystem services are caused by large-scale mining. These effects are prominent in Minas Gerais, which is home to a mining industry with hundreds of tailings dams concentrated in global hotspots: the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest. We present an overview of the spatial overlap between protected areas (PAs), priority conservation areas (PCAs), tailings dams, and their influence areas. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar 9. Epub 2020 Mar 9.

Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 901 83, Umeå, Sweden.

Large herbivores play key roles in terrestrial ecosystems. Continuous defaunation processes have produced cascade effects on plant community composition, vegetation structure, and even climate. Wood-pastures were created by traditional management practices that have maintained open structures and biodiversity for millennia. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar 9. Epub 2020 Mar 9.

Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore, 117543, Singapore.

Analysing the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in conservation landscapes can provide crucial information for conservation management. While rates of forest loss can be measured through remote sensing, on the ground information is needed to confirm the commodities and actors behind deforestation. We administered a questionnaire to Wildlife Conservation Society's landscape managers to assess the deforestation drivers in 28 tropical conservation landscapes. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar 9. Epub 2020 Mar 9.

Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Cornwall, TR10 9FE, UK.

The 2015-2016 El Niño had large impacts globally. The effects were not as great as anticipated in Kenya, however, leading some commentators to call it a 'non-event'. Our study uses a novel combination of participatory Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis tools, and new and existing social and biophysical data, to analyse vulnerability to, and the multidimensional impacts of, the 2015-2016 El Niño episode in southern coastal Kenya. Read More

Ambio 2020 Feb 28. Epub 2020 Feb 28.

Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies, Box 170, 221 00, Lund, Sweden.

Relational thinking has recently gained increasing prominence across academic disciplines in an attempt to understand complex phenomena in terms of constitutive processes and relations. Interdisciplinary fields of study, such as science and technology studies (STS), the environmental humanities, and the posthumanities, for example, have started to reformulate academic understanding of nature-cultures based on relational thinking. Although the sustainability crisis serves as a contemporary backdrop and in fact calls for such innovative forms of interdisciplinary scholarship, the field of sustainability research has not yet tapped into the rich possibilities offered by relational thinking. Read More

Ambio 2020 Feb 21. Epub 2020 Feb 21.

Social-Ecological Research Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, Idaho State University, 921 South 8th Avenue, Pocatello, ID, 83209, USA.

Conservation easements are the fastest growing private conservation strategy in the United States. However, mechanisms to assess private land conservation as well as their support by the general public are not well understood. This study uses the ecosystem services framework for assessing existing private lands in Idaho and identifies areas for future conservation easements. Read More

Ambio 2020 Feb 14. Epub 2020 Feb 14.

Department of Agrarian Management, University of Santiago, Santiago, Chile.

Community involvement may be essential for conservation programme success. We focus on farmers, asking how and why they believe conservation interventions will work, or not. Here we test models of folk theories of the human motivational factors required for behaviour change, in 3 rural central Chilean communities. Read More

Ambio 2020 Feb 14. Epub 2020 Feb 14.

UMR Sciences pour l'Action et le Développement, Activités, Produits, Territoires, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 78850, Thiverval-Grignon, France.

The "human dimension" of conservation is increasingly recognised as critical for success. Most conservation research involving people is based not on explicit "theories of change", but tacit local knowledge or folk theories guiding programme design.In this study, I propose a schematization of the local socioecological knowledge and folk theories about the "human dimension" of conservation into tacit working models, comprised of individual factors and systemic factors influencing human behaviour in conservation contexts. Read More

Ambio 2020 Feb 10. Epub 2020 Feb 10.

Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97330, USA.

Freshwater ecosystems provide irreplaceable services for both nature and society. The quality and quantity of freshwater affect biogeochemical processes and ecological dynamics that determine biodiversity, ecosystem productivity, and human health and welfare at local, regional and global scales. Freshwater ecosystems and their associated riparian habitats are amongst the most biologically diverse on Earth, and have inestimable economic, health, cultural, scientific and educational values. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jan 29. Epub 2020 Jan 29.

Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden.

Farming of eucheumatoid seaweeds is a widespread, promising activity and an important livelihood option in many tropical coastal areas as for example in East Africa, Western Indian Ocean (WIO). Compared to other types of aquaculture, seaweed farming has generally low impact on the environment. Nonetheless, there are potential direct or indirect negative effects of seaweed farming, such as introduction of alien species and changes in local environmental conditions. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jan 29. Epub 2020 Jan 29.

Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia (UFSB), Rodovia Porto Seguro, BR367- Km10, Porto Seguro, BA, 45613-204, Brazil.

This study aimed to investigate the environmental impacts generated by the hydroelectric complex in the Madeira River, Brazilian Amazon, based on the perceptions of local fishers and fishery database, it focus attention on three main impacts: (i) on local fishery stocks; (ii) in fish fauna and (iii) on the aquatic ecosystems. The local fishers were selected through the "snowball" approach for the application of semi-structured interviews. All the local fishers confirmed having perceived a decline in fishery productivity following the impounding of the Madeira River. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jan 28. Epub 2020 Jan 28.

Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California Riverside, 900 University Ave, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.

The nutrition transition towards western diets in developing countries occurs at multiple levels, impacting health and society and also the environment. In Mexico, the shift in food consumption and production patterns, particularly in relation to animal source foods (ASF), has changed land use. We studied the consumption and production of ASF and change in agricultural land use in Mexico during the second half of the twentieth century and until 2013; using domestic and international data sources, our findings show an increasing proportion of farmed area devoted to the production of feed crops domestically, and also an increasing demand of farmed feed beyond national borders. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jan 28. Epub 2020 Jan 28.

Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Norrköping, Sweden.

New sea-level rise projections for Sweden are presented. Compared to earlier projections, we have here, more carefully, taken regional variations in sea-level rise into consideration. The better treatment of regional variations leads to lower sea-level rise projections for Sweden. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jan 24. Epub 2020 Jan 24.

School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA.

The importance of greenhouse gas inventories cannot be overstated: the process of producing inventories informs strategies that governments will use to meet emissions reduction targets. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) leads an effort to develop and refine internationally agreed upon methodologies for calculating and reporting greenhouse gas emissions and removals. We argue that these guidelines are not equipped to handle the task of developing national greenhouse gas inventories for most countries. Read More

Ambio 2020 Sep 22;49(9):1519-1529. Epub 2020 Jan 22.

Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China, Xuanwu District, Nanjing, China.

Globally, continuing environmental degradation is leading many countries to strengthen their systems of protected areas. However, this may not be sufficient to halt degradation and conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. To supplement its growing system of protected areas, the Chinese government is adopting a strategy of Ecological Conservation Redlines (ECRs). Read More

Ambio 2020 07 21;49(7):1268-1270. Epub 2020 Jan 21.

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Bergen, PO Box 7803, 5020, Bergen, Norway.

Ambio 2020 03;49(3):784-785

Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark.

While collating contributions and comments from 36 researchers, the coordinating authors accidentally omitted Dr. Suzanne Carrière from the list of contributing co-authors. Dr. Read More

Ambio 2020 Jan 20. Epub 2020 Jan 20.

Griffith School of Environment, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Parklands Drive, Southport, Gold Coast, QLD, 4222, Australia.

Orchids are among the most threatened taxa globally due to increasing anthropogenic threats, inherent rarity and specific conservation needs. But what are the global research and conservation priorities for this charismatic group of plants? Using information for 595 orchids on the IUCN Red List, we reviewed past research and identified key research and conservation priorities. These included understanding threats, monitoring orchid populations and habitats, species management in ex situ conservation, genome resource banks and artificial propagation, land and habitat protection and education and awareness through communication. Read More

Ambio 2020 Sep 18;49(9):1506-1518. Epub 2020 Jan 18.

Wildlife Conservation Society, Global Conservation Program, Bronx, NY, 10460, USA.

Recent global-scale studies have revealed intense levels of human activities within many protected areas worldwide. However, these analyses rely on coarse global-scale data, making their utility for informing local-scale conservation action limited. We developed a spatially explicit national human footprint index for Iran, a biologically diverse country in west Asia, based on the latest high-resolution datasets available for human pressures. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar;49(3):833-847

Arctic Research Centre, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000, Roskilde, Denmark.

This review provides a synopsis of the main findings of individual papers in the special issue Terrestrial Biodiversity in a Rapidly Changing Arctic. The special issue was developed to inform the State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity Report developed by the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP) of the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), Arctic Council working group. Salient points about the status and trends of Arctic biodiversity and biodiversity monitoring are organized by taxonomic groups: (1) vegetation, (2) invertebrates, (3) mammals, and (4) birds. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar;49(3):655-665

Department of Bioscience, Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000, Roskilde, Denmark.

The Arctic is undergoing biological and environmental changes, and a coordinated effort to monitor is critical to detect these changes. The Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Programme (CBMP) of the Arctic Council biodiversity working group, Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), has developed pan-Arctic biodiversity monitoring plans that aims to improve the ability to detect and report on long-term changes. Whilst introducing this special issue, this paper also presents the making of the terrestrial monitoring plan and discusses how the plan follows the steps required for an adaptive and ecosystem-based monitoring programme. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar 18;49(3):732-748. Epub 2020 Jan 18.

Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 1125 Colonel By Dr, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada.

Tundra-breeding birds face diverse conservation challenges, from accelerated rates of Arctic climate change to threats associated with highly migratory life histories. Here we summarise the status and trends of Arctic terrestrial birds (88 species, 228 subspecies or distinct flyway populations) across guilds/regions, derived from published sources, raw data or, in rare cases, expert opinion. We report long-term trends in vital rates (survival, reproduction) for the handful of species and regions for which these are available. Read More

Ambio 2020 Mar 18;49(3):666-677. Epub 2020 Jan 18.

Norwegian Polar Institute, Fram Centre, 9296, Tromsø, Norway.

Vegetation change has consequences for terrestrial ecosystem structure and functioning and may involve climate feedbacks. Hence, when monitoring ecosystem states and changes thereof, the vegetation is often a primary monitoring target. Here, we summarize current understanding of vegetation change in the High Arctic-the World's most rapidly warming region-in the context of ecosystem monitoring. Read More

Ambio 2020 03 19;49(3):762-783. Epub 2019 Dec 19.

Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark.

The peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) and the gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus) are top avian predators of Arctic ecosystems. Although existing monitoring efforts are well established for both species, collaboration of activities among Arctic scientists actively involved in research of large falcons in the Nearctic and Palearctic has been poorly coordinated. Here we provide the first overview of Arctic falcon monitoring sites, present trends for long-term occupancy and productivity, and summarize information describing abundance, distribution, phenology, and health of the two species. Read More