New Research on Biodiversity and Nature

A round-up of recent work published in scientific journals

Logging and mammals. Fears for flamingos. Concrete controls. Ghost roads. And much more...

Forest certification appears to benefit wild mammals in Africa: Forest management certification schemes such as those of the Forest Stewardship Council are intended to incentivise sustainable practices. To date, though, much of the research on these schemes has focused on trees and, to a lesser extent, local communities. Much less is known about what forest certification means for biodiversity. This study addresses this gap with evidence from 1.3 million photographs of 55 mammal species captured by camera traps in 14 logging concessions in western equatorial Africa. The camera traps recorded mammals more often in FSC-certified than in non-FSC logging concessions. Importantly, this effect was greatest for larger mammals including conservation priorities such as the critically endangered forest elephant and western lowland gorilla. The researchers say that, in forests used for timber production, certification or equivalent controls are needed to avoid the loss of large mammals. Read the full paper in Nature.

Rising lake levels threaten flamingo food supplies: Lesser flamingos feed on phytoplankton that can tolerate the salty, alkaline conditions in soda lakes in East Africa. But according to this study, rising water levels are diluting the lakes and so reducing the amount of food available to the birds. The research is based on satellite data from more than 20 years, and covers 22 lakes in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. The researchers say that increased rainfall linked to climate change could force the flamingos to find new feeding grounds outside of protected areas. Read the press release or the full paper in Current Biology.

Conservation policies are missing mining for construction minerals: Global infrastructure development has ecological impacts both at construction sites and through the extraction of minerals, such as those processed as concrete. This paper looked at the extent to which international and national policies on biodiversity conservation consider mining for construction minerals. The authors looked at the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and its predecessor, the Aichi Targets, as well as national biodiversity strategies and action plans and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). They say that most countries only superficially address mining for construction minerals, and suggest ways to address this gap. Read the full paper in Conservation Biology.

Ghost roads and the destruction of Asia-Pacific tropical forests: The link between road building and tropical deforestation is well-known — roads through forests create opportunities for illegal logging and mining, poaching and forest clearance for agriculture. But the threat is much bigger than previously thought, according to this study based on satellite images of the islands of Borneo, Sumatra and New Guinea. It found 1.37 million kilometres of roads that do not appear on any existing maps of these islands. The total length of these ‘ghost roads’, which include illegally constructed roads, equates to between 3 and 6.6 times the distance of roads in global datasets. The study also shows that road building nearly always preceded local forest loss. The authors conclude that ghost roads are among the top threats to tropical forests. Read the full paper in Nature or a commentary by co-author Bill Laurance.

See also, new papers on:

• Drivers and impacts of forest fragmentation in Indonesia

• Assessing the risk of Asian hornet invasion in Mexico

• Impacts of wildlife trade restrictions on conservation of iconic species in southern Africa 

• Eighty percent of bird species cannot tolerate intense human pressure

• Big gaps in tools to estimate businesses’ biodiversity impacts

• Patterns of artificial land surfaces inside and outside of EU protected areas

• Non-lethal ‘teacher toads’ protect predators from toxic invasives

• Impacts of deforestation and expansion of agriculture on key pollinators in Brazil

• A case study of community-based conservation in Morocco

• How social media drives visits to national parks in the United States

• Concern over the CITES policy direction for pangolins

• Songbirds on sale across online and physical markets in Indonesia

• Anti-wasp bias in the media

In case you missed it…

Earlier this week, I published Nature Beat #24 — full of news, resources, jobs, great stories, and more.

Nature Beat #24

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