The Baltic Sea is essential for marine ecosystem services (MES) provision and the region's socio-economic dynamics. It is considered one of the busiest and most polluted regional seas in Europe. In recent years a collective effort in enforcing European and regional environmental policies and directives (e.g. Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, 2000; Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008/56/EC, 2008; Maritime Spatial Planning Directive 2014/89/EU, 2014) has been carried out. Ecosystem Services assessment and mapping is integrated into these directives.
Urbanisation involves major changes in environmental conditions such as light, temperature, humidity and noise levels, but the effect of urbanisation on soil conditions and soil biodiversity has received less attention. The reported effects on species richness across a rural to urban landscapes are not unequivocal. Positive, negative and neutral effects have been found, but what is causing this ambiguity in the relationship between species richness and urbanisation is poorly understood.
Is ecology, as a science, doing enough to address big environmental problems? Here, a review of the top 40 ecology journals suggests not. As ecologists, we have the opportunity to reinforce the relevancy of ecology to society through greater promotion and execution of solution-focused science.
Is ecology, as a science, doing enough to address big environmental problems? Here, a review of the top 40 ecology journals suggests not. As ecologists, we have the opportunity to reinforce the relevancy of ecology to society through greater promotion and execution of solution-focused science.
Anthropogenic climate change is altering the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Agricultural systems are particularly vulnerable to climate change as they are frequently disturbed by intensified management practices. This also threatens belowground organisms that are responsible for providing crucial ecosystem functions and services, such as nutrient cycling and plant disease suppression. Amongst these organisms, earthworms are of particular importance as they can modulate the effects of climate change on soil organisms by modifying the biotic and abiotic soil conditions.
It has long been established that the spatial scale of inquiry affects the ecological patterns that are revealed. However, studies of the ecological drivers underlying the assembly of soil animal communities rarely adopt a multi-scale perspective. Here, we quantified the distribution of oribatid richness along a chronosequence of temperate hardwood forests in a deglaciated region of eastern North America and analyzed variation in oribatid community structure at two grain sizes: 0.1 m2 and 900 m2, and two spatial extents: 20–150 m and 80–420 km.
Over the last two decades, there has been growing interest on the effects of agricultural practices on soil biology in Europe. As soil biota are known to fluctuate throughout the season and as agro-environmental conditions may influence the effect of agricultural practices on soil organisms, conclusions cannot be drawn from a single study. Therefore, integrating the results of many studies in order to identify general trends is required. The main objective of this study was to investigate how soil biota are affected by repeated applications of organic amendments (i.e.
Reducing large-scale deforestation in commodity frontiers remains a key challenge for climate change mitigation and the conservation of biodiversity. Public and private anti-deforestation policies have been shown to effectively reduce forest loss, but the conditions under which such policies get adopted are rarely examined. Here we propose a set of conditions that we expect to be associated with the adoption of effective anti-deforestation policies in commodity frontiers.
