A round up of the top countryside, conservation,
wildlife and forestry stories as chosen by the CJS Team.
 British
Wildlife Photography Awards 2016
The 2016
Competition is Open for Entries
Your chance to win a prestigious award, with a cash first prize of
£5,000 and reach millions through national exposure. Help raise
awareness about British wildlife and celebrate our natural heritage.
Winners and commended entrants will have their work showcased in a
touring exhibition and stunning book, and will be invited to an
exclusive Awards ceremony in London.
The £20,000 prize fund includes products from lead sponsor Canon.
The awards recognise the talents of photographers practising in
Britain whilst also highlighting the great wealth and diversity of
British natural history. A celebration of British wildlife as well as a
showcase for photographers and videographers, both amateur and
professional.
Categories: There
are fifteen separate categories including animal behaviour, urban
wildlife, habitat, animal portraits, marine life, the hidden secret
world that lies in the undergrowth and a special award for wildlife in
HD Video. Also two junior categories - to encourage young people to
connect with nature through photography. CJS is delighted to once again
be sponsoring the Botanical Britain category
Wildlife in HD Video: In addition to still photography there is a
great opportunity to capture wildlife in action and win an amazing
prize. Be inspired by the video winner and commended entries in 2015.
Young People’s
Awards WildPix / BWPA, sponsored by RSPB Wildlife Explorers.
Entry is free for all young photographers with two age
groups.
Chris Packham, Naturalist and TV Presenter said "Each year the
British Wildlife Photography Awards generates an incredible catalogue of
splendid, exciting, imaginative and artistic images, proving beyond
doubt that we have the richest palette of life to celebrate in our own
backyard. Anyone passionate about protecting and preserving wildlife
will be inspired by the British Wildlife Photography Awards, which in
its sixth year has done more than any other award to raise the profile
of British wildlife. "
Energy, water, environment and food policy in the spotlight at new
research centre backed by NERC - NERC
Finding new ways to understand how the lives of people in the UK are
affected by government decisions is a central aim of the new Centre for
the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN).
Based at the University of Surrey and initiated by leading UK bodies,
including two research councils, Defra and the Environment Agency, its
research will aid future decision-making on complex policy affecting a
wide range of issues such as flooding and drainage, farming, housing and
transport.
These policy areas operate within complex settings and require a
robust approach to their evaluation. Each member of the core CECAN team
is a world-leading researcher in their field, has worked with
policymakers or in policy-relevant areas, and has already contributed to
pioneering methodological approaches to policy evaluation.
Led by Director Nigel Gilbert, Professor of Sociology, the centre
will launch on Tuesday 1 March, ahead of a public launch event this
summer.
NERC's chief executive, Professor Duncan Wingham said: "Policies
across energy, environment, food and water are particularly challenging
to evaluate because they intervene in already complex systems - the
centre will need to draw on an in-depth understanding of these systems.
Our support for the centre speaks directly to NERC's strategic priority
of addressing the challenges of managing our environment responsibly,
using NERC's research as a robust evidence-base for environmental
policy."
CECAN is backed by £2·45m funding provided by NERC and the Economic &
Social Research Council (ESRC), in collaboration with Defra, the
Department of Energy & Climate Change, the Environment Agency and the
Food Standards Agency. Work at CECAN will include developing and
improving methods for the evaluation of policies in complex settings;
piloting these methods on a range of evaluation projects; organising
educational programmes for practitioners, academics and policymakers;
and publishing guides and toolkits for evaluators, those commissioning
evaluations, and policy audiences. Along with its core centre
team, a network of academic and non-academic fellows and associates will
join the centre for weeks or months. They will offer expert advice on
areas that need specialist input for particular policy initiatives and
innovations.
The UK's most loved trees do battle in European competition
- Woodland Trust
 The
Cubbington Pear Tree (Photo: F Wilmot/WTML)
Four of our most inspiring trees need your votes to be in with a
chance of winning the European Tree of the Year contest which begins
today, 1 February.
Run by the
Environmental Partnership Association, the voting mechanism is
straightforward: the tree with the most public votes at the end of
February will win.
Our hopes lie with the Cubbington Pear Tree in Warwickshire,
threatened by the proposed HS2 route, Peace Tree in Belfast, Suffragette
Oak in Glasgow and ‘Survival at the Cutting Edge’, an oak tree in the
National Botanic Garden of Wales. All were chosen in public votes in the
autumn, organised with support from players of People's Postcode
Lottery.
Beccy Speight, Woodland Trust Chief Executive, said:
“We’d love to see one of our trees be crowned European Tree of the
Year so please take a moment to cast your vote. We also need to emulate
the value and reverence placed on old trees elsewhere in Europe to
ensure ours have similar levels of recognition and protection.”
Alongside the four UK entries, other nominations from elsewhere in
Europe include Canicosa’s Pine-Oak in Spain, which has seen a Scots pine
grow inside the trunk of a Pyrenean Oak, the Oak of Bolko in Poland
which has associations with the origins of the Polish State and the
Tamme-Lauri Oak, said to be the oldest tree in Estonia.
Find out more about our nominations and place your vote
Forestry Commission England reveals their top 10 reasons why they love
trees
To celebrate St Valentine’s Day, Forestry Commission England has
revealed their top 10 reasons why they love trees, along with the top 10
most romantic walks from across the public forest estate.
The poet
Joyce Kilmer once wrote “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as
a tree…” and here at Forestry Commission England we find it hard to
disagree.
Trees mean something to everyone; and with the myths,
fairy tales, and history that surrounds them, we believe it makes woods
and forests some of the most romantic places on earth.
Click through to read the ten favourite reasons to love trees, we hope
you love them too!
World Wetlands Day: A New Vision for Hickling
– Broads Authority
As World Wetlands Day is celebrated today (Tuesday 2 Feb), work gets
underway to repair reed habitats on iconic Hickling Broad as part of a
new vision to enhance the broad for wildlife and water users.
And the full vision, which was originally developed with the Upper
Thurne Working Group and has been agreed by partner organisations and
stakeholders, will be delivered through a long term project if funding
can be secured.
In the meantime the Broads Authority is creating new reed islands and
restoring a sensitive and badly eroded reed margin habitat using novel
geotextiles and engineering techniques. And the project is helping to
keep access to local facilities, including the boatyard, pub and the
Hickling Sailing Club by dredging 3,500 cubic metres from the marked
channel this winter.
Wetlands for our Future: Sustainable Livelihoods was selected as the
theme for World Wetlands Day in 2016 to demonstrate the vital role of
wetlands for the future of humanity and their relevance to sustainable
development.
Andrea Kelly, Senior Ecologist said the Hickling project linked in
well with this theme, offering benefits for people, wildlife and the
local economy.
She said: “This project is a win-win for wetland wildlife and the people
who enjoy it as well as the businesses around the River Thurne area of
the Broads that depend on the careful management of Hickling.”
Working with conservation partners, including the Norfolk Wildlife
Trust, Natural England, the Environment Agency and local landowners the
aspirations for the Hickling Broad long-term vision are:
- improved waterway depths
- improved aquatic environment in sheltered bays providing more
reed bed areas, better water quality, water plants and higher
numbers of water birds
- beneficial reuse of dredged material in island construction and
bank restoration
- improved understanding by local communities, visitors and
partners of the importance of undertaking integrated waterway
management projects to enhance the special qualities of the Broads
Man-made climate change helped cause 2013/14 UK floods
– Centre for
Ecology & Hydrology
Human-induced climate change increased the risk of severe storms like
those that hit the south of England in the winter of 2013/14, causing
devastating flooding.
That’s according to new analysis from an international team of
climate scientists, led by researchers at Oxford University and
including scientists working for the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. The
research is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The research comprised an end-to-end study looking at the event from
start to finish, taking in atmospheric circulation, rainfall, river
flow, inundation, and properties at risk. During the 2013/14 floods, the
worst-affected areas were Somerset, Devon, Dorset and Cornwall in the
south west, and the Thames Valley in the south east.
 Flooding
at Wallingford bridge in 2014 (CEH)
The study concluded:
- that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increased the risk
of the once-a-century wet January in 2014 by 43% (uncertainty range:
0 to 160%).
- the increase in extreme rainfall that led to the flooding in
2013/14 was the result of two factors associated with global
warming: an increase in the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere
(a thermodynamic factor) and more January days with westerly air
flow (a dynamic factor). Approximately two thirds of the increased
risk could be attributed to thermodynamic changes in the atmosphere,
and one third to dynamic changes.
- for the Thames river catchment, hydrological modelling showed
that the heightened risk of rainfall found in the meteorological
modelling led to an increase in the peak 30-day river flow of 21%
(uncertainty range: -17 to 133%) and flood risk mapping showed about
1000 more properties at risk of flooding (uncertainty range: -4000
to 8000).
The research made use of the weather@home citizen-science project,
part of Oxford’s climateprediction.net climate modelling experiment, to
model possible weather for January 2014 in both the current climate and
one in which there was no human influence on the atmosphere. Researchers
analysed more than a hundred thousand simulations of possible rainfall
in the UK run by citizens from all over the world. The analysis
also used the CLASSIC semi-distributed rainfall-runoff modelling system
developed at CEH, and the CEH-Gridded Estimates of Areal Rainfall
dataset.
NTS squirrel census sees reds return
A survey by conservation charity the National Trust for Scotland has
found that red squirrels have been spotted once again at properties in
Perthshire and Fife, after years of absence.
Expert conservationists
say this is good news for the red squirrel, which for decades, has been
losing territory to non-native grey squirrels. However, the charity says
that the future is still far from secure for red squirrels and Highland
havens could help in their long-term survival.
The Trust carried out
the survey in late 2015 to establish which squirrels were found on its
land across Scotland. For the first time in over 5 years, staff and
volunteers at Branklyn Garden in Perth and Falkland Palace in Fife have
reported reds – a positive sign which demonstrates that the work to
control grey squirrels around these areas is working. At the House of
Dun, staff are capturing many more shots of red squirrels on trail
cameras, but unfortunately, they also filmed a grey squirrel for the
first time recently, which is of major concern.
The census found that
there were red squirrels at 29 Trust properties, and grey squirrels at
32 places.
National Trust for Scotland Nature Adviser, Mr Lindsay
Mackinlay said: “The recent census of our properties has shown that red
squirrels are holding their own, and even thriving in many cases. We've
had some real successes in our Aberdeenshire, Perthshire and Fife
properties, where we have seen the near disappearance of grey squirrels
from places like Crathes and Drum after years of seeing them expand in
numbers, whilst we have seen reds return in other places.”
Green space: Satellite data transforms environmental protection -
Defra
Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss explains how satellite data can
help protect and improve our natural environment
 Image:
Defra
Europe’s first ever satellite programme designed to continuously
monitor our planet’s health is now helping to protect and improve the
UK’s precious natural environment, Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss
announced today (Tuesday 2 Feb).
Information from the Copernicus Earth Observation programme, launched
by the European Union and European Space Agency, is being used by Defra
to improve understanding of our environment and better inform our work
to manage it.
Following record December rainfall in the north of England,
Sentinel-1, one of the first two orbiting satellites in the programme,
was activated to support the emergency response by providing rapid data
on flooded farms and helping with recovery efforts.
Six pilot research projects across Defra are also uncovering how
satellite and Earth observation data can help improve water quality,
increase biodiversity and manage our forests and woodland. One project
will see the creation of ‘Living Maps’, plotting natural features such
as grasslands, marshes and woodland so we can better manage nature,
improve pollination and reduce erosion in areas that need it most.
The new data could also help us manage our agricultural landscapes
and speed up payments to farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy.
Today Defra hosted an Earth Observation and Open Data event, which
brought together academics, government and the private sector to explore
future applications of this data.
National flood resilience review: call for evidence
- defra consultations
We’re seeking published evidence that we can use in the
national flood resilience review, announced in December 2015. This
call for evidence focuses on the need to carry out an assessment of the
damage that extreme rainfall could cause across England.
We’re looking for people to tell us about evidence that is already
published. This is not a call for views. We are interested in evidence
that is available now and can be submitted by our deadline.
Closes 4 March
More information and submit evidence here.
European Parliament calls for tougher measures in the EU's Biodiversity
Strategy - IUCN
Brussels, 2 February 2016 - The chance that Europe’s Nature
Directives will be revised, has slimmed further. With an impressive
majority, today’s plenary session of the European Parliament in
Strasbourg adopted
its own report on the EU Mid-Term Review of the 2020 Biodiversity
Strategy. The European Parliament calls upon the Commission and the EU
Member States to fully implement the Habitats and Birds Directives,
restore ecosystems and promote Nature Based Solutions, in order to halt
the ongoing loss of biodiversity in Europe by 2020.
Sadly, the European Union is still not on the right path to reach
this main objective of the 2020 Biodiversity Strategy. Though there have
been some successes, biodiversity loss in the EU continues. Actions must
be accelerated to reach the target.
According to the IUCN European
Red List, more than a quarter of around 10,000 European species are now
threatened with extinction.
Luc Bas, Director of the IUCN European
Regional Office in Brussels, comments on the vote by the European
Parliament: “This is a strong signal that the Commission needs to focus
on supporting faster and better implementation of the Nature Directives.
The EU and the Member States can only halt the loss of biodiversity if
they implement the rules they have established themselves years ago.”
Surrey’s water voles feared “extinct” -
Surrey Wildlife Trust
Surrey Wildlife Trust has found no evidence of water voles in
Surrey’s waterways.
Once the commonest British mammal, with eight million water voles in
the UK a century ago, they are now the fastest declining mammal and
feared to be functionally extinct in Surrey, following a county-wide
survey undertaken by the Trust in 2015. Water voles were last
recorded in Surrey in 2008 and recent evidence suggests they have
suffered a catastrophic decline across Britain, disappearing from 94% of
their former sites.
 Water
Vole (image: Alex Learmont/ Surrey Wildlife Trust)
This devastating decline in water vole numbers in Surrey is due to a
number of reasons, mainly predation and habitat loss. The invasive
American Mink, the water vole’s main predator, was first imported into
the UK in the 1920’s for the fur trade, but a steady stream of escapes
and later releases mean that mink are present on many of our rivers.
They are agile, adept swimmers and can squeeze down a water vole’s
burrow making them extremely effective predators. Many of the
riverside habitats in Surrey have been modified by humans in some way,
leading to the gradual loss of the natural, meandering river habitat
with wide swathes of leafy vegetation needed by water voles. Aside
from the obvious impact on animals where habitat is destroyed, the
remaining populations also become isolated which leaves them vulnerable
to other threats from predators, disease, pollution and extreme
fluctuations in water levels.
During 2015, Surrey Wildlife Trust established the Water Vole
Recovery Project to record sightings, revitalize riverbank habitat,
advise on river and ditch management, and where necessary, coordinate
mink control. The aim of the project is to re-establish a water
vole population or re-introduce them if necessary. To date, a
total of 64 water vole surveys have been carried out by Surrey Wildlife
staff and 37 trained volunteers. Forty-four surveys took place on
sites with past records of water voles and the remaining 20 were on
areas either with suitable water vole habitat or anecdotal records of
the species.
Alex Learmont, Water Vole Project Officer, said “We are very
concerned that the water vole could be functionally extinct in Surrey.
SWT has already been working hard with dedicated volunteers through
catchment partnerships by restoring our degraded rivers, managing
bankside vegetation and monitoring pollution levels”.
Surveys will continue during the water vole breeding season
(April-Sept) in 2016. It is hoped that this will continue to shed
light on the status of the water vole in Surrey. However, the
continuing lack of records despite concerted survey efforts indicates
the species is seriously threatened and may already be functionally
extinct in the county.
Loss of wild flowers across Britain matches pollinator decline, first
ever Britain wide study reveals - BBSRC
The first ever Britain-wide assessment of the value of wild flowers
as food for pollinators shows that decreasing resources mirror the
decline of pollinating insects, providing new evidence to support the
link between plant and pollinator decline.
In recent years, there have been considerable concerns over threats
to wild bees and other insect pollinators which are vital to the success
of important food crops and wild flowers. Amongst the many
pressures facing pollinators, a key factor is likely to be decreasing
floral resources in Britain.
The study, published today in Nature combines vegetation survey data
recorded over the last 80 years with modern day measurements of nectar
to provide the most comprehensive assessment ever published. In the
study, researchers from the University of Bristol and University of
Leeds worked with scientists from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
and Fera Science Ltd, to find substantial losses to nectar resources in
England and Wales between the 1930s and 1970s – a period closely linked
with agricultural intensification. By 1978, the researchers
discovered that nectar resources had stabilised, and actually increased
from 2000. The findings complement indications suggesting that declines
in pollinator diversity slowed down or partially reversed over that
period.
Professor Jane Memmott, University of Bristol, said: “Over the last
few decades despite stabilisation, the diversity of nectar sources has
declined – a trend seemingly mirrored in the diversity of pollinator
species.”
The study also focused on the type of habitats most beneficial for
pollinators, highlighting arable land as the poorest source of nectar:
both in terms of amount and the diversity of sources. Improved
grasslands could however contribute the most to national nectar supply
if management favoured greater flowering of plants such as white clover.
This study provides new evidence for policy makers to help restore
national nectar supplies for our important insect pollinators.
Access the paper:
Mathilde Baude, et al
Historical nectar assessment reveals the fall and rise of floral
resources in Britain. Nature doi:10.1038/nature16532
Missing Scottish osprey finds his place in the sun
- Scottish Wildlife Trust
Staff and volunteers at the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Scotland's
leading nature conservation charity, were thrilled to discover that an
osprey born on one of its wildlife reserves three years ago has been
spotted alive and well in Senegal, West Africa.
 Blue
YD on Lompoul Beach (image: ©John Wright/Rutland Osprey Project)
The osprey, known as Blue YD, was spotted by staff and volunteers
from sister charity, the Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust, which
runs the Rutland Osprey Project. The Rutland team has been visiting West
Africa since 2011 as part of their Osprey Flyways Project which aims to
educate African school children on the incredible story of osprey
migration.
During this year’s trip, the team travelled to Lompoul sur Mer,
western Senegal, to locate another satellite-tagged female bird from
Rutland known as 30(05). It was here, on a 30km stretch of white sandy
beach where around 100 ospreys spend their winters, that the chance
encounter with Blue YD took place.
Three-year-old male bird, Blue YD was tagged with a light-weight
satellite tracker in July 2012 at one of the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s
reserves near Forfar, Angus. Since the tag stopped transmitting in May
2014, the project has relied on very occasional eye-witness reports of
Blue YD's travels, which have placed him at various times in North
Yorkshire, St Andrews and now Senegal, where he will spend the winter
months.
John Wright, Field Officer for the Rutland Osprey Project, said:
“This is the second visit I’ve made to Lompoul sur Mer and both times
I’ve counted around one hundred ospreys consisting of many German and
Scottish birds. It was fantastic to see that Blue YD was alive and well.
He’ll no doubt be enjoying the final few weeks of warmth before he makes
his way back to the UK for the breeding season at the end of March.”
Jonathan Pinnick, Assistant Manager at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s
Loch of the Lowes Visitor Centre, which is world-famous for its ospreys,
said: “It’s wonderful to learn more about the life of a bird that we
have followed since it was a fledgling and it shows the value of tagging
in allowing us to track the life history of individual birds. Perhaps he
will be spotted back in Angus this summer, hopefully breeding and
helping the continued recovery of the osprey population in Scotland.”
Stop Moving Stones - Snowdonia National Park
Snowdonia National Park Wardens are appealing to walkers to stop
moving stones and building cairns on the mountains.
Over the years it has become customary to build cairns on mountains
in order to identify paths and junctions or dangerous places. But
recently, it has become customary for walkers to identify the routes
they have taken by placing a stone on a pile of stones and in doing so,
creating a cairn. On Cadair Idris, it has become such a problem, that
the Senior Warden for South Snowdonia is organising a day of reducing
cairns, their size and number, with the help of volunteers.
“It’s quite a problem on Cadair Idris," said Simon Roberts. "As the
cairns are built, stone by stone, the footpaths are eroding and the
fragile landscape is being damaged. Footpaths widen and the cost of
maintaining the footpaths increase. But, even more dangerous, they can
mislead walkers, especially in fog. Later this year, we will begin to
rationalize the cairns, but in the meantime we are appealing to walkers
to stop moving the stones on the mountains.”
Warden Myfyr Tomos added, “On the Tŷ Nant footpath, within less than
a mile between Rhiw Gwredydd and Bwlch y Cyfrwy, there are 102 cairns,
and at the base of each cairn a very large hole where stones have been
lifted from the path and adjacent land. Some of the stones are huge and
the cairns are increasing every week. We need to ensure that future
generations can enjoy walking the paths and mountains of Snowdonia and
therefore reducing erosion by encouraging people not to move the stones,
is a way of contributing to this.”
Paul Williams, Manager of the Cadair Idris Nature Reserve on behalf
of Natural Resources Wales said, “’Building’ cairns has been of great
concern over a number of years – the practice, by now, is totally
unreasonable, creating scars on some of our most significant
landscapes."
RSPB Scotland snaps up nature reserve at most northern point of British
mainland - RSPB
 Dunnet
Head (image: RSPB)
RSPB Scotland has announced that it has purchased the nature reserve
at Dunnet Head, which is the northernmost point of mainland Britain,
after receiving a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The dramatic coastal headland of Caithness, which boasts
three-hundred feet-high cliffs, is home to thousands of breeding
seabirds like puffins, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and kittiwakes.
The conservation charity has been leasing and managing the 40-acre site
as a reserve since May 2008, but has now come to an agreement with the
previous owner, Mr Ben Colson, to buy what it hopes will be a popular
showcase for the country’s marine wildlife.
Dunnet Head Nature Reserve lies approximately 13 miles east of Thurso
and commands dramatic views across the Pentland Firth and towards the
islands of Orkney.
RSPB Scotland site manager, Dave Jones, said: “Dunnet Head really is
an amazing place. The views across to Orkney are absolutely stunning,
but for us, the most important aspect is the breeding seabirds and the
opportunity this sites gives visitors to see these charismatic birds.
Many of our seabird species are in serious decline so it is crucial that
their breeding sites are properly protected. We are delighted to
be taking over as custodians for this special place. Ben Colson and his
family have cared for Dunnet Head for many years and, like Ben, we wish
to see this amazing seabird city looked after for future generations to
enjoy.”
Ben Colson said: “We owned the land at Dunnet Head for over a quarter
of a century and our objective throughout has been to ensure that it is
not commercially developed. So, whilst sad to be ending our relationship
with the headland, we are delighted to have been able to agree this sale
with RSPB Scotland who I am confident will ensure it continues as a
place of wild beauty.”
The First Barn Owl Directory - Barn Owl Trust
This week the Barn Owl Trust launched the first ever UK
Barn Owl Directory. This allows visitors to the BOT website to
select by region, groups and individuals to help with local conservation
advice, Barn Owl casualties or Barn Owl surveys for planning
applications.
By clicking on the map you can select the area of the country you’re
interested in and see the counties where local contacts are available
under each heading:
- Barn Owl conservation: independent groups & projects who
encourage / monitor wild Barn Owls / erect nestboxes / give land
management advice / BTO ringing.
- Barn Owl carers: take in casualty owls / asess / treat /
rehabilitate / release / provide sanctuary.
- Barn Owl surveys: Ecological Consultants trained by the Barn Owl
Trust to assess development sites, design mitigation strategies for
Barn Owls and produce reports to aid your planning application.
This is a first for the UK and a great step forward in networking for
the benefit of Barn Owls nationally and for folk that want to get advice
or help from someone in their area
Man-made underwater sound may have wider ecosystem effects than
previously thought - University of
Southampton
Underwater sound linked to human activity could alter the behaviour
of seabed creatures that play a vital role in marine ecosystems,
according to new research from the University of Southampton.
The study, reported in the journal Scientific Reports published by
Nature, found that exposure to sounds that resemble shipping traffic and
offshore construction activities results in behavioural responses in
certain invertebrate species that live in the marine sediment.
These species make a crucial contribution to the seabed ecosystem as
their burrowing and bioirrigation activities (how much the organism
moves water in and out of the sediment by its actions) are crucial in
nutrient recycling and carbon storage.
The study showed that some man-made sounds can cause certain species
to reduce irrigation and sediment turnover. Such reductions can lead to
the formation of compacted sediments that suffer reduced oxygen,
potentially becoming anoxic (depleted of dissolved oxygen and a more
severe condition of hypoxia), which may have an impact on seabed
productivity, sediment biodiversity and also fisheries production.
Lead author Martin Solan, Professor in Marine Ecology, said: “Coastal
and shelf environments support high levels of biodiversity that are
vital in mediating ecosystem processes, but they are also subject to
noise associated with increasing levels of offshore human activity.
Previous work has almost exclusively focussed on direct physiological or
behavioural responses in marine mammals and fish, and has not previously
addressed the indirect impacts of sound on ecosystem properties.
Our study provides evidence that exposing coastal environments to
anthropogenic sound fields is likely to have much wider ecosystem
consequences than are presently understood.”
Scientific Publications
Eason, T., Garmestani, A. S., Stow, C. A., Rojo, C., Alvarez-Cobelas,
M., Cabezas, H. (2016),
Managing for resilience: an information theory-based approach to
assessing ecosystems. Journal of Applied Ecology.
doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12597
Bennie, J., Davies, T. W., Cruse, D. and Gaston, K. J. (2016),
Ecological effects of artificial light at night on wild plants. J
Ecol. Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1111/1365-2745.12551
Azarakhsh Rafiee, Eduardo Dias, Eric Koomen,
Local Impact of Tree Volume on Nocturnal Urban Heat Island: A Case Study
in Amsterdam, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, DOI:
10.1016/j.ufug.2016.01.008.
Naura, M. et al (2016)
Mapping habitat indices across river networks using spatial statistical
modelling of River Habitat Survey data. Ecological Indicators.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.01.019
Broughton, R. K., Burgess, M. D., Dadam, D., Hebda, G., Bellamy, P.
E. & Hinsley, S. A. (2016)
Morphology, geographical variation and the subspecies of Marsh
Tit Poecile palustris in Britain and central Europe. Bird Study.
DOI: 10.1080/00063657.2015.1132187
Martinig, April Robin & Bélanger-Smith, Katrina.
Factors influencing the discovery and use of wildlife passages for small
fauna. Journal of Applied Ecology DOI:10.1111/1365-2664.12616
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