A frog in the garden (or not)

Following his visit to Silwood Park Campus, Dr Johan Oldekop (University of Manchester) has added data collected in Ecuador in 2008 and 2009 to the BIOFRAG project. Johan recorded identity and number of frogs, beetles and fern and their changes along linear transects set up in five communities running from individual households to the interior…

Bats need food (among other things)

How can we place local processes within a regional ecological context? Laura Cisneros and Brian Klingbeil (Michael Willig‘s lab at the University of Connecticut) are looking at bat communities in Costa Rica & Peru to understand community assembly along environmental gradients. Altitude appears to be an important driver of the distributions of their bats. Their…

Response of single species to habitat loss and fragmentation is complex

Our BIOFRAG metric is a biodiversity-related indicator that measures the impact of forest fragmentation on biodiversity. Thereby, BIOFRAG represents the similarity of fragmented biological communities to those in continuous forests. But what is the effect of fragmentation on single species? The response of individual species to habitat loss and fragmentation can be quite complex, making…

Forest change in Luquillo, Puerto Rico

The Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research Program has been set up to understand how climate and land use changes are affecting terrestrial and aquatic systems in North-Eastern Puerto Rico, from the peak of the Luquillo Mountains to the city of San Juan. One of the projects carried out at this long-term study site is the…

Flying insects of the night and twilight

How do moths respond to changes in their habitat in human-modified landscapes of the tropics. Dr Joseph Hawes and colleagues conducted one of the first studies (Hawes et al. 2009, Journal of Tropical Ecology) to assess the change in moth diversity in the fragmented landscapes of the Amazon. They found that secondary forests and Eucalyptus…

What can sustainable forestry do for biodiversity ?

This is the central theme of FORESTCHECK – a monitoring project in Jarrah forests (Western Australia) designed by the Government of Western Australia (Department of Environment and Conservation). Dr Richard Robinson is collaborating with the BIOFRAG project providing data on bird biodiversity measured in the beautiful Jarrah forests.

Mammal diversity in logged rain forests

Dr Konstans Wells and co-authors (Wells et al. 2007) found similar patterns in diversity and assemblage variability of small mammals in logged and unlogged tropical forests of Sabah (Malaysia). While this is good news, they could also show a profound (negative) effect of forest modification on rare species. There were five rare species in logged…

BIOFRAG datasets – March 2013

Map showing the distribution of datasets that will be available for analyses within the BIOFRAG project (status March 28th, 2013). Plots are shown as dots on a global world map. Green represents the evergreen to semi-deciduous broad-leaved forest cover (GLOBCOVER 2009).

Sustainable Cocoa Production and Amphibia

CATIE (Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion y Ensenanza), located in Costa Rica, is a regional centre for research, education and sustainable development. CATIE also has a long-standing interest in cocoa. Cocoa in Meosamerica, in particular. As part of their research into sustainable cocoa growing practices (headed by Dr Eduardo Somarriba), they have collated a tremendous…