Abstract:Conservation Biology 41In an attempt to provide a state of the art of the effect of forest management on biodiversity, 42we performed a MA comparing the species richness of managed and unmanaged forests in 47Our MA provides basic ecological knowledge needed for conservation and ecologically 48 sustainable forestry. In this paper, we showed that forest management has a negative effect 49 on the biodiversity of forest dwelling species. Because we were aware of the limitations of 50 our MA, we used caution when discussing the results considering that: (i) the effect is 51 strongly heterogeneous between different taxa; (ii) there is a trend for recovery of biodiversity 52 once management has been abandoned; (iii) no strong conclusion on the effect of different 53 management types could be drawn from our data due to low replication number. The obvious 54 main conclusion of this paper was that research on the subject in Europe was scarce and 55 that more controlled studies may help answer the questions raised. 113always provided negative slopes, except for bryophytes and birds (see Table 3, p. 107). 114Finally, even if the effect of TSA was significant only for carabids, saproxylic beetles and 115 fungi, most of the negative slopes for taxa have much higher value than the slope for all 160(2002): this paper compares old growth with 15 years-old stands, which were not considered 161 as "young regeneration phases" nor "clearfelling stands" in our protocol. We assume that our 162 selection protocol was restrictive enough regarding the number of studies finally included in 163 our MA; if we had been more restrictive in our inclusion criteria (i.e. excluding young stands), 164we would have rejected this paper. 166 Conclusions 167The paper we published does not aim at influencing European forest and conservation 168 policies in any way, but to provide decision-making tools based on scientific facts. Both 169 managed and unmanaged forests are needed to preserve European forest biodiversity, but 170 since there are many managed forests and very few old-growth ones, a special effort should 171 be allocated to create protected reserves, as suggested by Paillet et al. (2010).
DNA sequences accumulating in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases (INSD) form a rich source of information for taxonomic and ecological meta-analyses. However, these databases include many erroneous entries, and the data itself is poorly annotated with metadata, making it difficult to target and extract entries of interest with any degree of precision. Here we describe the web-based workbench PlutoF, which is designed to bridge the gap between the needs of contemporary research in biology and the existing software resources and databases. Built on a relational database, PlutoF allows remote-access rapid submission, retrieval, and analysis of study, specimen, and sequence data in INSD as well as for private datasets though web-based thin clients. In contrast to INSD, PlutoF supports internationally standardized terminology to allow very specific annotation and linking of interacting specimens and species. The sequence analysis module is optimized for identification and analysis of environmental ITS sequences of fungi, but it can be modified to operate on any genetic marker and group of organisms. The workbench is available at http://plutof.ut.ee.
Abstract. Peatland restoration may provide a potential afteruse option to mitigate the negative climate impact of abandoned peat extraction areas; currently, however, knowledge about restoration effects on the annual balances of carbon (C) and greenhouse gas (GHG) exchanges is still limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of contrasting mean water table levels (WTLs) on the annual C and GHG balances of restoration treatments with high (Res H ) and low (Res L ) WTL relative to an unrestored bare peat (BP) site. Measurements of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) fluxes were conducted over a full year using the closed chamber method and complemented by measurements of abiotic controls and vegetation cover. Three years following restoration, the difference in the mean WTL resulted in higher bryophyte and lower vascular plant cover in Res H relative to Res L . Consequently, greater gross primary production and autotrophic respiration associated with greater vascular plant cover were observed in Res L compared to Res H . However, the means of the measured net ecosystem CO 2 exchanges (NEE) were not significantly different between Res H and Res L . Similarly, no significant differences were observed in the respective means of CH 4 and N 2 O exchanges. In comparison to the two restored sites, greater net CO 2 , similar CH 4 and greater N 2 O emissions occurred in BP. On the annual scale, Res H , Res L and BP were C sources of 111, 103 and 268 g C m −2 yr −1 and had positive GHG balances of 4.1, 3.8 and 10.2 t CO 2 eq ha −1 yr −1 , respectively. Thus, the different WTLs had a limited impact on the C and GHG balances in the two restored treatments 3 years following restoration. However, the C and GHG balances in Res H and Res L were considerably lower than in BP due to the large reduction in CO 2 emissions. This study therefore suggests that restoration may serve as an effective method to mitigate the negative climate impacts of abandoned peat extraction areas.
We would like to dedicate this paper to co-author Richard Payne. Richard was a member of a group of 8 climbers caught in an avalanche in the Himalayas at the end of May. Correspondence AbstractRecent studies show that soil eukaryotic diversity is immense and dominated by micro-organisms. However, it is unclear to what extent the processes that shape the distribution of diversity in plants and animals also apply to micro-organisms. Major diversification events in multicellular organisms have often been attributed to longterm climatic and geological processes, but the impact of such processes on protist diversity has received much less attention as their distribution has often been H I I I J J J J J J J J J K K K
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