Landscapes as continuous entities: forest disturbance and recovery in the Albertine Rift landscape

Hartter, Joel; Ryan, Sadie J.; Southworth, Jane; Chapman, Colin A.

doi:10.1007/s10980-011-9616-0

Cited by 28 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Protected areas in East and West Africa are already small islandized parks in highly populated areas [41], [42], [43], and Central African protected areas are destined to follow in coming decades.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of Non-Intervention for Infectious Disease in African Great Apes

Ryan

Walsh

2011

PLoS ONE

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Infectious disease has recently joined poaching and habitat loss as a major threat to African apes. Both “naturally” occurring pathogens, such as Ebola and Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), and respiratory pathogens transmitted from humans, have been confirmed as important sources of mortality in wild gorillas and chimpanzees. While awareness of the threat has increased, interventions such as vaccination and treatment remain controversial. Here we explore both the risk of disease to African apes, and the status of potential responses. Through synthesis of published data, we summarize prior disease impact on African apes. We then use a simple demographic model to illustrate the resilience of a well-known gorilla population to disease, modeled on prior documented outbreaks. We found that the predicted recovery time for this specific gorilla population from a single outbreak ranged from 5 years for a low mortality (4%) respiratory outbreak, to 131 years for an Ebola outbreak that killed 96% of the population. This shows that mortality rates comparable to those recently reported for disease outbreaks in wild populations are not sustainable. This is particularly troubling given the rising pathogen risk created by increasing habituation of wild apes for tourism, and the growth of human populations surrounding protected areas. We assess potential future disease spillover risk in terms of vaccination rates amongst humans that may come into contact with wild apes, and the availability of vaccines against potentially threatening diseases. We discuss and evaluate non-interventionist responses such as limiting tourist access to apes, community health programs, and safety, logistic, and cost issues that constrain the potential of vaccination.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of Non-Intervention for Infectious Disease in African Great Apes

Ryan

Walsh

2011

PLoS ONE

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“…There is, therefore, a strong need to educate local people and conservation managers alike using a whole landscape approach [65], [93], [94] to climate change mitigation and adaptation that includes both the park and surrounding domesticated landscape. Results of this research will provide local people with more relevant and physically accurate information that, if accepted, could lead to more sustainable land use management practices outside the park that are concurrent with conservation objectives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kibale was originally demarcated in 1932 as a Crown Forest Reserve and changed to a national park in 1993 [29], [65]. It protects 12 species of primates (including the endangered chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes ), making it one of the most diverse primate communities in the world.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns and Perceptions of Climate Change in a Biodiversity Conservation Hotspot

et al. 2012

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Quantifying local people's perceptions to climate change, and their assessments of which changes matter, is fundamental to addressing the dual challenge of land conservation and poverty alleviation in densely populated tropical regions To develop appropriate policies and responses, it will be important not only to anticipate the nature of expected changes, but also how they are perceived, interpreted and adapted to by local residents. The Albertine Rift region in East Africa is one of the world's most threatened biodiversity hotspots due to dense smallholder agriculture, high levels of land and resource pressures, and habitat loss and conversion. Results of three separate household surveys conducted in the vicinity of Kibale National Park during the late 2000s indicate that farmers are concerned with variable precipitation. Many survey respondents reported that conditions are drier and rainfall timing is becoming less predictable. Analysis of daily rainfall data for the climate normal period 1981 to 2010 indicates that total rainfall both within and across seasons has not changed significantly, although the timing and transitions of seasons has been highly variable. Results of rainfall data analysis also indicate significant changes in the intra-seasonal rainfall distribution, including longer dry periods within rainy seasons, which may contribute to the perceived decrease in rainfall and can compromise food security. Our results highlight the need for fine-scale climate information to assist agro-ecological communities in developing effective adaptive management.

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“…The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been adopted as an effective index for describing the dynamics of urban vegetation [18,19]. As a remote sensing index, NDVI can indirectly estimate gross and net primary productivity, biomass, and green leaf area in a variety of grassland and forest ecosystems [20][21][22][23][24]. If a regular distribution of NDVI variation rate on the urban-rural gradient exists, the landscape is likely to experience a negative effect related to urbanization on vegetation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlations between Urbanization and Vegetation Degradation across the World’s Metropolises Using DMSP/OLS Nighttime Light Data

et al. 2015

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Changes in biodiversity owing to vegetation degradation resulting from widespread urbanization demands serious attention. However, the connection between vegetation degradation and urbanization appears to be complex and nonlinear, and deserves a series of long-term observations. On the basis of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the image's digital number (DN) in nighttime stable light data (NTL), we delineated the spatiotemporal relations between urbanization and vegetation degradation of different metropolises by using a simplified NTL calibration method and Theil-Sen regression. The results showed clear and noticeable spatiotemporal differences. On spatial relations, rapidly urbanized cities were found to have a high probability of vegetation degradation, but in reality, not all of them experience sharp vegetation degradation. On temporal characteristics, the degradation degree was found to vary during different periods, which may depend on different stages of urbanization and climate history. These results verify that under the scenario of a OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2015, 7 2068 vegetation restoration effort combined with increasing demand for a high-quality urban environment, the urbanization process will not necessarily result in vegetation degradation on a large scale. The positive effects of urban vegetation restoration should be emphasized since there has been an increase in demand for improved urban environmental quality. However, slight vegetation degradation is still observed when NDVI in an urbanized area is compared with NDVI in the outside buffer. It is worthwhile to pay attention to landscape sustainability and reduce the negative urbanization effects by urban landscape planning.

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Landscapes as continuous entities: forest disturbance and recovery in the Albertine Rift landscape

Cited by 28 publications

References 39 publications

Consequences of Non-Intervention for Infectious Disease in African Great Apes

Consequences of Non-Intervention for Infectious Disease in African Great Apes

Patterns and Perceptions of Climate Change in a Biodiversity Conservation Hotspot

Correlations between Urbanization and Vegetation Degradation across the World’s Metropolises Using DMSP/OLS Nighttime Light Data

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