Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment最新文献

To meet Kunming-Montreal Target 6 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), we argue that more comprehensive measures are needed to manage invasive alien species (IAS), which is especially true for China, given that it is undergoing an unprecedented wave of invasions due to its rapid development. Here, we consider the status of IAS in China, evaluate China's ongoing countermeasures against IAS, and provide recommendations for improving management. In total, 802 IAS have been identified in China. Facing the growing threats of IAS, China has made progress in IAS management, but more stringent and thorough measures are still required. In addition to improving legislation and governance, China should strengthen transdisciplinary and proactive research, implement more comprehensive prevention and control actions against IAS, and enhance international cooperation and translational education. By creating a model for IAS management that other countries can follow, China's efforts can contribute substantially to the CBD's Kunming-Montreal 2030 Global Targets.

Ecological integrity—the degree to which an ecosystem supports ecological structure, composition, diversity, function, and connectivity typical of natural conditions—has been a guiding principle in ecosystem monitoring around the world. However, in terrestrial ecosystems, integrity-based monitoring often excludes animal communities, even though they are critical drivers of integrity. Methodological advances in monitoring and data science have made it easier to document animal communities. We highlight examples of these advances and how they remove barriers to adopting animal-specific integrity metrics. We then illustrate how describing animal communities in terms of functional ecology, which has also undergone substantial development over the past several decades, can provide a generalizable approach to incorporating animal communities into integrity-based monitoring across taxa and ecosystems. Incorporating animal communities into ecological integrity monitoring is a vital step toward understanding how human-driven change, restoration, and conservation shape terrestrial ecosystems worldwide.

Scholars have long recognized the social dimensions of environmental problems. Environmental scientists have responded by increasingly focusing on the interactions between nature and social dynamics. This helps reveal problematic interactions that cause environmental challenges, many of which impact human well-being. Research teams that include environmental and social scientists engaging with diverse stakeholders can use many available tools to ask how changing a factor pivotal to problematic interactions influences environmental and social outcomes. When the research also includes identifying actions targeting those interactions and identifying those who can implement the actions, the research is most likely to lead to positive outcomes in the long term. This is especially true when researchers link changes to improving a given ecosystem service. Changes can not only involve adapting natural resource policies but also involve altering attitudes and beliefs. We describe a stepwise process that eases the path toward such actionable environmental science by researchers.

Beavers are everywhere…but not literally though. In fact, they are nowhere nearly as ubiquitous compared to where they used to be. Estimates suggest that while as many as 400 million beavers (Castor canadensis) were present in North America prior to European colonialization, there are around 10 million now. In Europe, by the end of the 19th century, the total number of Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) was estimated to be just 1200 individuals scattered across eight isolated populations. A recent estimate puts the Eurasian beaver population at 1.5 million individuals (Mamm Rev 2021).

The reintroduction of beaver populations represents a major conservation success. Although modern beaver populations remain a fraction of their historical numbers, due to centuries of trapping and habitat loss, their recovery can be attributed to a suite of factors including not only effective conservation and legal protections, habitat restoration, and conflict resolution strategies, but also increased public awareness. Their resurgence, juxtaposed with the near-extirpation of C canadensis and C fiber from North America and Europe, respectively, may contribute to the perception that beavers are now widespread. However, recognizing this recovery within the context of historical population baselines underscores the continuing need for conservation and habitat restoration efforts.

Human fascination with this cute, orange-toothed, semi-aquatic rodent is encapsulated in several successful popular press books including Eager: The surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green) by Ben Goldfarb; Beaverland: How one weird rodent made America (New York, NY: Twelve) by Leila Philip; and Bringing back the beaver: The story of one man's quest to rewild Britain's waterways (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green) by Derek Gow. And there is now among the public a growing recognition of the ecological roles beavers play across the landscape. As ecosystem engineers, they actively shape their environments by regulating water flow, enhancing landscape resilience to wildfire, and creating critical habitat for a diverse array of species. A review out of the University of Helsinki of the ecosystem services that beavers provide would put a value of about $900 per hectare per year where beavers are active (Mamm Rev 2021).

Our lab began studying beavers after a 15-meter-long dam appeared seemingly overnight in one of the University of Vermont's Natural Areas. While students celebrated the new habitat, reactions were mixed, prompting us to reroute a trail and install signage highlighting the ecological benefits of these ecosystem engineers. This event sparked a series of research initiatives examining the ecological and social dimensions of beaver activity. We analyzed water quality upstream and downstream of beaver dams to assess their role in nutrient retentio

Conventionally, juvenile salmonids are thought to migrate unidirectionally from freshwater systems to marine systems and therefore only inhabit natal drainages. Although scattered evidence suggests juveniles can move bidirectionally between freshwater rivers and the ocean, including into non-natal drainages, such movements have never been documented with high replication. Here, we detected hundreds of movements of juvenile salmonids between drainages that involved 0–22% of cohort emigrants in Washington State and California. Individuals moved up to nine times and between drainages up to 70 km apart. These findings reveal a life-history type of salmonids whose remarkably complex migrations have gone unnoticed. Implicitly, juveniles may use any coastal freshwater habitat accessible from the sea and may not descend from spawning populations of drainages they inhabit. Consequently, typical conservation focused on natal drainages may overlook freshwater habitat elsewhere. A concept of coastal areas as meta-nurseries formed by multiple watersheds connected by the sea may accurately describe anadromous species’ habitat options and better inform management.

There is a movement across settler–colonial institutions of education and research to engage with Indigenous Peoples and Knowledges. Many settler and Indigenous governments are pursuing pathways to move forward together to address global problems such as climate change. However, given the pervasive history of exploitation and displacement of Indigenous communities, this development has caused some concern among Indigenous leaders and scholars. At the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) in Montreal, Canada, the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Section of the ESA hosted a 2-day workshop. This gathering of 21 Indigenous environmental scientists included scholars from across the career and professional spectrum. By consensus, workshop participants identified three emergent themes—Engage, Heal, and Reconcile—that provide a pathway toward reconciliation between Indigenous and settler–colonial ways of knowing. This path allows for an ever-greater sharing of institutional resources and power toward a co-equal interfacing of Indigenous Knowledges and settler science.

Climate change is likely to affect infectious diseases that are facilitated by biological invasions, with repercussions for wildlife conservation and zoonotic risks. Current invasion management and policy are underprepared for the future risks associated with such invasion-related wildlife diseases. By considering evidence from bioclimatology, invasion biology, and disease research, we illustrate how climate change is anticipated to affect disease agents (parasites and pathogens), hosts, and vectors across the different stages of invasions. We highlight the opportunity to integrate these disciplines to identify the effects of climate change on invasion-related wildlife diseases. In addition, shifting to a proactive stance in implementing management and policy, such as by incorporating climate-change effects either into preventative and mitigation measures for biosecurity or with rapid response protocols to limit disease spread and impacts, could help to combat future ecological, economic, and human health risks stemming from invasion-related wildlife diseases.