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--></style><title>Land use can jeopardize broad array of plants,
animals</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Geneva">Nature Communications</font><font
face="Arial"> 12 February 2016<br>
<b>Land use imperils plant and animal community stability through
changes in asynchrony rather than diversity</b><br>
Nico Blüthgen, Nadja K. Simons, Kirsten Jung et al<br>
<br>
<b>Abstract : OPEN ACCESS</b><br>
<u
>http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160212/ncomms10697/full/ncomms1069</u
>7.html</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">Human land use may detrimentally affect
biodiversity, yet long-term stability of species communities is vital
for maintaining ecosystem functioning. Community stability can be
achieved by higher species diversity (portfolio effect), higher
asynchrony across species (insurance hypothesis) and higher abundance
of populations. However, the relative importance of these stabilizing
pathways and whether they interact with land use in real-world
ecosystems is unknown.<b> We monitored inter-annual fluctuations of
2,671 plant, arthropod, bird and bat species in 300 sites from three
regions.</b> Arthropods show 2.0-fold and birds 3.7-fold higher
community fluctuations in grasslands than in forests, suggesting a
negative impact of forest conversion. Land-use intensity in forests
has a negative net impact on stability of bats and in grasslands on
birds. Our findings demonstrate that asynchrony across species--much
more than species diversity alone--is the main driver of variation in
stability across sites and requires more attention in sustainable
management.</font></div>
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color="#0E0E0E">^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^<br>
"Seventy percent of the world's remaining forests are within 1
kilometer of a road," Lovejoy said. "Which is a measure of how
advanced fragmentation is."<br>
<br>
Deforestation could dry out the Amazon, but a warmer climate might do
the same.<br>
<br>
The length of the dry season here is expected to increase due to
climate change, and in fact, that already seems to be happening in
some Amazon regions. And this, in turn, could not only threaten
regional hydrology but push a transition to less carbon-dense forests
- in some cases even exacerbating the possibility of wildfires that
could transform tropical forests into a different, savannah-like
environment.<br>
<br>
Thus, both continuing deforestation and a warming climate alike
threaten the carbon storage, and the rain generation, of the vast
Amazon system. It's not one menace - it's two that are closely
intertwined.<br>
<br>
Forests become part of the climate story<br>
<br>
The forests section of the recent Paris climate agreement wasn't one
of the most noted or debated sections. And it wasn't as strong as some
would have liked. But the mere fact that it was there was a landmark,
Lovejoy said.<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-2"
color="#FFFF00"><u
>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/11<span
></span
>/the-solution-to-climate-change-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-cars-or-<span
></span>coal/</u></font><br>
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"Up until the late 1950s, tillage (plowing) released more carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere than all the burning of oil and coal in
history."<br>
<br>
" ... not tilling the soil begins to build up the
carbon content of the soil. You might call this 'carbon
farming'."<br>
<br>
"Obviously, these programs are currently not big money-makers for
farmers."</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#1A1A1A"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1"
color="#000000">"Energy agriculture - carbon farming" Don
Hofstrand co-director AgMRC<br>
Iowa State University<br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1"
color="#0040C2"><u
>https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/hof/HofAug07.html</u></font
><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#1A1A1A"><br>
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