Treesearch

The German government's National Strategy on Biological Diversity (NSBD) aims at protecting its biodiversity in a broad sense. The NSBD calls for 5% of Germany's forest land area to be permanently set aside for natural forest protection, i.e., natural processes taking place, and as a second target, for 2% of Germany's land area to become "wilderness areas," where the land is left to develop without human interventions.

One of the factors in local tourism could be nature tourism promotion for disabled people in protected areas. This social group is more sensitive to long-distance travel; therefore, it is likely that local tourism is especially attractive. The disabled population may possibly have more free time, which also makes local travel particularly attractive. The main focus while developing disabled people's opportunities in nature should be imposed on three parallel tracks: 1) a consistent segment-oriented policy, 2) assurance of its feasible implementation, and 3) promotion of the motives to...

With this paper, it is illustrated that a focus on entrepreneurship training in the nature and wilderness sector is relevant for diverse organisations and situations. The first curricula on nature entrepreneurship are currently being developed. In this paper the authors describe a project that focusses on educating the next generation of nature entrepreneurs, reflect on the Erasmus Intensive Program 'European Wilderness Entrepreneur' and the Wild10 World Café on nature entrepreneurship training. Sharing and learning from experiences is highly recommended to further develop and strengthen...

Aquila chrysaetos (Golden Eagle) breeds in both eastern and western North America. However, the former population has received much less attention than the latter. The purpose of this paper is to document the known distribution and abundance of eastern Golden Eagles within their breeding range and to identify gaps in knowledge for future studies. Eastern Golden Eagles breed in Labrador, Québec, and Ontario, Canada. The species has been extirpated as a breeder from the eastern US. In 2013, 187 Golden Eagle territorial pairs were documented in eastern Canada. Most territorial pairs occur in...

Bark beetle outbreaks have killed billions of trees and affected millions of hectares of forest during recent decades. The objective of this study was to quantify responses of surface energy and hydrologic fluxes 2-3 yr following a spruce beetle outbreak using measurements and modeling. The authors used observations at the Rocky Mountains Glacier Lakes Ecosystem Experiments Site (GLEES), where beetles killed 85% of the basal area of spruce from 2005-07 (prebeetle) to 2009/10 (postbeetle). Observations showed increased albedo following tree mortality, more reflected solar radiation, and...

The Neotropical genus, Arachnocoris Scott groups thirteen species of specialized spider web-inhabiting damsel bugs (Nabidae) distributed from Panama to Brazil and the West Indies. We present new information on the web behavior of A. berytoides Uhler from Puerto Rico. Three different life stages were observed on the spider webs, suggesting this species likely depends on that microhabitat for all its life history stages. In addition to the modified tarsi described by Myers, we describe mimetic adaptations that may help it live a life in close association with its predacious host. Species in...

The Chinese herb Fritillaria walujewii Regel is an important officinal species that is vulnerable because of over-harvesting. Here, we examined the geographic pattern of genetic variation across the species entire range, to study its evolution process and give implication needed for the conservation. Nine haplotypes were detected on the basis of three chloroplast spacers. The most common haplotype was central in the haplotype network and was distributed widely from the Yili Valley to the eastern Tianshan Mountains. Genetic variation primarily occurred among populations and SAMOVA groups...

Caragana, a leguminous genus mainly restricted to temperate Central and East Asia, occurs in arid, semiarid, and humid belts, and has forest, grassland, and desert ecotypes. Based on the previous molecular phylogenetic tree and dating, biogeographical analyses of extant species area and ecotype were conducted by means of four ancestral optimization approaches: S-DIVA, Lagrange, Mesquite, and BBM. The results indicate the ancestral attributes of Caragana as an arid origin from the Junggar Basin and arid belt of climate and vegetation in the middle Miocene. The ancestral ecotype was most...

Many cases of intercontinental disjunct distributions of seed plants have been investigated, however few have concerned the continents of Eurasia (mainly Central Asia), Africa, and Australia, especially the xerophytic lineages are lacking. Nitraria (Nitrariaceae) is just one of these xerophytic lineages. Previous Nitraria studies have hypothesized either Africa as the ancient center, with dispersals to Australia and Eurasia, or alternatively Central Asia, due to a concentration of endemism and diversity there. Our findings show eastern Central Asia, i.e. the eastern Tethys, to be the...

Thermopsideae has 45 species and exhibits a series of interesting biogeographical distribution patterns, such as Madrean-Tethyan disjunction and EastAsia-North America disjunction,with a center of endemism in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau (QTP) and Central Asia. Phylogenetic analysis in this paper employed maximum likelihood using ITS, rps16, psbA-trnH, and trnL-F sequence data; biogeographical approaches included BEASTmolecular dating and Bayesian dispersal and vicariance analysis (S-DIVA).The results indicate that the core genistoides most likely originated in Africa during the Eocene to...