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Headlines from week beginning 11 February 2019 |
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A round up of the top countryside, conservation, wildlife and forestry stories as chosen by the CJS Team.
Insect decline a major global crisis –
Buglife
Matt Shardlow, Buglife’s Chief Executive commented. “It is gravely
sobering to see this collation of evidence that demonstrates the pitiful
state of the world’s insect populations. It’s not just about bees, or
even about pollination and feeding ourselves, the declines also include
dung beetles that recycle waste and insects like dragonflies that start
life in rivers and ponds. It is becoming increasingly obvious our
planet’s ecology is breaking and there is a need for an intense and
global effort to halt and reverse these dreadful trends – allowing the
slow eradication of insect life to continue is not a rational option”. Read the paper: Sánchez-Bayo, F. &
Wyckhuys, K. A. G.
Review: Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers.
Biological Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2019.01.020
Skyglow over key wildlife areas – University
of Exeter Light pollution affects the skies over most of the world’s key
wildlife areas, new research shows.
Researchers found less than a third of the world’s Key Biodiversity
Areas (KBAs) have completely pristine night skies, and more than half
lie entirely under artificially bright skies. Night-time light has been shown to have wide-ranging effects on
individual species and entire ecosystems. The study focussed on “skyglow” – light scattered and reflected into
the atmosphere that can extend to great distances “These results are troubling because we know many species can respond
even to small changes in night-time light,” said lead author Dr Jo
Garrett, of the University of Exeter. “Night-time lighting is known to
affect microbes, plants and many groups of animals such crustaceans,
insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. It has an
enormous range of effects, including causing trees to produce leaves
earlier in the season and birds to sing earlier in the day, changing the
proportion of predators in animal communities, and changing the cycling
of carbon in ecosystems. Some effects can occur at very low light
levels.” KBAs are places identified by the KBA Partnership as being important
for preserving global biodiversity, and the new study uses a recent
atlas of skyglow to see how KBAs are affected. “Pristine” skies were defined as those with artificial light no more
than 1% above the natural level. At 8% or more above natural conditions, light pollution extends from
the horizon to the zenith (straight upwards) and the entire sky can be
considered polluted. Read the paper (open access)
Strengthened protection for Essex and Suffolk countryside
– Natural England Natural England outlines proposals to extend Suffolk Coast and Heaths
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Parts of Essex and new parts of Suffolk could be recognised as an
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) for the first time under plans
outlined today (Tuesday 12 February). Natural England has put forward proposals to extend the Suffolk Coast
and Heaths AONB, the first extension since it was designated in 1970. The move would see approximately 15 square miles brought within the
protected area, including the Stour Estuary, Samford Valley and Freston
Brook Valley, increasing the AONB by nearly 10% - a size equivalent to
3,800 international rugby pitches. The UK’s 46 AONBs represent some of country’s finest countryside,
spanning from Cornwall to the North Pennines, offering a wealth of
opportunities for both people and wildlife to benefit from the
countryside.
Grazing in the New Forest – New Forest
National Park Authority TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham has called for fewer
animals to be allowed to roam the New Forest and claims
that overgrazing is destroying it. New Forest National Park Authority Chairman Oliver Crosthwaite-Eyre
said: ‘The animals are the architects of the Forest and this ancient
system of commoning is guided by the Verderers, advised by Natural
England, and working with the Forestry Commission as land manager. A number of organisations we work with to care for the Forest have
issued the following statements in relation to this debate. Read what
our partners are saying below: Forestry Commission Deputy Surveyor for the New Forest, Bruce Rothnie, at the Forestry
Commission, said: ‘Those who work every day within the New Forest and
observe its cycles of management know that its condition is best judged
over decades of time and not year by year. Its diversity of plants
and animals comes from traditional practices that have been continuing
for hundreds of years including the grazing by animals and burning of
heathland. Without the New Forest’s unique grazing system and land
management we could not sustain the quality and nature of the landscape
we all enjoy today.
Butterfly monitoring project will enable improvements to Europe’s
environment – Butterfly Conservation A major new EU Pilot Project will monitor population trends of
butterflies to assess the health of the environment and to inform EU
biodiversity
Image: Butterfly Conservation Butterfly populations are highly sensitive to environmental change,
providing an early warning of impacts on ecosystems. The new study of
population trends in different habitats across Europe will assess
biodiversity loss and the impact of climate change and land use
intensification. The project, ABLE (Assessing ButterfLies in Europe), is a partnership
between Butterfly Conservation Europe, the Centre for Ecology &
Hydrology (UK), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
(Germany), Dutch Butterfly Conservation (The Netherlands) and Butterfly
Conservation (UK). The team will work with partners across the EU. It is
being funded by the EU for an initial period of two years. Butterflies are already regularly monitored with the help of
thousands of volunteers in 11 EU countries. The new project will build
on the data collected by these existing networks and expand monitoring
to cover at least eight additional EU countries, focusing on those in
southern and eastern Europe. This will provide more representative
trends across Europe from which to assess the health of the environment
and inform EU policies, including the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020
and the Common Agricultural Policy. The data will also contribute to the
assessment of the health of Europe’s pollinators as part of the EU
Pollinator Initiative.
Batty trade-offs between survival and reproduction
– WildCRU There’s no such thing as a free lunch which, as David Macdonald
reports, is a punishing truth for mammals, and especially for small
ones.
Survival and reproduction are worthy goals in the evolutionary race,
but both require energy, and in deference to the laws of physics, the
smaller you are, the greater the handicap of heavy fuel-consumption in
that race. That’s why the WildCRU, blessed with a 12 year data set
thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Dr Dani Linton, thought to ask
two species of bat, both resident in Wytham Woods, how they dealt with
their fuel bills. Their answers are published in Journal of Animal
Ecology. The idea of living fast sounds appealing until you consider the flip
side of dying young. There are choices to be made and in principle,
there is inevitably a trade-off between the present and the future: the
investment of energy into current reproduction can reduce chances of
survival and / or the success of future reproduction. Such costs of
reproduction are often more pronounced in immature animals that are
relatively inexperienced in acquiring resources, and so sometimes they
opt to delay reproduction if they have the luxury of a potentially long
lifespan. Access the paper:
New scheme could make developers help reverse wildlife declines
- The Wildlife Trusts The Wildlife Trusts call for all new developments to contribute to a
Nature Recovery Network The Government consultation into a new legal requirement which could
make developers actively improve nature closed at the weekend. It is an
attempt to help wildlife recover following the severe decline of over
half our wild species in the last 50 years. The new approach, known as ‘net gain,’ would ensure wildlife gets a
better deal from new developments. It would mean that developers
not only compensate and mitigate for any damage caused to the natural
world, they would have to measurably add to it and improve it – by
creating additional new nature-friendly spaces that enable bees,
butterflies, and birds to recover and thrive.
The world's insect populations are plummeting everywhere we look
- Natural History Museum The number of insects is falling at such a perilous rate that if
nothing is done to halt the decline, our own future could be at risk. This is the conclusion published in a new paper in the
journal Biological Conservation. The review looked at 75 different studies covering a range of insect
groups from around the globe, and the results are startling. It has revealed that over 40% of all insects are declining, and a
third are endangered. The data suggests that the rate of decline is at
least 2.5% per year. According to the researchers' analysis, a quarter
of insects could be wiped out within just a decade - although with so
few insects populations having been studied, exact figures are hard to
come by. Specialist insects, while perhaps more sensitive to change, are not
necessarily those most at risk. According to the study, all groups are
on the decline, even common and generalist species which are often
thought of as being more resistant to such disturbances. Dr Gavin Broad, Principal Curator in Charge of Insects at the Museum,
says, 'In a way it is logically inevitable that we are seeing these
declines, as the habitats now remaining are so small and so fragmented
compared to a century ago. There is just not the space for insects to
live anymore.' Read the paper: Francisco Sánchez-Bayo,
Kris A.G. Wyckhuys,
Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers.
Biological Conservation
High number of farmland birds spotted on Welsh farm
- Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust Farmer and conservationist Terry Mills hosted a bird count at his
farm in Cruglas, near Swyddffynon in Ceredigion to mark the start of
this year’s Big Farmland Bird Count (BFBC). As well as providing valuable information on wildlife in the Welsh
countryside, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust-led count highlights
farmers’ fantastic efforts to reverse the decline in farmland birds. Cruglas boasted an impressive 30 species on the day, including
several in serious decline such as starling, house sparrow, redwing and
fieldfare, a tribute to the effort Terry Mills has put into improving
habitat on his farm. Wales advisor Matt Goodall said: “We want to encourage all farmers in
Wales to spend 30 minutes bird-spotting on their farms this week. It’s
easy to do, simply jot down any birds you see and submit the count by
post or online at www.bfbc.org.uk.
Cruglas is a wonderful example of how, with a mix of tree planting,
fencing and pond digging and supplementary feeding, the wildlife will
return.” This year, the count is sponsored for the first time by NFU Cymru and
aims, in part, to identify what support farmers need to help provide
food and habitat for wildlife on their farms.
University of Sussex rallies to rescue rare butterfly
- University of Sussex A Life Sciences technician at the University of Sussex led efforts to
successfully save the eggs of an elusive butterfly species before a
disease-stricken Elm tree was felled on campus.
© Peter Eeles The eggs found (which look like miniature 1950s UFOs) will be kept so
the caterpillars can be reared in captivity or transferred to a healthy
Elm tree elsewhere on campus, helping to save the local population of
this rare butterfly. Although rearing the species in captivity is difficult, it would
provide the eggs with protection from predators and allow researchers a
rare chance to monitor the early stages of the butterfly’s life cycle. Crispin Holloway, who is a volunteer for the UK charity Butterfly
Conservation and runs butterfly surveys on campus, said: “This rescue
project was a valuable exercise to confirm if the butterflies are
breeding on campus grounds and gives us even more reason to look after
the existing Elm trees and the butterfly population. “The planting of disease-resistant Elm trees on campus will be
important but it may take several years before these are mature enough
to produce blooms and seed which the caterpillars of the butterfly will
prefer to feed on. “Future butterfly and egg surveys on the university grounds will help
us learn more about this butterfly and how to help it.” Edinburgh primary school children receive award for citizen science - British Trust for Ornithology Pupils at Broughton Primary School have been recognized by the
British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and EDF Energy for their
contribution to What’s Under Your Feet?, a national citizen science
project.
New study to predict and monitor the response of forests to drought and
temperature change. - Forest Research The ForeSight project will anticipate how forests will be adversely
impacted as the climate warms and becomes more extreme, hampering tree
growth, and causing dieback and mortality. Professor Alistair Jump, of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at
Stirling, will lead the study, funded by the Natural Environment
Research Council (NERC) and involving colleagues at Forest Research,
Durham University, the Technische Universität Dresden and the Technical
University of Munich. Forest Research’s role is to integrate their
web-based
Ecological Site Classification decision support system into the
work. “More intense drought and increased temperatures reduce tree growth
and drive tree dieback and mortality across the globe,” explained
Professor Jump. “While this problem has been recognised for some time,
the processes and geographical extent of forest growth reduction and
die-off are not well understood. “Predicting the response of Europe’s
forests to drought and temperature change is a key challenge because
forests have enormous economic and ecological benefits that will be
impacted as climate warms and becomes more extreme. This new funding
will allow us to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to address these
issues by predicting and monitoring drought-linked forest growth decline
across the continent.” Professor Jump added: “This work will
contribute major new scientific insights into forest growth reduction
and die-off in response to drought, with substantial benefits for
improving our understanding of impacts on our ecosystems and
atmosphere.”
Bringing rural policy into the mainstream -
Scottish Government Delivering rural commitments. A new group tasked with bringing the rural economy to the forefront
of policy making has been announced. The new Rural Economy Action Group will guide how Scottish Ministers
drive forward recommendations of a recent report by the National Council
of Rural Advisers (NCRA). These recommendations include ensuring rural policy is embedded in
all decision making and ensuring national economic plans and
industry-led strategies are joined up and promote the rural economy. Announcing the chair of the Group while visiting Great British Bake
Off 2015 star Flora Shedden’s Aran Bakery in Dunkeld, Rural Economy
Secretary said: “As we edge ever closer to leaving the EU at the end of
March and the risk of leaving with no deal in place growing, there has
never been a more important time to ensure that our rural economy is
mainstreamed into everything we do. That is why, having listened to the
National Council of Rural Advisers, I am delighted to announce that
Carol Tannahill has agreed to chair the new Rural Economy Action Group,
which will immediately seek to guide how Scottish Ministers drive
forward the Council’s recommendations to grow a vibrant, sustainable and
inclusive rural economy. Scotland’s rural economy is bursting with
talent and potential. By ensuring effective mainstreaming of rural
policy into all of our policy thinking and delivery, I am determined to
ensure that our rural economy becomes the driving force behind, not just
our national brand, but also our national prosperity.” Download the
National Council for Rural Advisers final report: A new blueprint for
Scotland’s rural economy
Partnership tree planting in Nottinghamshire
- Environment Agency Staff from the Environment Agency and Trent Rivers Trust have been
showing their love of nature this Valentine’s Day, helping plant over
1,700 trees on farmland.
The green-fingered team has been spending the day planting native
trees in fields near Lambley and Lowdham to support a £1million Natural
Flood Management (NFM) scheme. The project aims to use a mixture of oak,
alder, cherry and hawthorn trees to naturally slow the flow of surface
water in times of flood, reducing the amount of water entering the
Cocker Beck. Today’s activities are just part of a £15million national NFM
programme which, in addition to reducing flood risk and enhancing the
environment, aims to contribute to the growing evidence base for NFM as
a tool to reduce flood risk. Work on the ground started in November 2018
and will continue across 15 sites upstream of Lowdham. Measures include
constructing ‘leaky’ wooden barriers to help reduce the amount of water
that enters the Cocker Beck. The barriers slow and store water within
the existing ditch network, reducing the rate it travels to the
downstream communities. They will also help to trap sediment to improve
water quality downstream. Scientific Publications
Marques, A. T., Santos, C. D., Hanssen, F. , Muñoz, A. , Onrubia, A.
, Wikelski, M. , Moreira, F. , Palmeirim, J. M. and Silva, J. P. (2019),
Wind turbines cause functional habitat loss for migratory soaring birds.
J Anim Ecol. Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1111/1365-2656.12961 María V. Laitano, Nicolás M. Chiaradia, Jesús D. Nuñez,
Clam population dynamics as an indicator of beach urbanization impacts,
Ecological Indicators, Volume 101, 2019, Pages 926-932, ISSN 1470-160X,
doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.02.006. Cao Y, Hawkins CP.
Weighting effective number of species measures by abundance weakens
detection of diversity responses. J Appl Ecol. 2019;00:1–10. doi:
10.1111/1365-2664.13345 (open access)
And finally:
Winner revealed in breath-taking photo competition to celebrate the 70th
Anniversary of National Parks - Campaign for
Parks and UK National Parks The UK National Parks and Campaign for National Parks are delighted
to announce the winner, runners up and shortlist for our joint
photography competition to celebrate the 70th anniversary of National
Parks in the UK. Around the theme of a ‘Moment in time’, this competition is 70 years
since the 1949 Act of Parliament that began the family of National Parks
in the UK, that today includes beloved landscapes such as the Peak
District, Brecon Beacons and Loch Lomond.
The winning shot, from graphic designer Kieran Metcalfe, depicts a tolkein-esque landscape in the Peak District National Park. Kieran said: “I was thrilled to hear the image had been shortlisted, but I’m completely bowled over at it being selected by the judges as the overall winner. It’s a real encouragement for me as a landscape photographer that they felt the image captured something of the spirit of the UK’s National Parks, especially for the 70th anniversary.”
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CJS is not responsible for content of external sites. Details believed correct but given without prejudice. Disclaimer: the views expressed in these news pages do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of CJS. |
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%20Stuart%20Crofts-buglife.jpg)
A
new paper - ‘Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its
drivers’ by Francisco Sánchez-Bayo and Kris A.G. Wyckhuys - paints a
grim picture of the decline of essential insects across the planet. it
concludes that current declines could lead to the extinction of 40% of
the world's insect species over the next few decades. Butterflies,
moths, bees, wasps, and dung beetles are amongst the most at risk along
with freshwater dependent dragonflies and damselflies, stoneflies,
caddisflies and mayflies.
The
study, by the University of Exeter and Birdlife International, focussed
on “skyglow” – light scattered and reflected into the atmosphere that
can extend to great distances (University of Exeter)
Looking
north across the Stour from Copperas Woods (Natural England)
and
agricultural policies.
©
Denise Foster
Crispin
Holloway worked with a team of volunteers and experts from the Sussex
Branch of Butterfly Conservation and Brighton and Hove arborist, Alister
Peters to search for and save the eggs of the White-letter Hairstreak
from branches as they were cut and removed.
A
BBC cameraman captures the tree-planting in fields near Lambley and
Lowdham (image: Environment Agency)
