Countryside Sounds

Countryside Biogeography of Tropical Butterflies

Although most conservation efforts focus on preserving biodiversity in relatively pristine ecosystems, we investigated possible conservation opportunities in human-dominated landscapes. We evaluated butterfly diversity in a tropical countryside that was converted about four decades ago from continuous forest to a mosaic of coffee farms, pasture, and forest fragments. We compared the butterfly f...

Refuelling the Countryside

An Exclusive Countryside

Using the example of two English villages, this paper examines whether rural crime concern is evidence of an ‘exclusive society’ (Young, 2002) in the countryside. Specific attention is given to concerns expressed by residents as part of a consultation exercise to establish community-based policing partnerships in rural areas of the West Mercia Constabulary. Based on these findings the paper goe...

Sustaining biodiversity in ancient tropical countryside.

With intensifying demands for food and biofuels, a critical threat to biodiversity is agricultural expansion into native tropical ecosystems. Tropical agriculture, particularly intensive agriculture, often supports few native organisms, and consequently has been largely overlooked in conservation planning; yet, recent work in the Neotropics demonstrates that tropical agriculture with certain fe...

Countryside biogeography of Neotropical reptiles and amphibians.

The future of biodiversity and ecosystem services depends largely on the capacity of human-dominated ecosystems to support them, yet this capacity remains largely unknown. Using the framework of countryside biogeography, and working in the Las Cruces system of Coto Brus, Costa Rica, we assessed reptile and amphibian assemblages within four habitats that typify much of the Neotropics: sun coffee...