AimThe fossil record has led to a historical explanation for forest diversity gradients within the cool parts of the Northern Hemisphere, founded on a limited ability of woody angiosperm clades to adapt to mid-Tertiary cooling. We tested four predictions of how this should be manifested in the phylogenetic structure of 91,340 communities: (1) forests to the north should comprise species from yo...

Through work in southern Africa this research programme has explored the challenges of institutional, organisational and policy reform around land, water and wild resources. The case study sites have been in Zambezia Province, Mozambique, the Eastern Cape Wild Coast in South Africa and the lowveld area of southeastern Zimbabwe. Three broad themes have been explored: • How do poor people gain ac...

Co-management of forest resources is a process of governance that enables all relevant stakeholders to participate in the decision-making processes. Illegal logging and forest degradation are currently increasing, and logging bans are ineffective in reducing forest degradation. At the same time interest in forest plantations and concern about poverty problems of neighboring people whose livelih...

Aim of study: The basis for sustainable conservation any protected forest area is determined by the services it provides to ecosystem and immediate communities. This study seeks evaluate provided Okomu Forest Reserve that should warrant its conservation. 
 Area was conducted in Edo State, Southern Nigeria. major practices farmers surrounding communities are sole cassava intercropping with ...

The use of forest resources by a rural community adjacent to a Biological Reserve was examined using quantitative methods based on the consensus of six local specialists. Plants with trunk diameters at 1.3 m above soil level (DBH) ≥ 5 cm were sampled in 0.5 ha of forest and their use-value (UV) were calculated and associated with their structural descriptors. A total of 129 species were identif...

Several methods for the estimation of functional diversity are employed in plant communities. However, it is hard to select the most suitable measures in practice. This work presents comparisons of nine distance-based measures applied to functional diversity analysis in forest communities (36 plots) along an elevational gradient in the Pangquangou Reserve, China. The employed indices and method...

A serological survey was conducted in apparently healthy, unvaccinated indigenous Tswana goats and sheep in Kasane, Maun and Shakawe districts in northwestern Botswana in order to determine in these animals, the levels of exposure to the South African Territories (SAT) serotypes: SAT 1, SAT 2 and SAT 3 of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). A total of 250, 142 and 134 goat sera originating res...

Increasing the density of natural reserves in the forest landscape may provide conservation benefits for biodiversity within and beyond reserve borders. We used 2 French data sets on saproxylic beetles and landscape cover of forest reserves (LCFR) to test this hypothesis: national standardized data derived from 252 assessment plots in managed and reserve stands in 9 lowland and 5 highland fores...

Objectives: Despite the substantial loss of natural forest in the Bosomkese Forest Reserve, little is known on the effects of the massive habitat loss and degradation on forest biota. The study therefore assessed the effects of anthropogenic activities on butterfly species composition and abundance in the Bosomkese Forest reserve in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana. Methodology and Results: The ...

Seedling morphology of 210 species (173 trees and 37 lianas) was studied from a community perspective to identify major patterns of seedling functional types in a Mexican rain forest. Five types of seedlings were distinguished: cryptocotylar with reserve storage or absorption cotyledons (epigeal [CER] and hypogeal [CHR]), phanerocotylar epigeal, either with photosynthetic cotyledons (PEF) or wi...