The Earth's ecosystems have been altered by anthropogenic processes, including land use, harvesting populations, species introductions and climate change. These anthropogenic processes greatly alter plant and animal communities, thereby changing transmission of the zoonotic pathogens they carry. Biodiversity conservation may be a potential win-win strategy for maintaining ecosystem health and p...

Understanding varying levels of biodiversity within cities is pivotal to protect it in the face of global urbanisation. In the early stages of urban ecology studies on intra-urban biodiversity focused on the urban-rural gradient, representing a broad generalisation of features of the urban landscape. Increasingly, studies classify the urban landscape in more detail, quantifying separately the e...

BACKGROUND Recent investigations suggest that biodiversity loss might impair the functioning and sustainability of ecosystems. Although deep-sea ecosystems are the most extensive on Earth, represent the largest reservoir of biomass, and host a large proportion of undiscovered biodiversity, the data needed to evaluate the consequences of biodiversity loss on the ocean floor are completely lackin...

Preface This report was originally prepared as a part of the compulsory organised training programme in my doctoral studies in environmental management. The report was the outcome of a subject called 'Biodiversity indicators and environmental performance evaluations' which was organised as an individually adapted list of set literature (DI-LSF01). After the evaluation and due to fruitful discus...

Preface Research on biodiversity is essential to help the European Union and EU Member States to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as reach the target of halting the loss of biodiversity in Europe by 2010. The need for coordination between researchers, the policy-makers that need research results and the organisations that fund research is reflected in the aims of the Bio...

The Australian Government acting through the Bureau of Rural Sciences has exercised due care and skill in the preparation and compilation of the information and data set out in this publication. Notwithstanding, the Bureau of Rural Sciences, its employees and advisers disclaim all liability, including liability for negligence, for any loss, damage, injury, expense or cost incurred by any person...

1. Introduction: the amount of biological diversity 2. Diversity in ecosystems 2.1. African wildlife systems 2.2. Australian arid grazing systems 3. Measures of biodiversity 3.1. Species richness 3.2. Shortcuts to monitoring biodiversity: indicators, umbrellas, flagships, keystones, and functional groups 4. Biodiversity loss: the great extinction spasm 5. Causes of biodiversity loss: the " evil...

Recent practise has revealed that conservation interventions that seek to achieve multiple benefits generally face significant, if under-recognized trade-offs. REDD+ policies present prospective win–win solutions for climate change mitigation, rural development and biodiversity conservation. Notably, protecting, enhancing and restoring forests for their carbon sequestration services has the pot...