A quantitative analysis of bird species richness and abundance in habitats in and adjacent to rainforest in northeast Queensland, Australia, is presented. Bird assemblages in five habitats surrounding tropical rainforest were compared using line transects over a six-week period in the winter dry-season, between July and September 1995. Data were analysed using the Shannon–Weaver index of biodiv...

Habitat loss and disease are main drivers of global amphibian declines, yet the interaction between them remains largely unexplored. Here we show that paradoxically, habitat loss is negatively associated with occurrence, prevalence, and infection intensity of the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) in amphibian populations in the tropics. At a large spatial scale, increased habit...

Broad-scale destruction and fragmentation of native vegetation is a highly visible result of human land-use throughout the world (Chapter 4). From the Atlantic Forests of South America to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia, and in many other regions on Earth, much of the original vegetation now remains only as fragments amidst expanses of land committed to feeding and housing human beings. ...

The world is currently experiencing exceptionally high rates of species extinctions, largely as as result of human activity (Lawton and May 1996). Currently, most conservation research on habitat destruction focuses on the species as the unit of study, looking at either the impact of habitat destruction on individual species, or collections of species from particular habitats. There is, however...

Interactive effects of multiple environmental factors on metapopulation dynamics have received scant attention. We designed a laboratory study to test hypotheses regarding interactive effects of factors affecting the metapopulation dynamics of red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum. Within a four-patch landscape we modified resource level (constant and diminishing), patch connectivity (high and ...

Plant-pollinator mutualistic networks are asymmetric in their interactions: specialist plants are pollinated by generalist animals, while generalist plants are pollinated by a broad range involving specialists and generalists. It has been suggested that this asymmetric--or disassortative--assemblage could play an important role in determining the observed equal susceptibility of specialist and ...

Michelia yunnanensis Franch., is a traditional ornamental, aromatic, and medicinal shrub that endemic to Yunnan Province in southwest China. Although the species has a large distribution pattern and is abundant in Yunnan Province, the populations are dramatically declining because of overexploitation and habitat destruction. Studies on the genetic variation and demography of endemic species are...