Ecology, The Environment and Conservation

As Rebecca Brown kayaked down the Nolichucky River in North Carolina one summer, she followed a path similar to many of her own study subjects. Seeds and other propagules often float downstream before settling along riverbanks. Rampant with change, these areas offer a nutrient-rich location for new plants, yet pose the danger of sweeping vegetation away in a flood. It is this high volatility that makes the area resource rich and perfect for invasive and native plants to put down their roots. In a stu

A long-standing debate in ecology has been the effect of diversity on the temporal stability of biological systems.

Ecological theory predicts that the stability of populations should decline as community diversity increases, in part, because population size is assumed to decline with community richness.

In the February issue of Ecology Letters, Valone and Hoffman, using an 11-year dataset, have shown that the temporal stability of 17 species of annual plants in natural communitie

A study led by a Duke University scientist suggests that the current emphasis on controlling upstream nitrogen pollution fails to adequately address the impacts on water quality of another potential contaminant, phosphorus. Thus, according to the scientists, current strategies used by environmental managers to control excessive nutrients in coastal wetlands may not achieve their intended goals.

The finding was published in a report in the Friday, Jan. 24, 2003, issue of the journal Science b

Since the end of the 1960s West Africa has continuously been suffering hard drought. The rainfall deficit for the 1970s and 1980s, calculated to compare with the 1950s and 1960s, thus reached as high as 50% over the northern part of the Sahel. The hydrological cycle as a whole is affected by this drought, which results in serious consequences for agriculture and food security.

IRD researchers, aiming to understand the mechanisms behind this situation, examined rainfall data from 1950 to 1990

With measures aimed at reducing the emission of pollutants such as ammonia, policy makers pay too little attention to the consequences for the emission of other substances. This is revealed in a computer model constructed by Corjan Brink from Wageningen University during his doctoral research. For example, the model shows that reducing the amount of ammonia emitted leads to an increase in the emission of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).

The computer model developed by the environmental economis

Voluntary Initiative, Born Out of WSSD, Set to Deliver Major Health and Environmental Benefits to Continent’s 800 Million Citizens

UNEP’s Governing Council 3 to 7 February: Environment for Development

An international effort to phase out lead, the health-hazardous heavy metal, from petrol is accelerating as increasing numbers of African countries switch to unleaded fuel.

Research, to be presented to environment ministers attending a key conference organized by the Un