Humans and vegetation are co-adapted in high wood use areas of African savanna.
Locations Africa
Forest structure can be accurately mapped in Africa using multi-angle and multi-spectral data.
Elephants dominate vegetation in South African Thicket ecosystems.
Combinations of C-band RADAR data provided LiDAR-like mapping of woody canopy cover in African savannas
Combinations of new technologies can rapidly increase our scientific knowledge in support of improved ecosystem conservation and management
3D vegetation habitat is a strong determinant of success among endangered African wild dogs
High-intensity fires can significantly reduce woody cover in African savannas
Source: Journal of Applied Ecology
Limahuli Valley, Kauai
July 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of a scientific idea hatched in a distant valley along Kauai Island’s northern coast in the central Pacific. The 2006 conception was preceded by ten other years of research on the chemical properties of plant canopies in far flung environments ranging from desert shrublands to tropical rainforests. That preceding decade had cumulatively yielded just a hint that a tree-of-life approach to studying forests might be possible at the mother of all scales – Earth’s biosphere.
Consistent global-scale patterns in canopy chemical traits of humid tropical forests
Source: Global Change Biology
Animal assemblages are often viewed as a product of the ecosystems in which they live, but in reality they are often the reason an ecosystem looks the way it does. The roles of animals in shaping ecosystems are so important that two special issues recently published in PNAS and Ecography focus specifically on megafauna (literately translated as ‘large animal’) and the important roles they play in ecosystems, as well as what we may have lost through their extinctions across much of the globe.
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