The biodiversity of the Albertine Rift

The Albertine Rift is one of the most important regions for conservation in Africa. It contains more vertebrate species than any other region on the continent and contains more endemic species of vertebrate than any other region on mainland Africa. This paper compiles all currently known species distribution information for plants, endemic butterfly species and four vertebrate taxa from the Albertine Rift. The literature on fish species richness and endemism is also reviewed to assess the importance of the larger lakes in the Rift for conservation. We use data from 38 protected and unprotected areas to prioritise sites within the Albertine Rift for conservation based upon their numbers of endemic and globally threatened species. Virunga and Kahuzi Biega National Parks and Itombwe Massif in Democratic Republic of Congo, Bwindi Impenetrable and Kibale National Parks in Uganda, and Nyungwe National Park in Rwanda rank highest in terms of numbers of both endemic and globally threatened species. Six conservation landscapes are described that include most of these sites and it is argued that a focus on these landscapes may be a more holistic method to ensure the safety of the priority areas of the Albertine Rift.     

The challenge of maintaining Atlantic forest biodiversity: A multi-taxa conservation assessment of specialist and generalist species in an agro-forestry mosaic in southern Bahia

Recent developments have highlighted the importance of forest amount at large spatial scales and of matrix quality for ecological processes in remnants. These developments, in turn, suggest the potential for reducing biodiversity loss through the maintenance of a high percentage of forest combined with sensitive management of anthropogenic areas. We conducted a multi-taxa survey to evaluate the potential for biodiversity maintenance in an Atlantic forest landscape that presented a favorable context from a theoretical perspective (high proportion of mature forest partly surrounded by structurally complex matrices). We sampled ferns, butterflies, frogs, lizards, bats, small mammals and birds in interiors and edges of large and small mature forest remnants and two matrices (second-growth forests and shade cacao plantations), as well as trees in interiors of small and large remnants. By considering richness, abundance and composition of forest specialists and generalists, we investigated the biodiversity value of matrix habitats (comparing them with interiors of large remnants for all groups except tree), and evaluated area (for all groups) and edge effects (for all groups except trees) in mature forest remnants. Our results suggest that in landscapes comprising high amounts of mature forest and low contrasting matrices: (1) shade cacao plantations and second-growth forests harbor an appreciable number of forest specialists; (2) most forest specialist assemblages are not affected by area or edge effects, while most generalist assemblages proliferate at edges of small remnants. Nevertheless, differences in tree assemblages, especially among smaller trees, suggest that observed patterns are unlikely to be stable over time.     

Comprehensive conservation planning to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services in Canadian boreal regions under a warming climate and increasing exploitation

Boreal regions contain more than half of the carbon in forested regions of the world and over 60% of the world’s surface freshwater. Carbon storage and the flood control and water filtration provided by freshwaters and wetlands have recently been identified as the most important ecosystem services provided by boreal regions, with a value many times greater than current resource exploitation. Ecosystem services and sensitive ways of detecting their impairment have so far not been fully included in boreal conservation planning. Climate warming, via its effect on permafrost melting, insect damage, and forest fire, threatens to trigger large positive carbon feedbacks that may enhance the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, further amplifying climate warming. In a water-scarce world, there is increasing pressure to divert and exploit boreal freshwaters, and devising conservation plans to protect boreal freshwaters and their catchments is urgent. We propose a catchment-based approach that includes water and chemical mass-balances as a sensitive means of detecting early degradation of many ecosystem services in both catchments and freshwaters, and give some examples of where this has been advantageous in the past. The necessary modifications to current conservation planning are simple ones, and the advantages are great.