How can we monitor Europe-wide farmland biodiversity so that it makes sense to farmers, is ecologically credible and scientifically sound and can be implemented for a reasonable price? Two new studies answer these questions.

First, stakeholders were asked, which indicators provided best "value for money" for their purpose. Habitat, plant species and farm management indicators ranked highest. Wild bees, earthworms and spiders as important providers of ecosystem services came next. Together they form a minimum set of indicators which provides non-redundant information and which can make dominant changes in farmland biodiversity visible.

Researchers from the FP7 funded EU projects "Biodiversity Indicators for European Farming Systems (BioBio)" and "Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON)", then developed cost estimates for nine monitoring scenarios and the authors conclude that a continent-wide farmland biodiversity monitoring scheme would require only a modest share of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget (2014-2020).

Cost assessments showed that the farmland biodiversity monitoring scenarios require 0·01% - 0·74% of the total CAP budget and 0·04% - 2·48% of the CAP budget specifically allocated to environmental targets. With 30% of the CAP devoted to environmental targets (more than 120 billion EURO), investing in a monitoring process seems a logical choice given these results. The researchers provide a framework for individual countries to start farmland biodiversity monitoring, building towards a coherent European picture.

The studies were published in the Journal of Applied Ecology and the Journal of Environmental Management.

"Despite scientific proof that monitoring increases the (cost) efficiency of policy measures, monitoring rarely gets included in policy programme budgets. We identified that the cost are not as high as feared. To further facilitate implementation, the study provides stepping stones to build a European monitoring scheme, offering a choice in indicators and using regions as a unit of trend analysis," explains Dr. Ilse Geijzendorffer, the lead author of the Journal of Applied Ecology paper.

Post-doctoral scientist position is open for the project "Towards an integrated prediction of Land & Sea Responses to global change in the Mediterranean Basin" (LaSeR-Med), which focusses on integrated socio-ecological modelling. The duration of the contract is initially one year, with a possible extension for a second year, depending on the initial results. The post-doc will be based within the Mediterranean Institute of marine and terrestrial Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE) in Aix-en-Provence, France. The project is part of the Labex OT-Med (http://www.otmed.fr/).

Applicants should hold a doctoral degree in physics, chemistry, microbiology, geosciences, environmental sciences or a related field of science. They should be familiar with modelling biogeochemical interactions between ecosystems and capable to further develop existing numerical ecosystem models. Programming skills (C) and modelling experience are therefore mandatory. Knowledge of R and of Unix/Linux environment will be an advantage. The candidate should have good written and oral communication skills. For work, good skills in the English language will be essential.

The project:

Terrestrial and marine ecosystems are connected through groundwater, river discharge and nutrient outflows (especially N and P). River catchments in the Mediterranean are N-intensive regions, mostly due to intensive agriculture in the North and to crop N2 fixation or food & feed import in the South. The fraction of nutrient reaching the sea constitutes significant anthropogenic forcing of many marine biological processes. For simulating the dynamics of the first levels of the marine food web (from nutrients to jellyfishes), the ocean biogeochemical model, Eco3M-MED, used and developed by the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography (MIO) within OT-Med, currently uses N and P measurements at river mouths, e.g. for the Rhône.

In order to estimate the impacts of global change on the functioning of marine ecosystems, the project aims at modeling the dependency of N and P outflows to the Mediterreanean sea toward land management. Land management is modelled as part of the agro-ecosystem model LPJmL (Bondeau et al., 2007), that has been especially adapted to the Mediterranean cropping systems (Fader et al., 2015). Among others, LPJmL simulates the daily carbon and water cycles, and the river discharges to the sea. Following existing approaches in the scientific literature, the post-doc will implement the nutrient N and P transfer in LPJmL, covering the net nutrient inputs to the river catchments by accounting for the processes occurring at the agro-ecosystem level (N2 biological fixation, fertilization, atmospheric deposition) and the net food and feed imports. Since only a minor fraction of the net nutrient inputs from Mediterranean basins reaches the sea, the retention along the nutrient cascade will have to be added to the LPJmL river routing scheme, similarly to the method used by the Riverstrahler model. Once the nutrient transfers have been introduced into LPJmL, simulations will be validated using current climate and land use forcing for comparisons with the existing observations from river outlets. Finally, future conditions will be assessed by using the model with scenarios of changing regional climate and land use / land management.

Your application:

Applications should contain a suitable motivation letter describing your anticipated role in the project, a CV, a list of scientific publications and the names of at least two scientists that can be contacted for references. They must be sent to Ms. Gabriela Boéri (gabriela.boeri@imbe.fr). Please prepare your application as a single file in pdf-format.

Questions about the project or the position can be directed to Dr. Alberte Bondeau (alberte.bondeau@imbe.fr). The position will be filled as soon as a suitable candidate has been found – work should start soon after that date. The salary and contract conditions will be determined according to standards set by Aix-Marseille University – questions in this regard can be directed to Sophie Pekar (pekar@otmed.fr).

From 9 to 11 November in Vienna, Austria the EU H2020 project Detecting changes in essential ecosystem and biodiversity properties – towards a Biosphere Atmosphere Change Index: BACI has organised a special workshop titled "Remote sensing applications related to land use/change" with the aim to facilitate co-design and co-production of knowledge with regard to innovative applications of remote sensing products.

EU BON project partner Duccio Rocchini was among the invited lecturers at the event. His talk titled "Like in a Rubik’s cube: Recomposing Biodiversity Information by Remote Sensing Data" introduced some experience from EU BON.

The overarching objective of BACI is to tap into the unrealized potential of existing and scheduled space-borne Earth observation data streams to detect changes in ecosystem functioning and services that have repercussions for essential biodiversity variables, land use potentials, and land-atmosphere interactions.

A recently completed benchmark survey of common plants provides a comprehensive dataset of vascular plant diversity and abundance in South Northumberland and Durham, contributing an additional 35,000 observations to the 200,000 observations collected by local recorders since the turn of the millennium.

Apart from contributing an updated inventory of vascular plant diversity, the survey is intended to be used as a reference point with which to identify change in the countryside and study the drivers of biodiversity change in the North-east of England.

Changes in the abundance of rare species have little impact on other species, but change in the abundance of common species can have cascading effects on whole ecosystems. The new survey provides a solid foundation that can be used to qualify the abundance of common species and compare against previous and future studies.

The distribution of heather predicted from the common plant survey data. This is one of the region's most characteristic species and one that many other organisms rely upon for food and cover.

The survey was part of the North-East Common Plants Survey Project, conducted over four years and required volunteers to go to various places. Some surveyed post-industrial brown-field sites, while others walked for miles across bleak moorland to reach sites high in the hills. Although these moors are arguably wilder and natural, the industrial wastelands turn out to be far more biodiverse.

Botanical surveying continues in the region despite the end of the project. Volunteers continue to monitor rare plants in the region and are currently working towards the next atlas of Britain and Ireland, coordinated by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.

This survey is also among the first one to make use of the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) functionality, jointly developed by EU BON and GBIF, that allows the easy export and exposure of datasets to maximize their discoverability and reuse. The survey was published in the Biodiversity Data Journal, providing easy and streamlined publication of GBIF data via a variety of newly introduced plugins.

Original Source:

Groom Q, Durkin J, O'Reilly J, Mclay A, Richards A, Angel J, Horsley A, Rogers M, Young G (2015) A benchmark survey of the common plants of South Northumberland and Durham, United Kingdom. Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e7318. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e7318

A new opinion piece published in the journal Global Change Biology looks at the development of biodiversity scenarios and their inclusion of  future land-use changes.

Abstract: 

The planetary boundaries framework attempts to set limits for biodiversity loss within which ecological function is relatively unaffected. In a recent article in Science Newbold et al. present a quantitative global analysis of the extent to which the proposed planetary boundary has been crossed. 

Abstract: 

Land use and related pressures have reduced local terrestrial biodiversity, but it is unclear how the magnitude of change relates to the recently proposed planetary boundary ("safe limit"). We estimate that land use and related pressures have already reduced local biodiversity intactness—the average proportion of natural biodiversity remaining in local ecosystems—beyond its recently proposed planetary boundary across 58.1% of the world’s land surface, where 71.4% of the human population live. Biodiversity intactness within most biomes (especially grassland biomes), most biodiversity hotspots, and even some wilderness areas is inferred to be beyond the boundary. Such widespread transgression of safe limits suggests that biodiversity loss, if unchecked, will undermine efforts toward long-term sustainable development.

The study is available at http://dx.doi/10.1126/science.aaf2201

The ECOPOTENTIAL H2020 project, focusing its activities on blending Earth Observations from remote sensing, field measurements, data analysis and modeling of current and future ecosystem conditions and services, is organizing this workshop in Brussels on the 10th of January 2018, from 9.00 to 17:30. 

The main objective of the workshop is to prospect the state-of-the-art of Remote Sensing as a Sentinel tool to monitor, characterize and understand the state, ongoing changes and effectiveness of conservation and management actions of natural landscapes and to facilitate an open debate among scientists and the involved Institutions. This workshop is part of the multiple events organized by the ECOPOTENTIAL Project on the week of 9th-12th of January 2018, starting on Jan 9th with the opening of the photo-exhibition with the same title, on display at the European Parliament. 

Registration: http://ves.cat/emIm

Agenda: http://www.ecopotential-project.eu/images/ecopotential/img_news/Spaced-workshop-AGENDA-Jan-10-2018.pdf

Event's website: http://www.ecopotential-project.eu/2015-08-19-15-19-05/2015-10-16-13-48-29/205-spaced-using-earth-observations-to-protect-natural-landscapes.html

The First Eye on Earth User Conference will be held in Dublin on March 4-6, 2013 and is officially associated with the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The conference is organised by the European Environment Agency and will be opening an exciting week of conferences addressing environmental, economic and governance issues. Other events include the Envirofi day conference (6 March), organized by the Joint Research Center and the imaGIne conference (7-8 March) organized by European Umbrella organization for Geographic Information.
Event web page: Eye on Earth conference, Ireland (EEA)

The IALE 2013 European Congress "Changing European Landscapes: Landscape ecology, local to global" will take place on 9-12 September 2013, in Manchester, UK. This major international event, organised by IALE UK and IALE Europe, will examine how and why European landscapes are changing and how landscape ecology can help us to plan for the future at local to global scales. It will consider local projects alongside international programmes and provide many opportunities for researchers, policy makers and practitioners to interact. The congress will have a European focus but we look forward to welcoming participants from around the world.

More information and how to register find here.

In 2013, the University of Potsdam will host the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The meeting (www.gfoe-2013.de) will take place from September 9 to 13, 2013 in Potsdam, Germany.

The guiding theme of the 43rd Annual Meeting is "Building bridges in ecology - linking systems, scales and disciplines".
Along the lines of this guiding theme, we will stimulate scientific discussions about all aspects in basic and applied ecological research contributing to better connect.

The International Symposium "What can Remote Sensing do for the Conservation of Wetlands?" will take place on 23 October 2015 in parallel with the XVI Congreso de la Asociación Española de Teledetección (XVI Meeting of the Spanish Remote Sensing Association) in Seville, Spain.

The Symposium aims to become an interdisciplinary meeting for wetland managers and scientists interested in remote sensing as well as remote sensing experts doing research in wetlands.

Wetlands are fragile and dynamic ecosystems sensitive to changes in climate and land-use, and rich in biodiversity. For centuries they were considered to have little or no value, and most have been drained or transformed. In 1971 the first international convention for the protection of Wetlands, the Ramsar Convention, was signed to promote their conservation and sustainable use. Now it is recognized that wetlands provide fundamental ecosystem services, such as water regulation, filtering and purification, as well as scientific, cultural, and recreational values. Wetlands constitute an extensive array of ecosystems ranging from lakes and rivers to marshes and tidal flats. An increasing number of wetlands have some kind of legal protection, and many wetlands are monitored and actively managed.

For more information on the symposium, please visit the official webpage: http://wetlandssymposium.com/

Crochet, 25, was one of the top starting pitchers in the American League last season, posting a 3.58 ERA.

The post Red Sox viewed as a top candidate to land Garrett Crochet by pair of insiders appeared first on Boston.com.

The more romantically inclined might describe Nantucket’s signature hue as a “dusty rose” or a “sunset pink.” Candid folks may note the passing resemblance to a bad sunburn.

The post How did ‘Nantucket red’ become an island tradition? appeared first on Boston.com.

“If not for the sign in the window, it’d be easy to mistake Frankie’s for a residential home whose owners love hosting dinner parties.”

The post Burlington VT restaurant lands on Eater’s Best New Restaurants in America list appeared first on Boston.com.

This marks the second time this year that Boston sports has been featured as a clue on "Jeopardy!".

The post Joe Mazzulla’s love of ‘The Town’ lands him on ‘Jeopardy!’ as a clue  appeared first on Boston.com.

Michael J. Fox, John Cleese, Williams Shatner, Jojo Siwa — and more — are all in Rhode Island this weekend.

The post From ‘Breaking Bad‘ to ‘Back to the Future,’ 11 stars you can’t miss at Rhode Island Comic Con  appeared first on Boston.com.

The bands paired up to take the house down on their Take Me Home Tour Thursday night.

The post Review & setlist: Little Big Town and Sugarland brought their harmonies home to TD Garden appeared first on Boston.com.

Williams also talks Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, and Trey Anastasio in advance of her shows in Medford, Portland, and Providence.

The post Lucinda in the sky with diamonds: Lucinda Williams announces Beatles covers album ahead of New England shows appeared first on Boston.com.

Find an amusement park near you for some summer thrills.

The post 14 amusement and water parks to visit in New England this summer appeared first on Boston.com.

It opens in 2025.

The post A new steampunk-themed roller coaster is coming to Six Flags New England appeared first on Boston.com.

Fright Fest opens on Sept. 21.

The post Six Flags New England to debut a new haunted attraction for Fright Fest appeared first on Boston.com.

Find out about fall activities, prices, and more.

The post Want to visit New England’s largest corn maze? Here’s what you need to know. appeared first on Boston.com.

The coastal lowlands along Malaysia’s side of the Strait of Malacca are a mostly lush place, studded with fat palms and forest canopies dripping with vines. But over the past year and a half, black pillars of smoke have appeared above the treetops. We investigate how plastic waste American municipalities send for recycling, is piling up in illegal dumps thousands of miles away. Also, tiny plastic pellets, called 'nurdles' are the product of plastics producers, but why are these pellets appearing on the US Gulf Coast?; Americans have few options when it comes to recycled tissue products and that's having a devastating impact on Canada's northern forests; Meal kits are becoming very popular in the US, but are they helping us to reduce waste?

(Plastic waste at an abandoned factory in Jenjarom, a district of Kuala Langat, outside Kuala Lumpur. From grubby packaging engulfing small Southeast Asian communities to waste piling up in plants from the US to Australia, China's ban on accepting the world's used plastic has plunged global recycling into turmoil. Credit: Mohd Rasfan/Getty Images)

Nine years have passed since Syrians took to the streets to demand the ouster of the government of Bashar al-Assad. During those nine years, thousands of lives have been lost, many have been displaced and much of the country is in ruins. For many Syrians, displacement has led them to look for a new life in Europe, which has meant spending time on the Greek island of Lesbos. Tens of thousands of Syrians and migrants from other countries have passed through Lesbos. We’ll hear from Syrians reflecting on the crisis in Syria and from migrants who are now seeking asylum, while waiting in limbo in makeshift camps on Lesbos.

Photo: A drone image shows a displaced camp in the town of Kafr Uruq southwest of the town of Sarmada in Syria's northwestern Idlib province. Credit: Omar Haj Kadour/Getty Images

One is in Massachusetts.

The post 3 of the best places to visit in December are in New England, according to Good Housekeeping appeared first on Boston.com.

A new ranking by HomeToGo highlights affordable skiing slopes in New England.

The post New England has 3 of the country’s most affordable ski resorts appeared first on Boston.com.

As homeland security secretary, Noem would lead a sprawling federal bureaucracy with a $60 billion budget and more than 230,000 employees.

The post Trump picks Gov. Kristi Noem to serve as homeland security secretary appeared first on Boston.com.

After Most Disturbing Anti-Semitism Spike Since WWII, 2,000 Israelis Airlifted from Netherlands

Israel is one of the tiniest countries in the world, only slightly larger than the state of New Jersey. Yet the nation’s small size belies its rich diversity and history -- a beautiful tapestry of different people and ethnicities like nowhere else on the planet. Take Jerusalem. It’s one of the world’s most ancient cities and plays a central role in the three major monotheistic religions. The Old City is divided into four distinct quarters, each with their own unique flavor and history. The...

During this way too long pandemic, thinking about your "dream job" may seem like a waste of time. "Forget about a dream job," you might think, "I just need a paycheck!" Whether you are job hunting or in work that you desperately want to escape, you may be tempted to take any job to get out of your current situation. While it's true that at times it makes sense to take a less-than-ideal job to bring in some money, you don't want to get stuck in a dead-end, poor fitting, soul-deadening job. The...

Ever want to quit your job, leave the rat race behind, and head back to the land? Buy an old farmhouse or build a solar-powered home and live self-sufficiently on a few acres of your very own? Generations before you have shared that dream. The reality is more complicated. Even owning your own land is an ethical minefield. 

Original Air Date: December 18, 2021

Guests:

Makenna Goodman — Simon Winchester — Hayden King

Interviews In This Hour:

Can you live off the land and still live ethically? — What does 'owning' land actually mean? — How the Land Back movement is reclaiming land stolen from Indigenous people

Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.

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A wildland-urban interface area is, “that geographical area where structures and other human development meets or intermingles with wildland or vegetative fuels.” Approximately a third of all housing units in the United States are located within an area that meets this definition.

Part one of a two part series that outlines some occupational hazards before selling the business.

The Portland Cement Association, which represents America’s cement manufacturers, announced new leadership for its Board of Directors after holding elections on Dec. 4 at its last meeting of 2023.

Novo Building Products is pleased to announce the opening of a new Empire Moulding and Millwork distribution facility in Amherst, New Hampshire. Strategically located 60 miles north of Boston, the new 217,000-square-foot facility services 750 independent lumberyards, specialty millwork shops, stair manufacturers, door fabricators, ProDealers and home centers across New England.

A report commissioned by the government and Power to Change says there are more than 6,300 such undertakings

What is the International Wildland Urban Interface Code and why should it matter to me?

The director of fundraising at the conservation charity talks to Third Sector about Aston Villa, building bespoke relationships with supporters and having passion for your cause