Most biodiversity assessment methods tend to sample isolated areas of land cover such as closed forest or local land use mosaics. Contemporary methods of assessing biodiversity are briefly reviewed and focus on the relative roles of the Linnean species and plant functional types (PFTs). Recent case studies from central Sumatra and northern Thailand indicate how the range distributions of many plant and animal species and functional types frequently extend along regional gradients of light, water and nutrient availability and corresponding land use intensity. We show that extending the sampling context to include a broader array of environmental determinants of biodiversity results in a more interpretable pattern of biodiversity. Our results indicate sampling within a limited environmental context has the potential to generate highly truncated range distributions and thus misleading information for land managers and for conservation. In an intensive, multi-taxa survey in lowland Sumatra, vegetational data were collected along a land use intensity gradient using a proforma specifically designed for rapid survey. Each vegetation sample plot was a focal point for faunal survey. Whereas biodiversity pattern from samples within closed canopy rain forest was difficult to interpret, extending the sample base to include a wider variety of land cover and land use greatly improved interpretation of plant and animal distribution. Apart from providing an improved theoretical and practical basis for forecasting land use impact on biodiversity, results illustrate how specific combinations of plant-based variables might be used to predict impacts on specific animal taxa, functional types and above-ground carbon. Implications for regional assessment and monitoring of biodiversity and in improving understanding of the landscape dynamics are briefly discussed.

Most biodiversity assessment methods tend to sample isolated areas of land cover such as closed forest or local land use mosaics. Contemporary methods of assessing biodiversity are briefly reviewed and focus on the relative roles of the Linnean species and plant functional types (PFTs). Recent case studies from central Sumatra and northern Thailand indicate how the range distributions of many plant and animal species and functional types frequently extend along regional gradients of light, water and nutrient availability and corresponding land use intensity. We show that extending the sampling context to include a broader array of environmental determinants of biodiversity results in a more interpretable pattern of biodiversity. Our results indicate sampling within a limited environmental context has the potential to generate highly truncated range distributions and thus misleading information for land managers and for conservation. In an intensive, multi-taxa survey in lowland Sumatra, vegetational data were collected along a land use intensity gradient using a proforma specifically designed for rapid survey. Each vegetation sample plot was a focal point for faunal survey. Whereas biodiversity pattern from samples within closed canopy rain forest was difficult to interpret, extending the sample base to include a wider variety of land cover and land use greatly improved interpretation of plant and animal distribution. Apart from providing an improved theoretical and practical basis for forecasting land use impact on biodiversity, results illustrate how specific combinations of plant-based variables might be used to predict impacts on specific animal taxa, functional types and above-ground carbon. Implications for regional assessment and monitoring of biodiversity and in improving understanding of the landscape dynamics are briefly discussed.

Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004. | South African grasslands are under-conserved and there is a need to expand conservation efforts beyond the boundaries of protected areas. While communal grasslands have conservation potential they are generally over-utilized and the impact of communal land-use on biodiversity is poorly studied. At the same time there is pressure on protected areas to allow for the sustainable utilization of biodiversity. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of communal land-use on various components of biodiversity and to make recommendations regarding communal use of protected areas. A fence-line study was conducted to assess the impact of eight years of controlled communal land-use on biodiversity in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park. The communally used land (referred to as the lease land) which was used for controlled grazing as well as plant collection was compared with land under formal conservation. Vegetation was sampled using the importance score method and veld condition assessments. Selected invertebrate taxa were sampled using sweep netting, colour pan traps and transects and were identified to morphospecies level. Multivariate statistics revealed that sites generally grouped according to landscape position rather than land-use. No significant differences were found in diversity, evenness, richness or veld condition between the lease and conservation land. However, more than twenty-five percent of vegetation and invertebrate species were found exclusively in the lease or conservation land, suggesting that different suites of species were supported by the two landuses. Four alien plant species were found exclusively in the lease land, while one vulnerable and one rare plant species were found only in the conservation land. Further research is required to assess whether biodiversity was diminished by controlled communal. While the lease concept may offer potential as a low-use buffer zone, localised damage from cattle paths and weak enforcement of grazing agreements were areas of concern. Keywords: communal grass)ands, grassland flora, grassland invertebrates, transfrontier park. | Page 39 of component A - missing.

Keywords: Biodiversity conservation; Land use modeling; Metapopulations; Spatial economics;Spatialecology.In theNetherlandsas well as on a global scale, land use change is one of the major drivers of global biodiversity loss. In theNetherlands, urbanization and agricultural intensification have contributed to biodiversity loss as much habitat disappeared (habitat loss) and remaining habitat became more isolated (habitat fragmentation). Therefore, conservation policy should aim at restoring habitat area as well as habitat connectivity to be effective. Improving habitat connectivity, however, may be costly as the spatial configuration of land use, and hence also that of remaining habitat patches, is generally driven by economic factors. Therefore, tools are needed that can provide insight in the spatial economic and spatial ecological aspects of biodiversity conservation in agricultural areas. These tools could then be used to develop cost-effective spatial conservation strategies, to analyze the trade-off between biodiversity conservation and agriculture, and to assess the cost-effectiveness of existing habitat allocation procedures.This thesis aims to develop a spatially explicit, integrated modeling framework to analyze the trade-off between biodiversity conservation and agricultural land use and the cost-effectiveness of current spatial habitat allocation schemes. The research questions are addressed by gradually developing an integrated model of biodiversity conservation and agriculture in four different versions of increasing complexity. The models range from a non-spatial analytical model to a spatially explicit model that integrates an economic land use model and an applied metapopulation model.The results indicate that considerable gains in cost-effectiveness of biodiversity conservation can be achieved if the spatial economic and spatial ecological aspects, such as transport costs and habitat connectivity, are explicitly taken into consideration in conservation policy. Furthermore, these aspects should ideally be considered in an integrated interdisciplinary context.

Land quality in the man-modified agricultural landscapes of eastern Africa has been shown to degrade over time, resulting in higher demands for farm inputs in order to sustain productivity. Loss of biodiversity has also been observed in all these areas of land use change. It has therefore become important to know how land use change contributes to land degradation and how land use change leads to biodiversity loss. This paper from the collaborative LUCID project describes a framework for the analysis between land use change, biodiversity loss and land degradation for the first time. This framework is intended to be replicable and could help guide similar analysis in other areas.The paper introduces conceptual linkages between the three study disciplines, and then poses linkage questions that can guide in choosing the right methodologies in various approaches. Highlights of the framework include:the sampling of components of land use, biodiversity and land degradation indicators on spatial and temporal perspectivessampling across different agro-ecological zonesspace for time analysis, where the analysis of changes across a large spatial scale may allow the capture of diverse land cover types. This serves as a good substitute for lacking sequential historical information at local site leveltransect analysis for linking vegetation and soils across agro-ecological zones and sampling vegetation by quadratsidentification of the linkages: ways of measuring the three components and their relationships whilst minimising the effects of environmental conditions. Identification of the important functional relationships between crop type(s) and soil characteristicssampling of animal biodiversitysampling of soil characteristicsRecommendations from the authors for conducting agricultural linkages assessments are presented. These include selecting areas which represent a range of agro-ecological zones, the standardisation of assessment methods and approaches by researchers working at different sites, as well as the harmonisation of data analysis. This will help generate commonalities as well as variabilities on a regional basis. The document further provides a recommended chronology for carrying out field research.

This paper describes the contract mechanism developed for the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project (RISEMP). The project is testing the use of the payment-for-service mechanism to encourage the adoption of silvopastoral practices in three countries of central and south America, namely, Colombia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It has created a mechanism that pays land users for the global environmental services they are generating, so that the additional income stream makes the proposed practices privately profitable.The RISEMP project demonstrates that direct contracts for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes is not just a theoretical curiosity. Such contracts are possible, the author argues, if the link between land use and biodiversity is known.The paper highlights that it will be some time before the effectiveness of the mechanisms discussed in this paper can be determined. The intensive monitoring being undertaken will allow a detailed analysis of this effectiveness, including consideration of numerous exogenous factors that might affect it. This project will thus allow both an overall conclusion on the effectiveness of the approach and provide data for its refinement.The paper poses a number of key questions, some specific to the particular approach used in the RISEMP, and other that bear to the potential for replicating the approach on a wider scale, including:Will the desired land use changes be inducedWill changes in land use be sustainable?Will improvements in biodiversity conservation be significant?Will the poor benefit?How cost-effective is the PES approach in terms of biodiversity conservation?How can transaction costs be reduced?How can the approach be made sustainable?[adapted from author]

This paper is a regional synthesis highlighting the linkages between land usage, land degradation and biodiversity across East Africa identified from research done over a 30 year period. The effects of different land uses in East Africa on biodiversity and land degradation are compared by analysis of trends from sites representing the major ecological production units in the region.Principle findings include:farming, grazing and settlements have expanded at the expense of native vegetation over the last 20 years across East Africaindigenous plant and animal biodiversity and plant cover have been lostas plant biodiversity falls, soil erosion increaseswith farming and settlement expansion less water is available for people, livestock and wildlifeland is fragmented into small parcels in high lands while dry rangelands are just beginning to be fragmentedfarmers cope with land degradation by increasing crop diversitymoderate farming in less forested areas is found to increase tree cover thus increasing the diversity of bird speciesuse of livestock manures and crop vegetative residues by farmers maintains more fertile and more productive farmsland use change causes habitat fragmentation thereby reducing habitat for wildlifea remarkable decline in soil nutrients is observed monocultural cropping systems result in more loss on species numbers than mixed cropping systems

The sustainable management of biodiversity and productivity in forested lands requires an understanding of key interactions between socioeconomic and biophysical factors and their response to environmental change. Appropriate baseline data are rarely available. As part of a broader study on biodiversity and profitability, we examined the impact of different cropping methods on biodiversity (plant species richness) along a subjectively determined land-use intensity gradient in southern Sumatra, ranging from primary and secondary forest to coffee-farming systems (simple, complex, with and without shade crops) and smallholder coffee plantings, at increasing levels of intensity. We used 24 (40 x 5 m) plots to record site physical data, including soil nutrients and soil texture together with vegetation structure, all vascular plant species, and plant functional types (PFTs readily observable, adaptive, morphological features). Biodiversity was lowest under simple, intensive, non-shaded farming systems and increased progressively through shaded and more complex agroforests to late secondary and closed-canopy forests. The most efficient single indicators of biodiversity and soil nutrient status were PFT richness and a derived measure of plant functional complexity. Vegetation structure, tree dry weight, and duration of the land-use type, to a lesser degree, were also highly correlated with biodiversity. Together with a vegetation, or V index, the close correspondence between these variables and soil nutrients suggests they are potentially useful indicators of coffee production and profitability across different farming systems. These findings provide a unique quantitative basis for a subsequent study of the nexus between biodiversity and profitability.

The two most fundamental levels of biodiversity, species diversity and genetic diversity, are seldom studied simultaneously despite a strikingly similar set of processes that underlie patterns at the two levels. Agricultural land use drastically reduces populations of forest herbs in the north‐temperate zone, so that bottlenecks or founder events in forests on abandoned agricultural land (i.e., secondary forests) may have a long‐term impact on both species diversity and genetic diversity. Using forest‐herb community surveys and molecular‐genetic analysis of populations of Trillium grandiflorum, a representative species of forest herb, I investigated the influence of land‐use history, landscape context, and environmental conditions on diversity and divergence at the population and community levels. Secondary forests (70–100 years old) had reduced diversity of both genes and species relative to primary forests (i.e., stands never cleared for agriculture). The community in secondary forests had an overrepresentation of the most common species in the landscape, though divergence in species' relative abundances within stands suggested an influence of community drift via local bottlenecks. Secondary‐forest populations of T. grandiflorum were more genetically divergent than those in primary forests, again indicating drift in small populations. Land‐use history and the size of populations and communities drove correlations between species diversity and genetic diversity (and community divergence × genetic divergence), though the strength of correlations was relatively weak. These results extend the generality of positive species–genetic diversity correlations previously observed for islands, and they demonstrate a long‐term legacy of land‐use history at multiple levels of biodiversity.