Woodlands and savannahs provide essential ecosystem functions and services to communities. On the African continent, they are widely utilized and converted to subsistence and intensive agriculture or urbanized. This study investigates changes in land cover over four administrative regions of North Eastern Namibia within the Kalahari woodland savannah biome, covering a total of 107,994 km2. Land...

This study was carried out in Paraopeba National Reserve. It aims to classify and evaluate the soil of the studied area and to verify the influence of soil attributes on vegetation by testing the following hypotheses: 1) under woodland physiognomies (Cerradão) the soil fertility is higher and the Al content lower; 2) open savanna occurs only in areas with high Al contents. For this purpose, rep...

Although the boreal region is warming twice as fast as the global average, the way in which the vast boreal forests and tundras may respond is poorly understood. Using satellite data, we reveal marked alternative modes in the frequency distributions of boreal tree cover. At the northern end and at the dry continental southern extremes, treeless tundra and steppe, respectively, are the only poss...

The study of paleosols can be a vital tool in the paleoenvironmental interpretation of continental deposits because their physical and chemical characteristics are a reflection of variations in aspects of soil formation. Changes in paleosol characteristics can be used to determine the architecture and nature of parent material, paleosol maturity, topography, climate and soil-forming organisms (...

National Forests and Water Guidelines require the establishment of riparian buffers to help protect the freshwater environment from disturbance by silvicultural operations on the adjacent land. The main functions of the riparian buffer are considered to be sediment removal and erosion control, protection of water quality, moderation of shade and water temperature, maintenance of habitat structu...

Mountains are well-suited systems to disentangle the factors driving distribution of parasites due to their heterogeneity of climatic and habitat conditions. However, the information about the relative importance of environmental factors governing the distribution of avian haemosporidians on temperate mountains is very limited. The main goal of the present study is to identify the factors deter...

Global change during the late Pliocene was manifested in declining temperatures, increased amplitude of climate cycles, and shifts in the periodicity of orbital climate forcing. Linking these changes to the evolution of African continental faunas and to hominin evolution requires well-documented fossil evidence that can be examined through substantial periods of time. The Omo sequence of southe...

Traditional woodland management created a mosaic of differently aged patches providing favorable conditions for a variety of arthropods. After abandonment of historical ownership patterns and traditional management and the deliberate transformation to high forest after World War II, large forest areas became darker and more homogeneous. This had significant negative consequences for biodiversit...

The Woodland Brown butterfly Lopinga achine (Scopoli, 1763) was found during several fieldtrips in summer 2000 and 2001 in continental Croatia and discovered for the first time in Istria. The discovery in Istria represents the western limit of the distribution range in Croatia. The Woodland Brown is considered rare in Croatia, according to previous findings. In this paper we discuss the distrib...

The ecology of woodland herbaceous species is reviewed. Many factors affect woodland herbs but there have been few studies of their impacts on long-term patterns. Results from a 10-year study of two species in a deciduous forest in Maryland are presented. Populations of Cynoglossum virginianum were influenced by their proximity to tree gap disturbances. Populations of Tipularia discolor were pr...