Protected areas in mountains are regularly in the focus of international efforts to conserve the environment and enable sustainable development. The following article analyses the current extend of protection in mountainous versus non-mountainous areas, sheds light on the rationales behind the establishment of mountain protected areas, and proposes directions for future endeavours in protecting...

The recruitment of wood from the riparian zone to rivers and streams provides a complex habitat for aquatic organisms and can influence both aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem function. The Daly River in the wet-dry tropics of northern Australia is a highly seasonal, perennially-flowing sand-bed river where surveys of river wood aggregations at the reach scale (~2 km) in 2008 and 2009 recorded ...

The response of fish assemblages to changes in protection status is a major issue for both biodiversity conservation and fishery management. In New Caledonia, the Aboré reef marine reserve harbours more than 500 fish species, and has been subjected to changes in protection status since 1988. The present study investigates the impact of these changes on a wide subset of species (213), based on u...

Urbanization is one of the leading threats to freshwater biodiversity, and urban regions continue to expand globally. Here we examined the relationship between recent urbanization and shifts in stream fish communities. We sampled fishes at 32 sites in the Alameda Creek Watershed, near San Francisco, California, in 1993-1994 and again in 2009, and we quantified univariate and multivariate change...

Adaptations at the gamete level (a) evolve quickly, (b) appear sensitive to inbreeding and outbreeding and (c) have important influences on potential to reproduce. We apply this understanding to problems posed by escaped farm salmon and measure their potential to reproduce in the wild. Farm Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) are a threat to biodiversity, because they escape in large numbers and can ...