Munjughlu sanctuary zone with 5270 hectares in East Azarbaijan province is one of three sanctuary zones in the Marakan protected area.During 2008–2009, 236 taxa (23 subspecies, 22 varieties and one form) belonging to 166 genera and 38 families were collected and determined for this zone.Among them, 208 taxa are dicots and 28 are monocots. Family Compositae with 46 species and Cruciferae with 23...

The objective of this paper was to elaborate the application of Geo-informatics for trans-boundary biodiversity conservation across Thailand, Lao PDR, and Cambodia under the Pha Taem Protected Forests Complex (PPFC) Project Phase I (2001-2004). This involved monitoring land use/land cover change, mapping distributions of selected wildlife species, and defining management zones. The results pred...

Protected areas worldwide are facing increasing pressures to co-manage human development and biodiversity conservation. One strategy for managing multiple uses within and around protected areas is zoning, an approach in which spatial boundaries are drawn to distinguish areas with varying degrees of allowable human impacts. However, zoning designations are rarely evaluated for their efficacy usi...

We studied the arboreal composition of the tropical mountain rainforest's upper canopy in the San Martín Pajapán volcano, Tatahuicapan, Veracruz, México (18 degrees 26' N; 94 degrees 17' W). Two forest stands were studied, one in an exposed position and one protected. The Shannon index of diversity and the Jaccard index of affinity were calculated to calculate affinities between plots and betwe...

The concept of naturalness was developed to assess to what degree landscapes represent a natural state. Protected areas are often regarded as the remnants of untouched landscapes although many landscapes commonly perceived as pristine have a long history of human impact. Here, we introduced a historical perspective into the concept of naturalness and the analysis of the effectiveness of protect...

The Ruyang (Mesoproterozoic; Pt2) and Luoyu (Neoproterozoic; Pt3) groups in the southern North China Platform are dominated by peritidal siliciclastic rocks and contain abundant microbially induced sedimentary structures (MISS), including multidirected and mat-protected ripple marks, mat chips, mat-smoothed ripple marks, various sand cracks, and irregular growth ridges. These MISS can be groupe...

Protected areas (PAs) on tropical mountains undergo greater forest destruction in their lower altitudes. We compared the extent of forested, nonforested, and fragmented areas between lowland (o 1000 m asl) and montane zones of the Blue Mountains inside the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park established in Jamaica in 1993. We found that in 2008, inside the montane zone, only 4 percent of...

Boreal forests maintain regionally important biodiversity and globally important ecosystem services, such as carbon storage and freshwater resources. Many boreal systems have limited anthropogenic disturbances and are preserved, in effect, to date largely by their harsh climates and remoteness. As of 2011, almost 10% of Canada is subject to some manner of formal protection, with 4.5% of this pr...