Tropical forests are incredibly biodiverse; they support at least two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity (1) despite covering less than 10% of Earth’s land surface (2). Unfortunately, prospects for tropical forests and the biodiversity therein are becoming increasingly bleak owing to unabated deforestation and forest alteration (3) that stem from human activities such as logging, hunting, agric...

Agricultural expansion is a major driver for loss of biodiversity; changes in land use or intensity associated with trade liberalisation can therefore have major consequences. Assessments of the impacts of agricultural trade have tended to neglect biodiversity, despite its crucial role in maintaining productive agro-ecosystems. Advice on assessment of biodiversity impacts is required to support...

We study the management of a natural resource that supports ecosystems as well as human needs. The reduction in the resource base introduces a threat of occurrence of catastrophic ecological events, such as the sudden collapse of the natural habitat, that lead to severe loss of biodiversity. The event occurrence conditions involve uncertainty of various types, and the distinction among these ty...

The world is currently experiencing exceptionally high rates of species extinctions, largely as as result of human activity (Lawton and May 1996). Currently, most conservation research on habitat destruction focuses on the species as the unit of study, looking at either the impact of habitat destruction on individual species, or collections of species from particular habitats. There is, however...

T he diversity of life on Earth is dramatically affected by human alterations of ecosystems [1]. Compelling evidence now shows that the reverse is also true: biodiversity in the broad sense affects the properties of ecosystems and, therefore, the benefi ts that humans obtain from them. In this article, we provide a synthesis of the most crucial messages emerging from the latest scientifi c lite...

The magnitude of the impacts of human activities on global biodiversity has been documented at several organizational levels. However, although there have been numerous studies of the effects of local-scale changes in land use (e.g. logging) on the abundance of groups of organisms, broader continental or global-scale analyses addressing the same basic issues remain largely wanting. None the les...

International pressure to ban trophy hunting is increasing. However, we argue that trophy hunting can be an important conservation tool, provided it can be done in a controlled manner to benefit biodiversity conservation and local people. Where political and governance structures are adequate, trophy hunting can help address the ongoing loss of species.

Invasive species threaten biodiversity globally, and invasive mammalian predators are particularly damaging, having contributed to considerable species decline and extinction. We provide a global metaanalysis of these impacts and reveal their full extent. Invasive predators are implicated in 87 bird, 45 mammal, and 10 reptile species extinctions-58% of these groups' contemporary extinctions wor...

Earthquakes are among the most destructive natural events. The 6 April 2009, 6.3-Mw earthquake in L'Aquila (Italy) markedly altered the karstic Gran Sasso Aquifer (GSA) hydrogeology and geochemistry. The GSA groundwater invertebrate community is mainly comprised of small-bodied, colourless, blind microcrustaceans. We compared abiotic and biotic data from two pre-earthquake and one post-earthqua...

Preface This report was originally prepared as a part of the compulsory organised training programme in my doctoral studies in environmental management. The report was the outcome of a subject called 'Biodiversity indicators and environmental performance evaluations' which was organised as an individually adapted list of set literature (DI-LSF01). After the evaluation and due to fruitful discus...