Point and nonpoint sources of nutrients, sediments, metals, and organic compounds from industrial, agricultural, and urban land uses are important water-quality issues in the Study Unit. Degradation of streams, including the loss of riparian habitat, reduction in fish populations, loss of habitat for bottom-dwelling organisms, eutrophication, and deterioration of the sanitary quality of streams...

1. Agriculture now constitutes 40–50% of terrestrial land use globally. By enhancing habitat suitability and connectivity, restoration within agricultural landscapes could have a major influence on biodiversity conservation. However, habitat management within intensive agricultural landscapes may primarily boost abundances of common, highly mobile generalists, rather than vulnerable or endanger...

Evaluating bird population trends requires baseline data. In North America the earliest population data available are those from the late 1960s. Forest conditions in the northern Great Lake states (U.S.A.), however, have undergone succession since the region was originally cut over around the turn of the twentieth century, and it is expected that bird populations have undergone concomitant chan...

Reduced streamflow via flow diversion has the potential to limit the sediment-transport capacity of downstream channels and lead to accumulation of fine sediments and habitat degradation. To investigate, we examined the effects of variable levels of flow diversion on fine-sediment deposition, hydraulic conditions and geomorphic alteration. Our study consisted of a detailed field analysis pairin...

One of the major threats facing protected areas (PAs) is land-use change and habitat loss. We assessed the impact of land-use change on PAs. The majority of parks have been effective at protecting the ecosystems within their borders, even in areas with significant land-use pressures. More in particular, the capacity of PAs to slow down habitat degradation and to favour habitat restoration is cl...

may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. 1 INTRODUCTION Development in rural-urban fringe communities is increasing with the potential to damage healthy ecosystems and endanger the long-term persistence of resident flora and fauna Environmental impacts of development include loss, degradat...

While it is generally assumed that specialist species are more vulnerable to disturbance compared with generalist counterparts, this has rarely been tested in coastal marine ecosystems, which are increasingly subject to a wide range of natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Habitat specialists are expected to be more vulnerable to habitat loss because habitat availability exerts a greater limi...

Coastal development has severely affected habitats and biodiversity during the last century, but quantitative estimates of the impacts are usually lacking. We utilize predictive habitat modeling and mapping of human pressures to estimate the cumulative long-term effects of coastal development in relation to fish habitats. Based on aerial photographs since the 1960s, shoreline development rates ...

Social information is used widely in breeding habitat selection and provides an efficient means for individuals to select habitat, but the population-level consequences of this process are not well explored. At low population densities, efficiencies may be reduced because there are insufficient information providers to cue high-quality habitat. This constitutes what we call an information-media...

Riparian forests are sensitive habitats with a rich biodiversity and an important function as corridors for movement of wildlife. In Europe, many of these precious habitats are protected sites within the Natura 2000 network, where monitoring results have to be reported every six years. Satellite imagery provides key benefits for monitoring nature protection areas where political borders, rough ...