Salvage logging following fires can minimize boreal caribou habitat loss while maintaining forest quotas: An example of compensatory cumulative effects

Insect-mediated apparent competition between mammals in a boreal food web

While the important role of animal-mediated interactions in the top-down restructuring of plant communities is well documented, less is known of their ensuing repercussions at higher trophic levels. We demonstrate how typically decoupled ecological interactions may become intertwined such that the impact of an insect pest on forest structure and composition alters predator-prey interactions among large mammals. Specifically, we show how irruptions in a common, cyclic insect pest of the boreal forest, the spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana), modulated an indirect trophic interaction by initiating a flush in deciduous vegetation that benefited moose (Alces alces), in turn strengthening apparent competition between moose and threatened boreal caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) via wolf (Canis lupus) predation. Critically, predation on caribou postoutbreak was exacerbated by human activity (salvage logging). We believe our observations of significant, large-scale reverberating consumer-producer-consumer interactions are likely to be common in nature.

GIS applied to location of fires detection towers in domain area of tropical forest

In most countries, the loss of biodiversity caused by the fires is worrying. In this sense, the fires detection towers are crucial for rapid identification of fire outbreaks and can also be used in environmental inspection, biodiversity monitoring, telecommunications mechanisms, telemetry and others. Currently the methodologies for allocating fire detection towers over large areas are numerous, complex and non-standardized by government supervisory agencies. Therefore, this study proposes and evaluates different methodologies to best location of points to install fire detection towers considering the topography, risk areas, conservation units and heat spots. Were used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques and unaligned stratified systematic sampling for implementing and evaluating 9 methods for allocating fire detection towers. Among the methods evaluated, the C3 method was chosen, represented by 140 fire detection towers, with coverage of: a) 67% of the study area, b) 73.97% of the areas with high risk, c) 70.41% of the areas with very high risk, d) 70.42% of the conservation units and e) 84.95% of the heat spots in 2014. The proposed methodology can be adapted to areas of other countries.