Biodiversité

Les zones humides sahéliennes sont le siège d’importantes activités économiques, agricoles et pastorales. Elles abritent une riche biodiversité, en particulier des millions d’oiseaux d’eau – migrateurs et résidents – dont une partie contribue à l’alimentation et au revenu de certaines communautés de la région. Le changement climatique, les projets d’aménagement en eau et l’exploitation intensive des ressources naturelles mettent en péril ces zones humides. Les changements radicaux d’habitats qui en découlent ont un impact majeur sur les populations d’oiseaux d’eau du Sahel, tandis que les impacts de la chasse restent à évaluer. Ces populations y auraient déjà chuté de 40 pour cent entre 1960 et 2000.

As both a flagship and umbrella species, the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is one of the most heavily invested species in conservation. Here, we report the wide distribution range retreat of the leopard (Panthera pardus, 81% loss), snow leopard (P. uncia, 38%), wolf (Canis lupus, 77%) and dhole (Cuon alpinus, 95%) from protected areas in the giant panda distribution range since the 1960s. The present findings indicate the insufficiency of giant panda conservation for protecting these large carnivore species and suggest that future conservation efforts should target restoring ecosystems with high trophic complexity to facilitate the recovery of large carnivore populations. Comparing historical records with contemporary camera trap surveys, the authors report widespread declines in the occurrence of four large carnivore species from protected areas within the distributional range of the giant panda.

Growing evidence suggests that forest management practices are threatening the long-term conservation of a number of animal, fungi, and plant species worldwide. Although unmanaged forests are considered important for biodiversity, forest management continues to affect these vital habitats. We systematically reviewed the scientific literature to gain insight into the effects of forest management abandonment on biodiversity. We calculated log response ratio effect sizes to perform a meta-analysis on species richness between still managed (MAN) and no longer managed (NLM) forests, throughout the world's boreal and temperate forest ecosystems.

Après des siècles d’introduction volontaire, ou involontaire, de mammifères et de plantes exotiques par les humains dans les Terres australes, la réserve naturelle doit réinstaller un équilibre sur ces îles subantarctiques.

The establishment of multiple zones offering different protection levels within a Marine Protected Area (MPA) can minimize social conflicts while maintaining associated biodiversity benefits such as fish population replenishment. Parrotfishes are among one of the most ecologically important reef fishes; yet extremely overexploited worldwide. In this context, well-designed priority management areas allowing no fishing activity (no-take zones) could help recover fish species, such as parrotfishes, through a MPA zoning process.