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After a long incubation period, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is now underway. Underpinning all its activities is the IPBES Conceptual Framework (CF), a simplified model of the interactions between nature and people. Drawing on the legacy of previous large-scale environmental assessments, the CF goes further in explicitly embracing different disciplines and knowledge systems (including indigenous and local knowledge) in the co-construction of assessments of the state of the world’s biodiversity and the benefits it provides to humans. The CF can be thought of as a kind of “Rosetta Stone” that highlights commonalities between diverse value sets and seeks to facilitate crossdisciplinary and crosscultural understanding. We argue that the CF will contribute to the increasing trend towards interdisciplinarity in understanding and managing the environment. Rather than displacing disciplinary science, however, we believe that the CF will provide new contexts of discovery and policy applications for it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The delivery of food security via continued crop yield improvement alone is not an effective food security strategy, and must be supported by pre- and post-border biosecurity policies to guard against perverse outcomes. In the wake of the green revolution, yield gains have been in steady decline, while post-harvest crop losses have increased as a result of insufficiently resourced and uncoordinated efforts to control spoilage throughout global transport and storage networks. This paper focuses on the role that biosecurity is set to play in future food security by preventing both pre- and post-harvest losses, thereby protecting crop yield. We model biosecurity as a food security technology that may complement conventional yield improvement policies if the gains in global farm profits are sufficient to offset the costs of implementation and maintenance. Using phytosanitary measures that slow global spread of the Ug99 strain of wheat stem rust as an example of pre-border biosecurity risk mitigation and combining it with post-border surveillance and invasive alien species control efforts, we estimate global farm profitability may be improved by over US$4.5 billion per annum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses institutional changes that may facilitate an adaptive approach to biosecurity risk management where governance is viewed as a multidisciplinary, interactive experiment acknowledging uncertainty. Using the principles of adaptive governance, evolved from institutional theory, we explore how the concepts of lateral information flows, incentive alignment, and policy experimentation might shape Australia's invasive species defense mechanisms. We suggest design principles for biosecurity policies emphasizing overlapping complementary response capabilities and the sharing of invasive species risks via a polycentric system of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. While there are numerous studies of impacts by individual invader species, there are few syntheses of invader impacts on plant community structure and composition. We sought to identify native plant functional groups (PFGs) which are under-represented in post-invaded compared with non-invaded environments to determine whether different invader morphologies consistently suppressed native species richness within particular PFGs. 2. We conducted a meta-analysis of 20 international studies to analyse the effects of graminoid (grass and grass-like species) and woody (shrub or tree species) invaders on species richness within growth form, longevity and seed mass native PFGs. 3. Graminoid and woody invaders could not be distinguished by their effects on native PFGs: in most cases, native PFGs were negatively affected by both graminoid and woody invaders. However, within the growth form classification, we found that negative invader effects were greater for native graminoid than tree species. Perennial rather than short-lived species appeared more affected by invasion (particularly graminoid invasion). Species with small seed masses appeared more negatively affected than those with large seed masses, particularly by graminoid invaders. 4. Synthesis and applications. Despite different morphologies of graminoid and woody invaders, they had similar negative effects on species richness within a range of native plant functional groups (PFGs). Further, the response of many PFGs to graminoid invaders in particular was highly variable. In consequence, managers cannot rely on invader morphology to distinguish impacts and prioritize control efforts. While graminoid and woody invaders had similar impacts, they had particularly adverse effects on small herbaceous (especially graminoid) and perennial species. Managers should focus monitoring activities on these potentially under-represented PFGs following control of both woody and graminoid invaders. Native species belonging to herbaceous and perennial PFGs may require focused reintroduction following control efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to improve environmental management in Australia is urgent because human health, well-being and social stability all depend ultimately on maintenance of life-supporting ecological processes. Ecological science can inform this effort, but when issues are socially and economically complex the inclination is to wait for science to provide answers before acting. Increasingly, managers and policy-makers will be called on to use the present state of scientific knowledge to supply reasonable inferences for action based on imperfect knowledge. Hence, one challenge is to use existing ecological knowledge more effectively; a second is to tackle the critical unanswered ecological questions. This paper identifies areas of environmental management that are profoundly hindered by an inability of science to answer basic questions, in contrast to those areas where knowledge is not the major barrier to policy development and management. Of the 22 big questions identified herein, more than half are directly related to climate change. Several of the questions concern our limited understanding of the dynamics of marine systems. There is enough information already available to develop effective policy and management to address several significant ecological issues. We urge ecologists to make better use of existing knowledge in dialogue with policy-makers and land managers. Because the challenges are enormous, ecologists will increasingly be engaging a wide range of other disciplines to help identify pathways towards a sustainable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HuwerRK, BrieseDT, DowlingPM, KempDR, LonsdaleWM, MichalkDL, NeaveMJ, SheppardAW&WoodburnTL (2005) Can an integrated management approach provide a basis for long-term prevention of weed dominance in Australian pasture systems?.Weed Research45, 175–192.Broad-leaved weeds in pasture, such asCarduus nutans,Onopordumspp. andEchium plantagineumare a major problem for graziers in southern Australia. Previous attempts to combat these weeds with a single technique have only resulted in short-term success. An approach to long-term control, combining biological control with different grazing and herbicide strategies, was evaluated in an integrated weed management (IWM) programme, in south-eastern Australia. This IWM study was one of the few that has focused on biological control agents. During the field trials, the impacts of grazing and herbicide treatments on the weed and biological control agents, as well as on pasture composition, were monitored. This paper concentrates on the part of the study that focuses on the role and importance of pasture composition as part of weed management. The main pasture components were monitored usingbotanal, a sampling technique for estimating species composition and pasture yield in the field. IWM is a long-term ecological approach and after 3 years, major trends were just becoming apparent. This study shows that pasture composition can be manipulated to increase productivity and sustainability. It demonstrates that broad-leaved weeds can be reduced when high level pasture background management and chemical control are combined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extension of transgene technology to pasture species presents new challenges for ecological risk assessment because, unlike most crops, pasture plants are well adapted for persistence in mixed plant communities and are an important source of invasive species worldwide. Despite this, the impact of transgenic pasture plants on native ecosystems remains relatively unstudied. Here we use a community gradient modelling approach to investigate the performance of subterranean clover containing a nutrition-enhancing transgene over a range of ecologically important grassland communities at a study site in south-eastern Australia. Our data, which were collected over a full annual growing season, show that the transgenic clover line has different seedling survival and seed dormancy breakdown rates than the commercial non-transgenic line, which suggests that transgenic populations will decline faster than non-transgenic ones in perennial native grassland communities but could, under optimal climatic conditions, have potentially higher growth rates in grazed annual grasslands. These results demonstrate that changes to ecologically important demographic parameters can occur in plants containing transgenes that are not typically considered fitness enhancing, and that genotype by environment interactions and management regimes that impact on these parameters may influence the invasiveness of transgenic plants. Our study also demonstrates the utility of incorporating plant community gradient modelling into ecological risk assessment protocols designed for transgenic pasture plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AimTo attack a widespread myth. LocationWorld-wide. MethodsSimple mathematical logical and empirical examples. ResultsAs both species and area are finite and non-negative, the species–area relationship is limited at both ends. The log species–log area relationship is normally effectively linear on scales from about 1 ha to 107 km2. There are no asymptotes. At the intercontinental scale it may get steeper; at small scales it may in different cases get steeper or shallower or maintain its slope. Main conclusionThe species–area relationship does not have an asymptote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The native annual Sorghum populations of the Australian wet-dry tropics are highly resilient to dry season fires. During the early wet season, however, fires that occur after the new grass population has emerged can cause catastrophic population crashes. We examined savanna plots that had been burnt in this way, and compared them with adjacent unburnt plots. We found that Sorghum densities in the burnt plots were lower on average by a factor of 10, but that some fires had reduced the density only to one-third of the unburnt plots. It is not clear whether these differences relate directly to site or seasonal factors, or to differences in the way the burning was carried out. Other vegetation components responded to the fires differently: forbs (dicotyledonous herbs) increased in cover, while perennial grasses, woody plants, and overall species richness, were not significantly affected.The amount of leaf litter declined. A population model for Sorghum based on the demography of unburnt populations predicted that they should recover from a wet season burn, taking 7-16 years to return to normal densities. However, the actual field populations did not seem tobe recovering, suggesting that wet season fires not only lower densities, but may also fundamentally change population processes in theseannual grasses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]