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In recent years, the production of pellets derived from forestry biomass to replace coal for electricity generation has been increasing, with over 10 million tonnes traded internationally—primarily between United States and Europe but with an increasing trend to Asia. Critical to this trade is the classification of woody biomass as 'renewable energy' and thus eligible for public subsidies. However, much scientific study on the net effect of this trend suggests that it is having the opposite effect to that expected of renewable energy, by increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide for substantial periods of time. This review, based on recent work by Europe's Academies of Science, finds that current policies are failing to recognize that removing forest carbon stocks for bioenergy leads to an initial increase in emissions. Moreover, the periods during which atmospheric CO2 levels are raised before forest regrowth can reabsorb the excess emissions are incompatible with the urgency of reducing emissions to comply with the objectives enshrined in the Paris Agreement. We consider how current policy might be reformed to reduce negative impacts on climate and argue for a more realistic science‐based assessment of the potential of forest bioenergy in substituting for fossil fuels. The length of time atmospheric concentrations of CO2 increase is highly dependent on the feedstocks and we argue for regulations to explicitly require these to be sources with short payback periods. Furthermore, we describe the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change accounting rules which allow imported biomass to be treated as zero emissions at the point of combustion and urge their revision to remove the risk of these providing incentives to import biomass with negative climate impacts. Reforms such as these would allow the industry to evolve to methods and scales which are more compatible with the basic purpose for which it was designed. Trade in wood pellets from forestry biomass to replace coal for electricity generation is increasing dramatically. Critical to this trade is the classification of woody biomass as 'renewable energy' and thus eligible for public subsidies. However, scientific studies show that it is having the opposite effect and is increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide for substantial periods of time. We argue that EU regulations and the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change accounting, which both allow imported biomass to be treated as zero emissions at the point of combustion, should be revised to remove incentives to import biomass with negative climate impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1 Bird species numbers were studied on 109 reed islands at Lake Velence, Hungary, in the 1993 and 1994 breeding seasons. The aim was to describe and account for the abundance and distribution patterns of the bird species. 2 It was expected that an exponential model would fit the calculated species-area curves. However, for the 1993 data, both the power function (LogS∼LogArea) and the exponential (S∼LogArea) models did so, while the power function, exponential and linear (S∼A) models fitted the curves for the 1994 data. 3 The results showed that the pattern was not random: a collection of small islands held more species than a few large islands with the same total area. 4 The relative species richness of small islands is a result of the preference of most common passerine bird species for the edges of reed islands. Most individuals were found in the first 5 m of the reedbed, and no edge avoidance was detected on a local spatial scale. Large, rarer species (e.g. Great White Egret), however, were found to be dependent on large reed islands. 5 Comparison of results with two other studies on bird communities of reed islands revealed that the type of landscape matrix (e.g. deep water, shallow water or agricultural lands) among reed patches significantly influences bird communities. Deep water was dominated by grebes and coot, shallow water by reed-nesting passerines, and farmed areas by reed- and bush-nesting passerines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scale, the scale dependency of patterns and processes, and the ways that organisms scale their responses to these patterns and processes are central to island and landscape ecology. Here, we take a database of studies in island ecology and investigate how studies have changed over a 40-year period with respect to spatial scale and organisms studied. We demonstrate that there have been changes in the spatial scale of islands studied and that there is taxonomic bias in favour of vertebrates in island ecological studies when compared to scientific publications as a whole. We discuss how such taxonomic bias may have arisen and discuss the implications for ecology and biogeography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]