Category: CSR/ECO/ESG

Darvill et al. share their experience investigating soil organic carbon stocks in a new native woodland in the Yorkshire Dales, UK, highlighting the importance of careful woodland design. Targeting the Right Soils: How Woodland Design Shapes Soil Carbon Outcomes Tree planting is widely promoted as a nature-based response to climate change. New woodlands can reduce […]

Gang Yang and Zuzana Münzbergová, Charles University in Prague, discuss their article: Contrasting drought responses in two grassland plant-microbe systems under climate change Drought is becoming more frequent and intense under global change, but plant responses vary widely. Some species are adapted to tolerate stress, while others perform well only when resources are abundant. Because […]

Ceresa et al. share their experience investigating the conservation of peripheral populations, focusing on the critically endangered barred warbler Curruca nisoria in the Italian Alps. Peripheral populations — those living at the edges of a species’ distribution — are often small and isolated. Yet they can be disproportionately important for conservation, harbouring unique genetic diversity and […]

We conducted a global synthesis using paired observations of plant mixtures and corresponding monocultures to determine the long-term effects of plant diversity on soil N pools and N transformations. Our findings demonstrate that plant mixtures improve the sustainability of nitrogen cycling and reduce N2O emissions in the long term. Summary of the study © Cai […]

Insect farming is often promoted as a sustainable alternative to conventional livestock, with the potential to reduce land use, emissions, and pressure on natural resources. However, scaling up any food production system also carries environmental risks. In this study, we show that one important risk – biological invasions caused by escaped farmed species – has […]

Coastal wetlands such as saltmarshes and mangrove forests provide benefits including storm protection and fisheries support to millions of people around the world. Yet, these habitats are changing rapidly as sea levels rise and temperatures warm, especially in areas affected by both of these stressors at the same time. In the subtropics, for example, saltmarshes […]

Written by Rylee McMillan and Adrienne Keller At The Nature Conservancy’s Newell and Ann Meyer Preserve in Wisconsin, USA, managers face an increasingly difficult challenge: understanding the trade-offs and benefits of managing for carbon outcomes among other management objectives.  This challenge is not unique. Ecosystems globally are witnessing clear and intensifying effects of climate change, […]

Donghao Wu, from the Zhejiang University in China, discusses their article: The intrinsic coordination of tree growth strategy and wood decomposability What happens after a tree dies? As plant ecologists, we often focus on how trees grow: how fast they capture carbon, how tall they become, and how long they live. But forests are not […]