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Nature and Landscape

Nature and Landscape

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  • Forestry, Nature and Wildlife management Forestry, Nature and Wildlife management Forestry, Nature and Wildlife management
  • Nature policy Nature policy Nature policy
  • Genetic biodiversity Genetic biodiversity Genetic biodiversity
  • Ecosystem services Ecosystem services Ecosystem services
  • Nature and agriculture Nature and agriculture Nature and agriculture
  • Nature and humans Nature and humans Nature and humans
  • Soil and water management Soil and water management Soil and water management
  • Pollution Pollution Pollution
  • Nature and landscape development Nature and landscape development Nature and landscape development
  • Configuration of the urban environment Configuration of the urban environment Configuration of the urban environment

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more One of the ways in which the government stimulates private individuals, farmers, and organisations

to practice sustainable forestry and nature management is by offering subsidies. The same is true for wildlife management and the management of the Wadden Sea. But what is sustainable management? Wageningen UR is conducting ecological research into sustainable nature management strategies, is developing knowledge for careful and systematic wildlife management, and is working with international partners on fundamental and applied ecological research into forests and forestry systems and their function within the environment. Wageningen UR IMARES is also participating in the programme Naar een rijke Waddenzee (‘Towards a rich Wadden Sea’), the goal of which is to make the Wadden area a vital and socially-economically healthy area for living, working, and spending free time.

Projects

Elephants seek food first, then water

Elephants choose to live in areas with sufficient food. Within these areas, they select a habitat close to surface water. This is one of the findings resulting from research carried out by Wageningen University (part of Wageningen UR, the Netherlands) in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
The findings confirm the importance of food and water on the spatial distribution of elephants and show for the first time how habitat selection is influenced by spatial scales. On a coarse scale food is the decisive factor, while on a finer scale, water becomes the top priority.
This scale-dependent selection mechanism can help explain why elephant herds live in certain areas. The findings have also proven to apply to other animal species.

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Seedlings in humid savannas have larger root systems

Seedlings in humid savannas have a larger root system than those in semi-arid savannas. This recent discovery comes as a surprise to plant biologists, who until now had presumed that trees in a semi-arid environment grew more extensive root systems in order to access water. Research now shows the opposite to be true.

The explanation for this is the greater number of fires in more humid savannas, caused by frequent lightning and the common practice of local inhabitants to burn sections of land in order to control sapling growth. Seedlings with a well-developed root system are more likely to grow back in the aftermath of a fire. Thanks to natural selection, the seedlings of tree species that thrive in humid savannas tend to have well-developed root systems.

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Climate change makes butterflies more frequent flyers

Thanks to climate change, butterflies are flying more frequently, further and longer. This makes it easier for them to cope with a fragmented landscape, says Wageningen University doctoral researcher Anouk Cormont in an article in Biodiversity and Conservation.

Over the course of a couple of summers, Cormont tracked butterflies in De Hoge Veluwe national park near Deelen airfield. She studied the small heath butterfly, the meadow brown, the heath fritillary and the silver-studded blue. She followed several hundred butterflies for half an hour each, recording their flight paths with a GPS. Correlating these data with weather conditions produced interesting insights into the possible effects of climate change.

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Contact

Bert Jansen (Forestry, Nature and Wildlife Management, Nature Policy, Nature and Agriculture, Nature and Humans, Soil and Water Management, Pollution, Nature and Landscape Development, Configuration of the Urban Environment, Genetic Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services)

Erik Toussaint (Genetic Diversity Agriculture, Ecosystem Services)

Helene Stafleu (Nature Policy, Nature and Agriculture, Soil and Water Management)

Tough leaves live longer

Toughness is the most essential mechanical trait for a leaf. This conclusion is reached by Wageninger Lourens Poorter and a group of international scientists in an article to be published next month in Ecology Letters.

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Comments from Wageningen: Cows improve the look of the landscape

The dairy company Friesland Campina recently decided that all dairy farmers supplying milk to them would have to keep their cows in the field. A good plan? Paul Galama of Wageningen UR Livestock Research: 'Friesland Campina is responding to signs that society wants to see cows in the field in the summer rather than in barns. Cows in the field improve the look of the landscape and give dairy farming a better image.

Increasing numbers of dairy farmers - now up to twenty percent - are keeping their cows indoors all year round. There are a number of reasons for this. These days, more farmers have two hundred cows or a milking robot or a lot of land at some distance from the farm. Putting cows out to graze under such circumstances is difficult, but not impossible.

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Nature has little effect on ADHD children

Children with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can cope with complex tasks better in the open air, Wageningen research has shown. A natural environment made no difference to simple cognitive tasks, however.

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