Purpose of review: We use the ‘seascape’ concept to explore how interactions between mangrove forests, tidal marshes and seagrass influences the storage of carbon in these eco...

Recent research on participatory forest management (PFM) in the global south has highlighted the existence of a widespread “implementation gap” between the ambitious intent en...

Six-wide ranging mangrove species, Rhizophora apiculata, R. mucronata, Avicennia marina, A. officinalis, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, and B. sexangula, were selected to study the gr...

Seagrass meadows provide numerous ecosystem services and their rapid global loss may reduce human welfare as well as ecological integrity. In common with the other ‘blue carbo...

Vegetated marine habitats are globally important carbon sinks, making a significant contribution towards mitigating climate change, and they provide a wide range of other ecos...

The biodiversity sourcebook is accessible in pdf format for free from: •GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Office website: http://www.gofcgold.wur.nl/sites/gofcgold-geobon_biodiversitysourc...

Understanding the effects of seedling density on sediment accretion, biogeochemistry and 3 belowground biomass in mangrove systems can help explain ecological functioning and ...

Mangrove forests provide many services, some of which are used mostly or exclusively by local people, often the relatively poor and marginalised. Here, such ‘local ecosystem s...

Introduction - Earth Observation (EO) refers to the direct and indirect measurement of the Earth’s surface that can be undertaken using satellites, aircraft, on the ground and...

Even though ‘green’ options for addressing the impacts of climate change have gained in currency over recent years, they are yet to be fully mainstreamed into development poli...

Despite covering only approximately 138,000 km2, mangroves are globally important carbon sinks with carbon density values 3 to 4 times that of terrestrial forests. A key chall...

Peer review is a powerful method to enhance teaching in higher education. Peers, however, may not be the most relevant people in evaluating teaching success; as the most impor...

There is growing interest in carbon stocks and flows in seagrass ecosystems, but recent global reviews suggest a paucity of studies from Africa. This paper reviews work on sea...

At present, aquaculture of black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) in the Puttalam district of Sri Lanka is unsustainable with more than 90% of the former shrimp ponds laying aba...

Seagrass ecosystems provide numerous ecosystem services that support coastal communities around the world. They sustain abundant marine life as well as commercial and artisana...

The expansion of shrimp aquaculture in Sri Lanka over the past three decades has dramatically changed the coastal landscape, in particular by converting mangrove forests. The ...

Mangrove forests are under global pressure. Habitat destruction and degradation persist despite longstanding recognition of the important ecological functions of mangroves. He...

Using the mountaineering metaphor of ‘natural lines’ this article describes the co-navigation of an honours course by students and teachers. It suggests the benefits and possi...

In this review paper, we aim to describe the potential for, and the key challenges to, applying PES projects to mangroves. By adopting a “carbocentric approach,” we show that ...

Researchers who are interested in asking a number of questions about a particular phenomenon are increasingly looking to mixed methods as a useful research approach. In this c...

Discussion Conclusions Materials and Methods Acknowledgments Author Contributions References Reader Comments (0) Figures Abstract The importance of mangrove forests in car...

Although the terms ‘health’ and ‘healthy’ are often applied to marine ecosystems and communicate information about holistic condition (e.g. as required by the Ecosystem Approa...

Deforestation of mangroves is of global concern given their importance for carbon storage, biogeochemical cycling and the provision of other ecosystem services, but the links ...

Enhanced species richness can stimulate the productivity of plant communities; however, its effect on the belowground production of forests has scarcely been tested, despite t...

A major theme of this book is that feedback should encourage dialogue; between students and lecturers, amongst peers and individually, as a form of self-critique and reflectio...

Mangroves in Kenya provide a wide range of valuable services to coastal communities despite their relatively small total area. Studies at single sites show reductions in exten...

In this paper, we discuss the anomaly between the increasing interest in feedback in current education research, the continued role of time-limited, unseen examinations as a f...

Anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity across a wide range of ecosystems are well documented; however the responses of ecosystems to reduced diversity are still poorly understo...

Student performance in and attitudes towards oral and written assessments were compared using quantitative and qualitative methods. Two separate cohorts of students were exami...

Previous work has shown that students’ notes often fail to record key facts and concepts. The relatively recent widespread adoption of PowerPoint slides and handouts might now...

Mangrove trees may allocate >50% of their biomass to roots. Dead roots often form peat, which can make mangroves significant carbon sinks and allow them to raise the soil surf...

Mangroves are intertidal ecosystems that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. At the low tidal limits of their range, they face swamping by rising sea levels; at the...

Survival, growth, aboveground biomass accumulation, sediment surface elevation dynamics and nitrogen accumulation in sediments were studied in experimental treatments planted ...

Two of the best-supported theories which describe the effects of disturbance within marine benthic habitats are the organic enrichment ‘Successional Model’ and the ‘Intermedia...

The study is part of a five-year project “Mangrove forests potential carbon sinks for mitigating climate change”, being implemented at Gazi bay, Kenya, by Earthwatch Institute...

Benthic nematode and macrofaunal communities are regularly utilized in impact studies. However, very few studies are carried out utilizing both communities. A literature searc...

Soil carbon dioxide (CO2) flux or soil respiration includes respiration from roots (autotrophic respiration) and soil micro-organisms (heterotrophic respiration) and is a majo...

Global mangrove coverage is estimated to be 0.4% of the forested areas globally (Spalding et al. 1997). Despite this small areal coverage, mangroves are important because of t...

Boundary layers and comfort blankets.

The growth performance of seedlings of seven species of true mangroves (Avicennia marina, A. officinalis, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, B. sexangula, Rhizophora apiculata, R. mucrona...

A study was conducted comparing the feedback received from students about teaching obtained using different instruments. Twelve first- and second-year undergraduate modules we...

Estimation of total biomass in woody ecosystems is important because of its relevance to nutrient turnover and the potential to store carbon. Most work on mangrove biomass, pa...

The development of reliable indicators of disturbance in the marine environment is essential because of increasing anthropogenic pressures and the need for more effective regu...

Previous population estimates of the 0+ plaice (Pleuronectes platessa L.) in the Firth of Forth, east central Scotland, did not take account of the Forth estuary west of the F...

Mangrove reforestation projects often suffer from low sapling survival, especially after transplanting saplings from nurseries to reforestation areas. This may be due to the s...

Mangroves are often reported as nursery grounds for fish. Fish may enter mangroves in order to avoid predators, but may not need to do so if turbidity provides a sufficient pr...

Research for real - an intensive honours research project.

Feedback to students is essential for effective learning, but there is little empirical information on what kind of feedback is best. This study compares student responses and...

The ratios of stable isotopes 18O:16O and 13C:12C were measured in otolith carbon taken from nine species of fishes caught within mangroves and on the reef at Gazi Bay, Kenya....

The stable carbon isotope ratios (δ13C) of the organic fraction of intertidal sediments in the Forth Estuary and the Firth of Forth, Scotland, were measured to determine if te...

An understanding of undesirable disturbance to the balance of organisms is needed to diagnose marine eutrophication as defined by EU Directives and OSPAR. This review summariz...

Sewage sludge was disposed of in Liverpool Bay for over 100 years. Annual amounts increased from 0.5 million tonnes per annum in 1900 to approximately 2 million tonnes per ann...

We examined the wildlife knowledge of primary (aged 4-12) schoolchildren. In particular, we examined the effects of children’s age and gender, and the taxonomy and origin (ind...

A manipulative field experiment was conducted at Blackness in the Firth of Forth, Scotland, to study the effects of differences in microphytobenthos abundance on sediment stab...

A key prediction to emerge from community assembly models is that resistance to invasion increases as the community matures. Three epifaunal communities of differing age were ...

Many educational development resources recommend making conventional lectures more interactive. However, there is little firm evidence supporting either the acceptability (to ...

The fish communities of mangrove and cleared sites were investigated in Gazi Bay, Kenya. Five forested sites were compared with paired sites that had been cleared of mangroves...

Many soft-bottom benthic invertebrates display sediment-associated patterns of dispersion. Habitat selection experiments have shown that the larvae of some species can choose ...

In the absence of well-resolved food webs that include both information on predators and parasites, body-size has been proposed as the biological mechanism underlying the assu...

Recent studies in terrestrial, plant-dominated systems have shown that reductions in diversity can affect essential ecosystem processes, especially productivity. However, the ...

Populations of intertidal bivalves are patchily distributed at a variety of scales, and the distributions of adults and juveniles are often different. Adult-juvenile interacti...

The gastropod Littorina littorea shows increased mortality in the summer months when infected with digenean parasites. One possible cause of this mortality is impaired respira...

The intermediate disturbance hypothesis has had success in explaining changes in local diversity in many habitats. Recent laboratory work has shown that disturbance may act to...

Science is vital in informing the increasingly urgent and complex environmental decisions that affect all our lives, from international agreements on action to limit climate c...

Group work projects are increasingly used in higher education, but there is little guidance on how best to allocate students to groups. If groups can be engineered to contain ...

Two caging experiments were conducted on an intertidal mudflat to assess the impact of predation on two species of bivalves; Macoma balthica and Cerastoderma edule. The first ...

The impact of predators is often relative to the spatial scale at which the study is conducted. In this paper we investigated how spatial scale might influence the importance ...

In June 1995, a campaign by Greenpeace forced the multinational oil company Shell to cancel its planned disposal of a redundant oil installation in the Atlantic. The Brent Spa...

1. The forthcoming European Commission Water Framework Directive will introduce catchment management throughout Europe, and could have major impacts on the conservation and re...

At least ten different static patterns have been suggested by the analysis of food webs. However, the existence of many of these patterns has been questioned in recent years. ...

1. We expanded two previously studied food webs, those of the Ythan estuary and Loch Leven, by the documentation of metazoan endoparasites present in each system. The resultin...

Hydrobia ulvae were collected from five areas on the Ythan estuary, and the prevalences of digenean parasites in the samples compared. Differences in mean shell height were be...

This study considers the impact of digenean parasites, especially Cryptocotyle lingua (Creplin) on the survival, reproduction, growth rate and foot colour of Littorina littore...

The avifauna of Kazimzumbwe Forest Reserve, Tanzania: initial findings

New records of the Sokoke pipit Anthus sokokensis from Kiono Forest Reserve, Bagamoyo District, northeastern Tanzania

The Rondo Forest Reserve is a semi-deciduous coastal forest situated at 10°10S, 39°15E in southern Tanzania, 77 km by road from the coastal town of Lindi. The forest isheterog...

A preliminary assessment of the forest birds in four Tanzanian coastal forests (Kiono, Pande, Kisiju and Kiwengoma) is presented. Up to 51 species of forest bird were recorded...