Oilseed rape () as a resource for farmland insect pollinators: quantifying floral traits in conventional varieties and breeding systems.

Oilseed rape (OSR; L.) is a major crop in temperate regions and provides an important source of nutrition to many of the yield-enhancing insect flower visitors that consume floral nectar. The manipulation of mechanisms that control various crop plant traits for the benefit of pollinators has been suggested in the bid to increase food security, but little is known about inherent floral trait expression in contemporary OSR varieties or the breeding systems used in OSR breeding programmes.

Re-evaluating strategies for pollinator-dependent crops: How useful is parthenocarpy?

Whilst most studies reviewing the reliance of global agriculture on insect pollination advocate increasing the 'supply' of pollinators (wild or managed) to improve crop yields, there has been little focus on altering a crop's 'demand' for pollinators.Parthenocarpy (fruit set in the absence of fertilization) is a trait which can increase fruit quantity and quality from pollinator-dependent crops by removing the need for pollination.Here we present a meta-analysis of studies examining the extent and effectiveness of parthenocarpy-promoting techniques (genetic modification, hormone application and selective breeding) currently being used commercially, or experimentally, on pollinator-dependent crops in different test environments (no pollination, hand pollination, open pollination).

Ecological role of vertebrate scavengers in urban ecosystems in the UK.

Recent research has demonstrated how scavenging, the act of consuming dead animals, plays a key role in ecosystem structure, functioning, and stability. A growing number of studies suggest that vertebrate scavengers also provide key ecosystem services, the benefits humans gain from the natural world, particularly in the removal of carcasses from the environment. An increasing proportion of the human population is now residing in cities and towns, many of which, despite being highly altered environments, contain significant wildlife populations, and so animal carcasses.

Using management to conserve biodiversity under climate change.

Successful conservation will increasingly depend on our ability to help species cope with climate change. While there has been much attention on accommodating or assisting range shifts, less has been given to the alternative strategy of helping species survive climate change through management.Here we provide a synthesis of published evidence examining whether habitat management can be used to offset the adverse impacts on biodiversity of changes in temperature, water availability and sea-level rise.

Modelling short-rotation coppice and tree planting for urban carbon management - a citywide analysis.

The capacity of urban areas to deliver provisioning ecosystem services is commonly overlooked and underutilized. Urban populations have globally increased fivefold since 1950, and they disproportionately consume ecosystem services and contribute to carbon emissions, highlighting the need to increase urban sustainability and reduce environmental impacts of urban dwellers. Here, we investigated the potential for increasing carbon sequestration, and biomass fuel production, by planting trees and short-rotation coppice (SRC), respectively, in a mid-sized UK city as a contribution to meeting national commitments to reduce CO emissions.

The extent of shifts in vegetation phenology between rural and urban areas within a human-dominated region.

Urbanization is one of the major environmental challenges facing the world today. One of its particularly pressing effects is alterations to local and regional climate through, for example, the Urban Heat Island. Such changes in conditions are likely to have an impact on the phenology of urban vegetation, which will have knock-on implications for the role that urban green infrastructure can play in delivering multiple ecosystem services.

Transients drive the demographic dynamics of plant populations in variable environments.

The dynamics of structured plant populations in variable environments can be decomposed into the 'asymptotic' growth contributed by vital rates, and 'transient' growth caused by deviation from stable stage structure.We apply this framework to a large, global data base of longitudinal studies of projection matrix models for plant populations. We ask, what is the relative contribution of transient boom and bust to the dynamic trajectories of plant populations in stochastic environments? Is this contribution patterned by phylogeny, growth form or the number of life stages per population and per species?We show that transients contribute nearly 50% or more to the resulting trajectories, depending on whether transient and stable contributions are partitioned according to their absolute or net contribution to population dynamics.

Quantifying interspecific variation in dispersal ability of noctuid moths using an advanced tethered flight technique.

Dispersal plays a crucial role in many aspects of species' life histories, yet is often difficult to measure directly. This is particularly true for many insects, especially nocturnal species (e.g.