Dear IUFRO FRIENDS
Please consider attending the upcoming FABI International Seminar (29th April at 16h00 GMT +2) to be presented by Dr Andrew (Sandy) Liebhold. Sandy is very well known to the IUFRO Community having (for example) served Division 7 (Tree Health) Co-ordinator and Chair of the Scientific Committee for our 125th Anniversary Congress in Freiburg in 2017. If you are interested in tree health, biological invasions or forests and forestry in general - this will be a seminar for you to enjoy.
To attend, it is necessary to register -please do so at https://www.fabinet.up.ac.za/index.php/event/FABISerminarSeries/
Background information on Sandy’s talk can be found below and details of the FABI International Seminar Series is on the web site above.
Best regards
Mike
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April, 2021
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Speaker: Dr Andrew Liebhold, US Forest Service Northern Research Station, Morgantown, WV USA
Title: Macroecology of Insect Invasions
Date: 29 April 2021 Time: 16:00 (GMT+2)
Abstract: Biological invasions are largely an unintended consequence of globalization. With increasing mobility, humans have accidentally transported organisms around the world, breaking the geographical boundaries that separated species ranges that persisted for millions of years of evolution. Among animals, the insecta is the most species-rich class, with thousands of insect species having been established outside of their native ranges and many of these species causing immense impacts on agriculture, human health and conservation of native ecosystems. Here, I report on a macroecological analysis of historical insect invasions spanning 300 years and 10 world regions. These data are used to compare frequencies of invasions among different insect orders and among different insect families. Species-area relationships for native insect assemblages are generally stronger than for non-native insect assemblages. Certain groups, such as the Hemiptera, Formicidae and the Staphylinidae are generally over-represented in non-native insect assemblages, while other taxa are under-represented. These patterns generally reflect characteristics of these insects that cause them to enter important invasion pathways and biological characteristics that facilitate invasions. These results ultimately allow us to better understand the socio-economic drivers of insect invasions and can be of use when conducting invasive pest risk analysis.
Biography: Andrew “Sandy” Liebhold has been a research entomologist with the US Forest Service Northern Research Station, Morgantown, WV USA since 1988. His research focuses on the ecology and management of biological invasions and the spatial dynamics of insect outbreaks. Liebhold received his PhD in Entomology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and worked as a postdoctoral at the University of Massachusetts before joining the Forest Service. He is a fellow of the AAAS and serves on the editorial board of the journals Population Ecology and Biological Invasions. He also currently serves as a scientific coordinator with the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Science, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague and a visiting scholar with Scion Research in New Zealand.
This message and attachments are subject to a disclaimer.
Please refer to http://upnet.up.ac.za/services/it/documentation/docs/004167.pdf for full details.
Von: Sheila Ward <mahoganyforthefuture(a)gmail.com>
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 24. März 2021 00:04
Betreff: Join the e-list for IUFRO Working Party 4.02.01 Resource Data in the Tropics
Dear Colleagues:
You are invited to join the e-list for IUFRO Working Party 4.02.01 Resource Data in the Tropics, at https://lists.iufro.org/mailman/listinfo/wp40201/ We are focusing the unit on the discovery, curation, and use of legacy tropical forest datasets.
Much legacy data for tropical forests, including inventory and plot data, are in danger of being lost. Many tropical forest projects over the years have generated data, but the information is scattered among different institutions and people, some still only on paper, some digitized but in older formats.
These legacy datasets are invaluable for understanding how tropical forests change through time, including the cumulative impacts of land use and climate, and changes in patterns of biodiversity. change in land use and climate, and changes in patterns of biodiversity and carbon storage. Many of the forests represented in historical datasets no longer exist, so these data are the only record of the natural vegetation of the area.
There is also a need to develop a set of standard descriptive metadata, or a metadata scheme, for describing these datasets. This would assist not only with recovering and describing old data sets, but also ensure that future datasets can be consistently described and that their loss can be avoided in the future.
The first step is to review datasets referred to in older meta databases (e.g., ATROFI-UK and TROPIS) to determine if they are still available, and if they are in need of updated electronic curation. We are also reaching out via electronic media and networks, to find additional legacy tropical datasets and information on these studies. The next steps will be to develop an updated metadatabase regarding these datasets, develop with stakeholders policy on ownership and appropriate use, seek funding, and electronically curate such datasets.
We invite your participation in the e-list to discuss these and related topics.
IUFRO 4.02.01 Coordination Team
https://www.iufro.org/science/divisions/division-4/40000/40200/40201/
