Bracken is often perceived as a widespread and increasing land management problem. The pollen record of a wide range of sites in Great Britain suggests that the current abundance of bracken is less than or, at worst, equivalent to maximum historical levels. Recently gathered data also suggest that bracken cover is declining. Results of risk assessments of land use change, and experimental and modelling investigations into the effects of climate change are synthesized.

CONTEXT: The identification of habitat structures with biologically meaningful links to habitat quality has enabled an increased understanding of wildlife distributions in fragmented landscapes. However, knowledge is lacking of where these structures occur in the landscape. OBJECTIVES: For a broad-scale agricultural landscape, we investigated how the occurrence and abundance of wildlife habitat structures is related to abiotic conditions and land management practices, and whether this differed between old growth and regrowth woodland.

Open ditch drainage is a commonly implemented land management practice in upland blanket peatlands, particularly in the UK, where policy decisions between the 1940s and 1970s led to widespread drainage of the uplands. The change in the hydrological regime associated with the drainage of blanket peat is poorly understood, yet has perceived importance for flooding, low flows and water quality. We propose a new simplified physics-based model that allows the associated hydrological processes and flow responses to be explored.

In the last decades, due to human land management that uses fire as a tool, and due to abnormal droughts, many tropical forests have become more susceptible to recurrent wildfires with negative consequences for biodiversity. Yet, studies are usually focused on few taxa and rarely compare different fire frequencies. We examined if the effects of single and recurrent fires are consistent for leaf litter ants, dung beetles, birds (sampled with point‐counts PC and mist net‐MN), saplings, and trees.

Long-term monitoring of surface water quality has shown increasing concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) across a large part of the Northern Hemisphere. Several drivers have been implicated including climate change, land management change, nitrogen and sulphur deposition and CO2 enrichment.

Large mammalian herbivores are major drivers of the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems world‐wide, and changes in their abundance have resulted in many populations being actively managed. Many empirical studies have identified that abundant mammalian herbivores can have negative impacts on biodiversity, but there has been no specific review of the impacts of native mammalian herbivores. We assessed the peer‐reviewed literature on the effects of large native herbivores on other animals.

The aim of this article has been to identify and evaluate main factors which influence the agricultural land market in Poland. Statistical data from two institutions, namely the Agricultural Property Agency (APA) and the Central Statistical Office (CSO) as well as the author’s research have been used in the paper. The time horizon of the analysis covers the years 1992-2012. The lower limit was determined by the start of operation of the Agency of Agricultural Property of the State Treasury and the launching of a process of transformation in agriculture state.

Using the UNFCCC as a basis, and the objectives of estimating soil organic carbon (SOC) changes during the period 1900–2100, a spatially explicit database of climate, land cover and soil texture was compiled for a 262,000 km2 region in semi-arid Sudan. The area is characterized by low input cultivation of millet, sorghum and sesamé combined with livestock grazing. By integrating the database with the CENTURY ecosystem model, we were able to estimate historical, current and future pools of SOC as a function of land management and climate.

Homegardens are one of the oldest forms of managed land use systems characterised by high diversity and complexity of their species structure which in turn contribute to efficient nutrient cycling. Litterfall and decomposition are the two major processes that replenish the soil nutrient pools and endow sustainability to these agroforests. A study was carried out in the village Dargakona, Barak Valley, northeast India to understand the pattern of litter production and litter decomposition in the traditional homegardens.

The aim of the present study was the influence of various methods of long-term soil utilisation on the content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in selected silty soils. Four soils were selected for the present studies, i.e.: Eutric Fluvisol originating from silty formations, Haplic Phaeozem developed from loess, Haplic Luvisol (non-uniform) developed from silt, Haplic Luvisol developed from loess. Five study sites were chosen, i.e.: apple orchards, hop gardens, fields, grasslands and natural woodland ecosystems. Samples were collected from the depth of 0-10 cm.