The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is influenced by land use and management. Here, the carbon (CO₂-C) budgets of a managed forest (spruce), a grass site and a crop site (crop rotation) have been compared to examine the effects of different management practices on net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and net biome productivity (NBP). This approach enables a more comprehensive carbon budgeting as it takes into account carbon exports and imports for particular land uses.

In Ireland fertilised grasslands are major source of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a powerful greenhouse gas. We present 5 years (2004-2008) of eddy-covariance (EC) observations of N₂O fluxes from an ecosystem transitioning from wet managed grassland to a broadleaf forestry. One sector of the EC footprint was converted to forestry during the observation period, while the remainder of the footprint remained under intensively managed grassland.

Grasslands in South Africa have been extensively transformed and fragmented, but are poorly protected. Commercial afforestation poses a particular threat to grassland biodiversity because areas suitable for forestry coincide with those supporting the greatest richness of endemic and threatened biota. To comply with international forestry standards, commercial timber growers leave “ecological networks” of interconnected open corridors within plantations: however, the value of these networks for conservation is unclear.