New paper: synthesis of biodiversity drivers in Central Romania

By Joern Fischer

There is only a handful of publications still in the pipeline for our project on sustainable development in Central Romania — timely indeed, since funding finishes at the end of 2015! Today I’d like to briefly highlight a new paper that takes a first stab at synthesising what we’ve learnt in five years of research. This paper just came out in the new journal Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, which is published by the Ecological Society of America together with the Ecological Society of China. The paper is led by Ine Dorresteijn, and synthesises drivers of biodiversity.

What causes Transylvania’s exceptional biodiversity? We came up with seven underlying drivers or processes. While these are specific to Transylvania, it seems likely that there are parallels to other traditional farming landscapes elsewhere.

1. Similar proportions of three main land-use types support a rich regional species pool. It is relatively well-known…