'Carabidologists do it all' (Niemela 1996a) is a phrase with which most European carabidologists are familiar. Indeed, during the last half a century, professional and amateur entomologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the basic biology of carabid beetles. The success of the field is in no small part due to regular European Carabidologists' Meetings, which started in 1969 in Wijster, the Netherlands, with the 14th meeting again held in the Netherlands in 2009, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first meeting and 50 years of long-term research in the Dwingelderveld. This paper offers a subjective summary of some of the major developments in carabidology since the 1960s. Taxonomy of the family Carabidae is now reasonably established, and the application of modern taxonomic tools has brought up several surprises like elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Progress has been made on the ultimate and proximate factors of seasonality and timing of reproduction, which only exceptionally show non-seasonality. Triggers can be linked to evolutionary events and plausibly explained by the "taxon cycle" theory. Fairly little is still known about certain feeding preferences, including granivory and ants, as well as unique life history strategies, such as ectoparasitism and predation on higher taxa. The study of carabids has been instrumental in developing metapopulation theory (even if it was termed differently). Dispersal is one of the areas intensively studied, and results show an intricate interaction between walking and flying as the major mechanisms. The ecological study of carabids is still hampered by some unresolved questions about sampling and data evaluation. It is recognised that knowledge is uneven, especially concerning larvae and species in tropical areas. By their abundance and wide distribution, carabid beetles can be useful in population studies, bioindication, conservation biology and landscape ecology. Indeed, 40 years of carabidological research have provided so much data and insights, that among insects - and arguably most other terrestrial organisms - carabid beetles are one of the most worthwhile model groups for biological studies.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00657968/document

Forty years of carabid beetle research in Europe – from taxonomy, biology, ecology and population studies to bioindication, habitat assessment and conservation

Body condition scoring of sheep was first developed as a technique in the 1960s. Unlike live weight, it circumvents the issues of skeletal size, breed and physiological state and is not influenced by gut fill or the length and wetness of the fleece. This review outlines the use of the technique and the relationships between body condition score and other physical measures. In addition, it summarises the literature, across a range of breeds and environments, on the effects of body condition score on reproductive and lactational performance, and the growth and survival of the offspring to weaning. We have proposed that while the relationship between body condition and production traits is positive, it is unlikely to be linear. Where appropriate, the review outlines areas that would benefit from further research. Finally, it outlines what a suitable body condition score profile might be for a ewe over the entire breeding cycle.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00288233.2013.857698

Review of sheep body condition score in relation to production characteristics

Large mammalian herbivores manifest a strong top-down control on ecosystems that can transform entire landscapes, but their impacts have not been reviewed in the context of terrestrial carbon storage. Here, we evaluate the effects of plant biomass consumption by large mammalian herbivores (>10 kg adult biomass), and the responses of ecosystems to these herbivores, on carbon stocks in temperate and tropical regions, and the Arctic. We calculate the difference in carbon stocks resulting from herbivore exclusion using the results of 108 studies from 52 vegetation types. Our estimates suggest that herbivores can reduce terrestrial above- and below-ground carbon stocks across vegetation types but reductions in carbon stocks may approach zero given sufficient periods of time for systems to respond to herbivory (i.e. decades). We estimate that if all large herbivores were removed from the vegetation types sampled in our review, increases in terrestrial carbon stocks would be up to three orders of magnitude less than many of the natural and human-influenced sources of carbon emissions. However, we lack estimates for the effects of herbivores on below-ground biomass and soil carbon levels in many regions, including those with high herbivore densities, and upwards revisions of our estimates may be necessary. Our results provide a starting point for a discussion on the magnitude of the effects of herbivory on the global carbon cycle, particularly given that large herbivores are common in many ecosystems. We suggest that herbivore removal might represent an important strategy towards increasing terrestrial carbon stocks at local and regional scales within specific vegetation types, since humans influence populations of most large mammals.

Carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems: do browsing and grazing herbivores matter?

Practicing ecologists who excel at their work ('experts') hold a wealth of knowledge. This knowledge offers a wide range of opportunities for application in ecological research and natural resource decision-making. While experts are often consulted ad-hoc, their contributions are not widely acknowledged. These informal applications of expert knowledge lead to concerns about a lack of transparency and repeatability, causing distrust of this knowledge source in the scientific community. Here, we address these concerns with an exploration of the diversity of expert knowledge and of rigorous methods in its use. The effective use of expert knowledge hinges on an awareness of the spectrum of experts and their expertise, which varies by breadth of perspective and critical assessment. Also, experts express their knowledge in different forms depending on the degree of contextualization with other information. Careful matching of experts to application is therefore essential and has to go beyond a simple fitting of the expert to the knowledge domain. The standards for the collection and use of expert knowledge should be as rigorous as for empirical data. This involves knowing when it is appropriate to use expert knowledge and how to identify and select suitable experts. Further, it requires a careful plan for the collection, analysis and validation of the knowledge. The knowledge held by expert practitioners is too valuable to be ignored. But only when thorough methods are applied, can the application of expert knowledge be as valid as the use of empirical data. The responsibility for the effective and rigorous use of expert knowledge lies with the researchers. ©2013 Drescher et al.

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1890/ES12-00415.1

Toward rigorous use of expert knowledge in ecological research

The treeline ecotone divides forest from open alpine or arctic vegetation states. Treelines are generally perceived to be temperature limited. The role of herbivores in limiting the treeline is more controversial, as experimental evidence from relevant large scales is lacking. Here we quantify the impact of different experimentally controlled herbivore densities on the recruitment and survival of birch Betula pubescens tortuosa along an altitudinal gradient in the mountains of southern Norway. After eight years of summer grazing in large-scale enclosures at densities of 0, 25, and 80 sheep/km2, birch recruited within the whole altitudinal range of ungrazed enclosures, but recruitment was rarer in enclosures with low-density sheep and was largely limited to within the treeline in enclosures with high-density sheep. In contrast, the distribution of saplings (birch older than the experiment) did not differ between grazing treatments, suggesting that grazing sheep primarily limit the establishment of new tree recruits rather than decrease the survival of existing individuals. This study provides direct experimental evidence that herbivores can limit the treeline below its potential at the landscape scale and even at low herbivore densities in this climatic zone. Land use changes should thus be considered in addition to climatic changes as potential drivers of ecotone shifts.

Experimental evidence for herbivore limitation of the treeline

Survival and mortality of extensive hill ewes are important commercial factors and valuable indicators of welfare, but difficult to study. Body condition scoring is a tried-and-tested management and monitoring tool which has been defined as a good predictor of fitness in ewes and is easily measured under hill farm conditions. This paper presents the results of a study on ewe survival rates in hill conditions in Scotland. Ewe performance and survival rates were measured in two contrasting hill flocks over a five-year period. Statistical analysis showed that mid-pregnancy body condition score was the most reliable indicator of subsequent ewe survival, followed closely by age of the ewe and environmental and management conditions. This study confirms that there are considerable welfare issues related to hill flocks and that improved winter nutritional management is a key component to good welfare and productivity. It also reinforces the view that body condition score is a good quantitative predictor of animal welfare and that poor mid-winter score indicates high risk of mortality, both at the flock and individual ewe level.

Body condition score as an indicator of ewe survival under extensive conditions

Impacts of livestock in regenerating upland birch woodlands in Scotland

As a result of the European Community Common Agricultural Policy reform in 2005 it is predicted that livestock grazing in the Scottish uplands will become less intensive. At each of two upland research centres, two large (>40ha) plots were established to investigate the relationship between grazing intensity in the Scottish uplands and biodiversity. One plot was grazed intensively by sheep while the other was grazed extensively. Ground beetles were sampled by pitfall trapping to determine the influence of grazing pressure on the ecological make-up of ground beetle assemblages. Grazing intensity did not significantly influence carabid diversity. However, grazing intensity, altitude and moisture did influence the carabid ecological assemblage structure at both locations. Large flightless Carabus species were more abundant in extensively managed plots than intensively managed plots at both locations. It is likely that these long-living, relatively immobile beetles were favoured by the greater stability of the vegetation structure in the extensively grazed plots. Monitoring the ecological assemblage structure provides a more sensitive approach than diversity indices when comparing the impact of grazing and agricultural management but is also robust enough to allow direct comparisons between different geographical locations.

/pdf/carabid-coleoptera-assemblages-in-the-scottish-uplands-the-50e0zsew17.pdf

Carabid (Coleoptera) assemblages in the Scottish uplands: the influence of sheep grazing on ecological structure

Ratites�(ostrichesStruthio camelus)�andungulates�(reddeerCervus elaphusscoticus andgoatsCapra hircus) were presented with 14 indigenous shrubs in cafeteria-style trials. The shrubs represented the spectrum of woody plant architecture, ranging from broadleaved monopodial species through to small-leaved highly branched divaricates. Trials were stopped when almost all shoots of the plant expected to be most preferred had been consumed. There were considerable differences between the herbivores in their selection of certain plant species.�Aristotelia fruticosawasavoidedbydeer,�neutrallyselectedbygoats,�andpreferredbyostriches.�All� herbivoresstronglyavoidedtwospecies,�Pseudopanax crassifoliusandCoprosma rugosa.�Analysisofrelative� offtake (proportion of biomass consumed from each species, relative to total biomass consumed) showed that all three herbivores ate less of species with small leaves. Consumption by all herbivores was reduced by structural plant traits (i.e. divarication and related attributes) more than by chemical plant traits. The immediate impact of browsing on the plants, measured as the rank of proportion of shoots eaten, was broadly similar across theherbivores.�Thebroadleavedspecies�(e.g.�Myrsine australis, Aristotelia serrata)�experiencedthegreatest� browsing,�whiledivaricate�(e.g.�Coprosma rugosa)�andconiferspecies�(e.g.�Podocarpus hallii)�weregenerally� least browsed. Although cafeteria-style experiments have limitations, our results for deer broadly correspond to those of field-based diet preference studies.

/pdf/ratite-and-ungulate-preferences-for-woody-new-zealand-plants-1yv0v4rd03.pdf

Ratite and ungulate preferences for woody New Zealand plants: influence of chemical and physical traits

https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jrm/article/download/19747/19373

M. L. Pollock

Papers

Body condition score as an indicator of ewe survival under extensive conditions

Impacts of livestock in regenerating upland birch woodlands in Scotland

Carabid (Coleoptera) assemblages in the Scottish uplands: the influence of sheep grazing on ecological structure

Ratite and ungulate preferences for woody New Zealand plants: influence of chemical and physical traits

Assessment of Expert Opinion: Seasonal Sheep Preference and Plant Response to Grazing