Global extent of grassland paper published in nature Ecology & Evolution

Congratulations to Andrew MacDougall and the entire team that assembled this important and incredibly important research article. The regions of earth previously classified as the “grassy biome” have always been sketchy - but this paper shows us just how bad it has been! Moreover, by correcting planetary estimates, this paper adjusts grassland coverage to 22.8% of the terrestrial land cover (30.1 million km^2) and increases soil carbon stocks to 155.02 Pg (0–30 cm depth). This paper offers a major advancement in our capacity to map biomes and predict future changes to the biosphere. See the paper here.

ADSPA paper finally published!

It only took seven years (!) but our paper titled “Identifying ecological knowledge and research gaps via the African Database of Savanna Protected Areas (ADSPA)" has finally been accepted for publication in Diversity and Distributions. The project began after the highly productive Serengeti Fire Workshop, which was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Colin Beale at the University of York. Our first meeting to brainstorm and start assembling these data took place at Phalaborwa Camp in Kruger National Park in 2018. A lot has happened since then but our patience and perseverance finally led to the publication of this important database. Download or contribute to the database via the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/xfcb7/overview