www.nature.com/news/2005/050808/full/050808-14.html
Michael Hopkin Explosions in military training sites can actually provide habitats for s ome species. Punchstock Military exercises are boosting biodiversity, according to a study of lan d used for US training manoeuvres in Germany. Such land has more endange red species than nearby national parks. The land is uncultivated, but also churned up by tank tracks and explosio ns. This creates habitat both for species that prefer pristine lands and those that require disturbed ground, explains ecologist Steven Warren o f Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Military land can host more species than agricultural land, Warren told a meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Montreal. What's more, its biodiversity can also exceed that of natural parks, where species th at need disturbance cannot get a foothold. Warren and his colleague Reiner Bttner of the Institute of Botany and La ndscape Ecology in Hemhofen, Germany, surveyed two US military bases at Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels in the southern state of Bavaria. Although the bases represent less than 1% of the state's area, they contain 22% of i ts endangered species, Warren told the meeting. The national parks cover a similar area but host fewer endangered plants and animals, Warren say s Nature's army "Some people are very anti-military," Warren says. "They assume that ther e's nothing the military can do that will be beneficial, particularly wi th relation to ecology." Warren, who doesn't work for the army, used to assume the same himself. "Twenty years ago I looked at military activiti es as an ecologist and thought 'they need me'. Warren and Bttner studied several species to try and understand the bene fits of military ground. One, the natterjack toad, breeds in water-fille d ruts created by tank tracks, they found. The tendency when setting aside a nature reserve is to prevent disturbanc es such as periodic flooding, says Warren.
replace to some degree the processes that have been stopped," Wa rren says. "We've trained gen erations of people that fire is bad," he says, "but in fact it's crucial for ecosystems." Trial by fire The number of species on former Soviet training camps around Berlin has d ropped since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Warren says, supporting the i dea that military activity is good for biodiversity.
"But some military chiefs worry that endangered species may begin to obst ruct their exercises." The US Marine Corps has previously complained tha t the US Endangered Species Act threatens to turn its Camp Pendleton bea ch in San Diego County, California - home to 18 threatened species - int o a nature reserve rather than a training facility. Warren hopes that conservationists could learn from the military, and pro vide disturbances to help endangered species. One trial project at Tenne nlohe, near Nuremberg in Germany, involves cutting up land using an agri cultural tool called a ripper in a bid to mimic tank tracks.
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