Learn what causes anxiety, how it feels, and how community support and small steps can improve mental health and well-being.

Reg Cobb, Chief Executive of deafPLUS, introduces moneyPLUS – a new project making financial services accessible for Deaf people.

Our Get Help page contains links to sources of support in the UK with mental health, debt, benefits and the cost of living.

The Nicene Creed Survey

Background Insectivorous birds provide a key ecosystem service as predators of folivorous insects. Changes in forest structural complexity and composition, currently underway in temperate forests, may affect the predation pressure exerted by birds on folivores, by altering the abundance of avian predators. However, studies examining this are few, as well as on how predation rates vary within forest stands. We aimed to address these gaps, by focusing on beech (Fagus sylvatica) trees in managed montane forests of the Black Forest region, in Central Europe. We measured abundance and diversity of birds using point counts on 135 1-ha plots in 2017–2022. To assess bird predation pressure on caterpillars, we placed 3153 artificial caterpillars on selected 24 plots for a week, in the spring of 2021, and inspected them for bird bite marks. We placed caterpillars on up to four focal tree locations in each plot, in both the canopy and the understorey of each tree. We also measured forest structure and composition both at the scale of plots and the vicinity of focal trees. Results We found that higher shrub-layer cover and share of broadleaf trees at the plot scale were associated with higher overall abundance of foliage-gleaning insectivorous birds. However, predation rates on artificial prey appeared to be more closely related with the abundance of single species (particularly the Eurasian chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs), which in turn responded to other facets of forest structural complexity. Within plots, predation pressure was overall higher in the canopy than in the understorey, but this may reflect observer effects rather than true differences between vegetation layers. Predation rates also showed strong variation across trees, being higher in beech crowns with a monospecific neighbourhood, and in saplings surrounded by a mixed-species shrub layer. Conclusions Our results suggest that specific bird species and particular facets of forest structural complexity contribute disproportionately to the predation pressure exerted by birds on caterpillars, and that fine-scale management decisions may also affect the role of birds as predators. However, further research is needed to confirm these patterns and overcome the limitations we identified.

FlutterFlow - Build Mobile Apps With Ease

Masking may entail the suppression of autistic traits by autistic individuals. Thus far, research indicates a negative impact of autistic masking on mental health, but this is largely based on retr...

News, Views, Musings, and Issues

Juneteenth recognizes the day when enslaved African-American people in Texas were freed two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet history has largely forgotten how many enslaved disabled…

IHPP is developing a library of health information designed by and for people with developmental disabilities. Each topic is presented in a variety of formats, including booklets and posters. All…