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Biodiversity plays an important role in providing ecosystem services and maintaining ecosystem stability, which are closely related to human welfare. The identification of biodiversity hotspots and analysis of their threats provide effective ways for biodiversity conservation and restoration. Current studies generally combine species diversity and its threat situation to determine hotspots for priority protection. However, in-depth analysis of threats to biodiversity hotspots is still lacking. Guangdong Province is one of the key biodiversity areas in the world, but it faces great challenges in biodiversity preservation. To understand biodiversity hotspots and their threats in Guangdong Province more completely, this study developed a heat index for terrestrial biodiversity by considering plant species diversity, animal species diversity, and landscape diversity based on multi-source data of plant and animal species, ecosystem stand types, and land use. Then, the heat index was used to identify biodiversity hotspots, and their threat levels and controlling factors were analyzed according to the major threats to biodiversity. The results showed that areas with high values of terrestrial biodiversity heat index were mainly distributed in mountainous regions with relatively few human disturbances, whereas most areas with low values were concentrated in estuarine plains and intermontane basins with heavy human activities. Based on the zonation of the heat index, four biodiversity hotspots were identified, Yunwu Mountain, Nanling Mountain, Luofu Mountain, and Lianhua Mountain, with area percentages of 15.54%, 44.90%, 17.66%, and 21.90%, respectively. The area of biodiversity hotspots was 59,931.82 km2, accounting for 33.58% of the total land area of Guangdong Province. The 122 nature reserves within hotspots had an area of 6,594.39 km2, covering 61.33% of the whole area of the total 204 terrestrial nature reserves in Guangdong Province. This proportion gradually decreased with reduction of nature reserve grade, indicating that the nature reserves in hotspots were principally at a higher grade (nation and province levels) rather than at a lower grade (city and county levels). However, the area of these nature reserves in hotspots was only 11.00% of the whole area of hotspots, and most of the nature reserves that were not distributed in hotspots were located in the northeastern cities of Heyuan and Meizhou. Therefore, a large number of potential demands for biodiversity conservation still exist. For the four hotspots, the biodiversity in Yunwu Mountain was primarily under moderate to severe stress, with the intensity of economic development as the controlling factor. The biodiversity of the other three hotspots mainly underwent slight to moderate stress. The most important threat was the extensive economic development of the central part of Nanling Mountain and the southern parts of Luofu Mountain and Lianhua Mountain, whereas the periphery of Nanling Mountain and the northern parts of Luofu Mountain and Lianhua Mountain were more threatened by habitat quality or geological hazards. In addition, extreme stress on biodiversity occurred in all four hotspots, although within very small areas. Thus, more targeted management strategies for biodiversity should be proposed according to the stress levels and controlling threats. The results of this study provide a scientific reference for the comprehensive conservation and precise restoration of biodiversity hotspots in Guangdong Province.

Copyright of Tropical Geography is the property of Tropical Geography Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Antarctica is one of Earth's most untouched, inhospitable, and poorly known regions. Although knowledge of its biodiversity has increased over recent decades, a diverse, wide-ranging, and spatially explicit compilation of the biodiversity that inhabits Antarctica's permanently ice-free areas is unavailable. This absence hinders both Antarctic biodiversity research and the integration of Antarctica in global biodiversity-related studies. Fundamental and applied research on biodiversity patterns, ecological structure and function, and options for conservation are reliant on spatially resolved, taxonomically consistent observations. Such information is especially important for modern, data-driven biodiversity science, in both Antarctica and globally, and forms the backbone of biodiversity informatics, reflected, for example, in the Darwin Core Standard used by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Biodiversity data are also essential to fulfill the conservation requirements for Antarctica, as set out in the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty and inform the design of systematic surveys to address biodiversity and ecological knowledge gaps, for both specific taxa and ecosystems. Such surveys are key requirements for understanding and mitigating the impacts of environmental change on the region's biodiversity. Here, we address these requirements through the public release of The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database. In 2008, we extracted a subset of biodiversity records only from terrestrial ice-free areas from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Antarctic Biodiversity Database. We have subsequently added thousands of records from a range of sources: checking, and where necessary (and possible), correcting the spatial location, clarifying, cross-referencing, and harmonizing taxonomy with globally recognized sources, and documenting the original source of records. The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database spans the early 1800s to 2019 (with most records collected after 1950) and represents the most comprehensive consolidation of Antarctic ice-free biodiversity occurrence data yet compiled into a single database. The Biodiversity of Ice-free Antarctica Database contains 35,654 records of 1890 species in over 800 genera across six kingdoms and spans all Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions. These data are released under a CC BY Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)., (© 2025 The Author(s). Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.)

The study aims at reconciling contrasting productive and environmental goals of agricultural policies at a given budget in the context of climate change. Based on a quantitative bioeconomic model integrating interdependencies between agricultural systems and agroecosystems, we compare the impacts of 4 contrasted public policy scenarios based either on productive (food or energy) or environmental goals (pollution reduction or ecosystem state) on a set of 18 bioeconomic indicators. We run the policy scenarios under two contrasted climate change scenarios to investigate their robustness. We confirm that it is possible to achieve productive and environmental goals with the on-going budget of European agricultural policy. Synergies between productive and environmental performances exist even if they are not trivial nor systematic. More precisely, an agricultural public policy which focuses on energy production might offer a good compromise regarding the different facets of agricultural landscapes. The Pollution scenario constitutes a credible environmentally oriented alternative even if it remains slightly less competitive regarding both ecological and economic sides than an energy-oriented policy. Eventually, our analysis shows that our conclusions are robust to climate change, suggesting that adequate agricultural public policies might attenuate climate change effects when considering intermediary climate change scenarios.

Global aridification is projected to intensify. Yet, our knowledge of its potential impacts on species ranges remains limited. Here, we investigate global aridity velocity and its overlap with three sectors (natural protected areas, agricultural areas, and urban areas) and terrestrial biodiversity in historical (1979 through 2016) and future periods (2050 through 2099), with and without considering vegetation physiological response to rising CO2. Both agricultural and urban areas showed a mean drying velocity in history, although the concurrent global aridity velocity was on average +0.05/+0.20 km/yr-1 (no CO2 effects/with CO2 effects; "+" denoting wetting). Moreover, in drylands, the shifts of vegetation greenness isolines were found to be significantly coupled with the tracks of aridity velocity. In the future, the aridity velocity in natural protected areas is projected to change from wetting to drying across RCP (representative concentration pathway) 2.6, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5 scenarios. When accounting for spatial distribution of terrestrial taxa (including plants, mammals, birds, and amphibians), the global aridity velocity would be -0.15/-0.02 km/yr-1 ("-" denoting drying; historical), -0.12/-0.15 km/yr-1 (RCP2.6), -0.36/-0.10 km/yr-1 (RCP6.0), and -0.75/-0.29 km/yr-1 (RCP8.5), with amphibians particularly negatively impacted. Under all scenarios, aridity velocity shows much higher multidirectionality than temperature velocity, which is mainly poleward. These results suggest that aridification risks may significantly influence the distribution of terrestrial species besides warming impacts and further impact the effectiveness of current protected areas in future, especially under RCP8.5, which best matches historical CO2 emissions [C. R. Schwalm et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117, 19656-19657 (2020)]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During austral summer field seasons between 1999 and 2018, we sampled at 91 locations throughout southern Victoria Land and along the Transantarctic Mountains for six species of endemic microarthropods (Collembola), covering a latitudinal range from 76.0°S to 87.3°S. We assembled individual mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) sequences (n = 866) and found high levels of sequence divergence at both small (<10 km) and large (>600 km) spatial scales for four of the six Collembola species. We applied molecular clock estimates and assessed genetic divergences relative to the timing of past glacial cycles, including collapses of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). We found that genetically distinct lineages within three species have likely been isolated for at least 5.54 My to 3.52 My, while the other three species diverged more recently (<2 My). We suggest that Collembola had greater dispersal opportunities under past warmer climates, via flotation along coastal margins. Similarly increased opportunities for dispersal may occur under contemporary climate warming scenarios, which could influence the genetic structure of extant populations. As Collembola are a living record of past landscape evolution within Antarctica, these findings provide biological evidence to support geological and glaciological estimates of historical WAIS dynamics over the last ca. 5 My. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data presented here are based on examination of collections made in the 1970s mainly by Barbara Murray and held in the University of Alaska Museum of the North herbarium, Fairbanks (ALA). Four species, Micarea inquinans, Placynthium garovaglioi, Protoblastenia lilacina, and Trimmatothele perquisita, are reported for the first time from North America and 10 species, Clauzadea metzleri, Clauzadeana macula, Ionaspis obtecta, Lambiella gyrizans, Lemmopsis arnoldiana, Placynthium tantaleum, Poeltinula cerebrina, Protoblastenia incrustans, Rimularia gibbosa, and Sagiolechia protuberans, are reported for the first time from Alaska. Records of nine other species that are uncommon in Alaska are also reported.

Logging and mill residues are currently the largest sources of woody biomass for bioenergy in the United States, but short‐rotation woody crops (SRWCs) are expected to become a larger contributor to biomass production, primarily on lands marginal for food production. However, there are very few studies on the environmental effects of SRWCs, and most have been conducted at stand rather than at watershed scales. In this manuscript, we review the potential environmental effects of SRWCs relative to current forestry or agricultural practices and best management practices (BMPs) in the southeast United States and identify priorities and constraints for monitoring and modeling these effects. Plot‐scale field studies and a watershed‐scale modeling study found improved water quality with SRWCs compared to agricultural crops. Further, a recent watershed‐scale experiment suggests that conventional forestry BMPs are sufficient to protect water quality from SRWC silvicultural activities, but the duration of these studies is short with respect to travel times of groundwater transporting nitrate to streams. While the effects of SRWC production on carbon (C) and water budgets depend on both soil properties and previous land management, woody crops will typically sequester more C when compared with agricultural crops. The overall C offset by SRWCs will depend on a variety of management practices, the number of rotations, and climate. Effects of SRWCs on biodiversity, especially aquatic organisms, are not well studied, but a meta‐analysis found that bird and mammal biodiversity is lower in SRWC stands than unmanaged forests. Long‐term (i.e., over multiple rotations) water quality, water use, C dynamics, and soil quality studies are needed, as are larger‐scale (i.e., landscape scale) biodiversity studies, to evaluate the potential effects of SRWC production. Such research should couple field measurement and modeling approaches due to the temporal (i.e., multiple rotations) and spatial (i.e., heterogeneous landscape) scaling issues involved with SRWC production. Evaluating the environmental effects of short‐rotation woody crop (SRWC) production for bioenergy requires watershed‐scale experiments and long‐term observations coupled with watershed‐ to landscape‐scale models. These integrative approaches can evaluate environmental effects over multiple SRWC rotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antarctica’s terrestrial ecosystems are vulnerable to impacts resulting from climate change and local human activities. The Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) provides for the designation of protected areas through the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. Unsystematic use of agreed management tools, including Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs), has resulted in a protected area system lacking representation across the full range of Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems and Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions (ACBRs). Systematic Conservation Planning (SCP) methods provide established mechanisms to fulfil ATS protected area designation goals. However, how would a continent-wide ASPA system be delivered should appropriate sites be identified using SCP or other methods? Although the rate of area protection has slowed recently, we show that newer Consultative Parties to the Antarctic Treaty are increasingly active as ASPA proponents and may have scope for further engagement with protected area management activities. Furthermore, all 16 ACBRs were found to be within the operational footprint of at least two Parties, indicating that this current logistical footprint could support the implementation and management of a continent-wide ASPA system. Effective management of a representative Antarctic protected areas system could be delivered through greater participation by those Parties with currently more limited protected area management responsibilities and greater use of remote-sensing technologies for protected area monitoring, where appropriate. Crucially, political will to implement an ASPA system identified through SCP approaches may be greater once a pragmatic means of delivery and effective management has been identified.

We introduce a novel terrestrial biodiversity quality index developed to inform conservation management at a regional/local scale. Our index, the indicator species score (ISS), is derived from data for indicator birds, amphibians, mammals, plants and lichens representative of the major landscape-scale habitat types in the region and a range of sensitivities to urbanization. The ISS incorporates the conservation concern scores of the species monitored. We assess the practical utility of the ISS using 10 years of data for 50 indicator species monitored at 54 fixed sites in the Toronto region, Ontario, Canada. We test the sensitivity of the ISS to temporal and spatial differences/trends. We assess its responsiveness to landscape-level habitat size and quality predictors including natural cover area and wetland area within 500 m, 1 km, and 2 km of the monitoring site centroid, as well as habitat patch score, and road density. We investigate the utility of the ISS in modelling landscape-level effects. We find that it responds to the habitat predictors, to road density and to urbanization impacts other than those tested. We conclude that the ISS supports ecologically relevant interpretation and management target setting/benchmarking. It is intuitive in nature, easily communicated to a non-scientific audience and therefore useful for management reporting. ISS results following 10 years of monitoring also lead us to consider the relative importance of the many impacts that urbanization exerts on areas of natural cover that remain within an urban matrix. We recognize the need to develop metrics, where possible, in order to quantify individual impacts, monitor them, and establish priorities for the reduction or mitigation of the specific drivers of biodiversity quality decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of life cycle assessment (LCA) is moving towards the implementation of advanced damage models to assess specific areas of protection. The goal of this study was to quantify the main sources of terrestrial ecosystem damage from pasta production, based on a regionalised life cycle inventory and impact assessment. The impacts on terrestrial biodiversity caused by climate change, ecotoxicity, acidification, land use, photochemical ozone formation and water use were assessed for pasta production from durum wheat on 90 farms in Iran. The results showed that the agricultural stage was the main source of environmental damage in the life cycle of pasta production. Most variability between farms is caused by variation in the wheat yields. Climate change contribution, water use (for irrigation), and photochemical ozone formation were the main contributors to the impacts on terrestrial biodiversity. Climate change contribution was mainly due to carbon dioxide emissions from diesel fuel burning during agricultural operations. Nitrogen oxide emissions from nitrogen fertiliser production were the main contributor to photochemical ozone formation. Farmers can reduce their diesel use in field operations by combining tillage operations so that only one pass across the soil is required. Various innovative practices in irrigation, such as sprinkler irrigation, can result in higher yields which will lead to reduced environmental damage relating to water use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bacterial and microeukaryotic biodiversity were studied using pyrosequencing analysis on a 454 GS FLX+ platform of partial SSU rRNA genes in terrestrial and aquatic habitats of the Sør Rondane Mountains, including soils, on mosses, endolithic communities, cryoconite holes and supraglacial and subglacial meltwater lenses. This inventory was complemented with Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis targeting Chlorophyta and Cyanobacteria. OTUs belonging to the Rotifera, Chlorophyta, Tardigrada, Ciliophora, Cercozoa, Fungi, Bryophyta, Bacillariophyta, Collembola and Nematoda were present with a relative abundance of at least 0.1% in the eukaryotic communities. Cyanobacteria, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Acidobacteria, FBP and Actinobacteria were the most abundant bacterial phyla. Multivariate analyses of the pyrosequencing data revealed a general lack of differentiation of both eukaryotes and prokaryotes according to habitat type. However, the bacterial community structure in the aquatic habitats was dominated by the filamentous cyanobacteria Leptolyngbya and appeared to be significantly different compared with those in dry soils, on mosses, and in endolithic habitats. A striking feature in all datasets was the detection of a relatively large amount of sequences new to science, which underscores the need for additional biodiversity assessments in Antarctic inland locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying refugia is a critical component of effective conservation of biodiversity under anthropogenic climate change. However, despite a surge in conceptual and practical interest, identifying refugia remains a significant challenge across diverse continental landscapes. We provide an overview of the key properties of refugia that promote species' persistence under climate change, including their capacity to (i) buffer species from climate change; (ii) sustain long-term population viability and evolutionary processes; (iii) minimize the potential for deleterious species interactions, provided that the refugia are (iv) available and accessible to species under threat. Further, we classify refugia in terms of the environmental and biotic stressors that they provide protection from (i.e. thermal, hydric, cyclonic, pyric and biotic refugia), but ideally refugia should provide protection from a multitude of stressors. Our systematic characterization of refugia facilitates the identification of refugia in the Australian landscape. Challenges remain, however, specifically with respect to how to assess the quality of refugia at the level of individual species and whole species assemblages. It is essential that these challenges are overcome before refugia can live up to their acclaim as useful targets for conservation and management in the context of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of Canada's terrestrial biodiversity is supported by boreal forests. Natural resource development in boreal forests poses risks to this biodiversity. This paper reviews the scientific literature to assess the effects of natural resource development on terrestrial biodiversity in Canadian boreal forests. We address four questions: (1) To what extent have Canadian boreal forests changed due to natural resource development? (2) How has biodiversity responded to these changes? (3) Will the biodiversity of second-growth forests converge with that of primary boreal forests? (4) Are we losing species from boreal forests? We focus on trees, understory plants, insects, fungi, selected mammals, and songbirds because these groups have been most studied. We review more than 600 studies and found that changes in community composition are prevalent in response to large-scale conversion of forest types, changes in stand structures and age distributions, and altered landscape structure resulting from forest management and habitat loss associated with other developments such as oil and gas, hydroelectric, and mining. The southern boreal forest has been more highly impacted than the north due to more extensive forest management and the cumulative effects of multiple forms of development. There is abundant evidence that most species are not in danger of being extirpated from the boreal forest due to these anthropogenic changes. A few species, including woodland caribou ( Rangifer tarandus) and grizzly bear ( Ursus arctos), have, however, undergone long-term range contractions. Significant gaps in our ability to assess the effects of natural resource development on biodiversity in the boreal zone are the lack of long-term spatial and population data to monitor the impact of forest changes on ecosystems and species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental Reviews is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Byers Peninsula, Livingston Island, was one of the first sites in Antarctica designated for environmental conservation and scientific protection. Research on Byers Peninsula has been predominantly international, with 88 indexed publications (93% of them published during last 20 years) from 209 authors affiliated to 110 institutions from 22 nations, all of which are signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. Palaeontological research represented 20% of the published articles. The variety of freshwater bodies within the area has made Byers Peninsula a reference site for limnological studies (24% of papers). The site also contains numerous outcrops and periglacial features relevant to geology, stratigraphy and geomorphology (29%). Terrestrial biodiversity is extraordinarily high for lichens, bryophytes and invertebrates (15% of articles). Only 5% of the publications concern research on human activities, including both archaeology and impact monitoring. Glaciology, meteorology and climatology studies represent only 7% of papers. This work highlights the international and multidisciplinary nature of science conducted on Byers Peninsula in order to promote international cooperation and to provide information relevant for environmental management and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Antarctica's terrestrial ecosystems are vulnerable to impacts resulting from climate change and local human activities. The Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) provides for the designation of protected areas through the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. Unsystematic use of agreed management tools, including Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs), has resulted in a protected area system lacking representation across the full range of Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems and Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions (ACBRs). Systematic Conservation Planning (SCP) methods provide established mechanisms to fulfil ATS protected area designation goals. However, how would a continent-wide ASPA system be delivered should appropriate sites be identified using SCP or other methods? Although the rate of area protection has slowed recently, we show that newer Consultative Parties to the Antarctic Treaty are increasingly active as ASPA proponents and may have scope for further engagement with protected area management activities. Furthermore, all 16 ACBRs were found to be within the operational footprint of at least two Parties, indicating that this current logistical footprint could support the implementation and management of a continent-wide ASPA system. Effective management of a representative Antarctic protected areas system could be delivered through greater participation by those Parties with currently more limited protected area management responsibilities and greater use of remote-sensing technologies for protected area monitoring, where appropriate. Crucially, political will to implement an ASPA system identified through SCP approaches may be greater once a pragmatic means of delivery and effective management has been identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]