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Peri-urban traditional agroforestry systems are considered a priority at an international level, as they serve as a link connecting cities and rural areas, providing local food and ecosystem services for people living in the cities. The mulberry-dykes and fishponds system (MFS), located near Huzhou city (Zhejiang province, China), also has a key role in protecting the city from floods, as it developed as a consequence of the ancient flood control system created to protect local cities and villages from recurring floods. This system is recognized for its sustainability and for the strong functional interlinkages between the different components (mulberry trees, fishes, silkworms) by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which included it into the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme in 2017. The research intends to measure landscape transformation in the last 12 years and to evaluate the effectiveness of the inclusion into the GIAHS Programme for land use changes mitigation. In addition, an accurate discussion focusing on the analysis of local planning has been done to evaluate its capacity in protecting and valorizing the site. Results demonstrated that MFS has undergone major land use changes in the last years due to urban sprawl, the spread of solar panels (+7% in 2018–2021), and abandonment of the traditional mulberry-based system (−75% in 2009–2021). Other changes are related to the overall number of traditional fishponds (−81% in 2009–2018 and −33% in 2018–2021) and to their shape and size. Local planning tools are too sectorial, not enough integrated one another, and they do not consider the MFS as a single system. The study demonstrated that the inclusion in the GIAHS Programme is not sufficient itself to stop negative trends in the absence of adequate planning tools, even if it can contribute to slowing them down, but it would be crucial to integrate the GIAHS action plan and vision into local planning tools.

Commons were ancient pastures, which once occurred in every village in many countries, including the Czech Republic. They have been a landscape and social phenomenon for decades. However, social and economic changes brought an end to community ownership and traditional management of these commons. The number of commons has been decreasing since the middle of the 19th century and currently very few remain. This paper evaluates the status of former commons in 35 cadastres in south-western Bohemia and describes the changes they have undergone in the last two hundred years. Three historical periods were identified as the main drivers in the changes in the status of commons. We started with a period from the middle of the 19th century to the 1950s, the second from 1950s to 1990s and the last from 1990s to 2019. Aerial images and field surveys revealed that 93% of former commons disappeared due to afforestation, conversion to fields and natural succession occurring on abandoned commons. The social and economic aspects associated with these changes are mentioned. Some of the commons are part of the Territorial system of landscape ecological stability (Ecological networks) and we suggest that more of the remaining commons should be included in this network. They could play a role in maintaining biodiversity and providing stepping stones in a uniform agriculture landscape. We propose to evaluate the conservation and ecosystem value of these commons in more detail and set up the appropriate management essential for the preservation or restoration of commons, an indisputable part of our biological and cultural heritage.

Changes in land use that are taking place in many parts of the world are having varying effects, depending on the case, on food security in diverse environments. This article analyzes how these changes manifest themselves in the De La Vega territory, an agrarian shire located in the center of the southern Spanish province of Granada. Over recent decades, this shire has been confronted with deep socioeconomic, demographic, and urban transformations that have led and are leading to significant changes in the role of agriculture, land use, and the position of farmers. The results reveal that, over the last four decades, the population has increased (44%), the agricultural area has decreased (40%) as has the usable agricultural land (25%), olive groves have grown exponentially (144%), farms have decreased (68%), and levels of livestock have grown and become more concentrated. Finally, the actions and demands raised by the main actors and social organizations involved in the defense of farming in this shire are examined. These demands and actions have ocurred especially in the peri-urban areas close to what is known as the Granada urban agglomeration, precisely where the changes have been most intense, according to the data analyzed., Contrato predoctoral para la Formación del Profesorado Universitario (FPU)

Soil degradation is a serious environmental issue in many regions of the world, and Sri Lanka is not an exception. Maha Oya River Basin (MORB) is one of the major river basins in tropical Sri Lanka, which suffers from regular soil erosion and degradation. The current study was designed to estimate the soil erosion associated with land use changes of the MORB. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was used in calculating the annual soil erosion rates, while the Geographic Information System (GIS) was used in mapping the spatial variations of the soil erosion hazard over a 30-year period. Thereafter, soil erosion hotspots in the MORB were also identified. The results of this study revealed that the mean average soil loss from the MORB has substantially increased from 2.81 t ha−1 yr−1 in 1989 to 3.21 t ha−1 yr−1 in 2021, which is an increment of about 14.23%. An extremely critical soil erosion-prone locations (average annual soil loss > 60 t ha−1 yr−1) map of the MORB was developed for the year 2021. The severity classes revealed that approximately 4.61% and 6.11% of the study area were in high to extremely high erosion hazard classes in 1989 and 2021, respectively. Based on the results, it was found that the extreme soil erosion occurs when forests and vegetation land are converted into agricultural and bare land/farmland. The spatial analysis further reveals that erosion-prone soil types, steep slope areas, and reduced forest/vegetation cover in hilly mountain areas contributed to the high soil erosion risk (16.56 to 91.01 t ha−1 yr−1) of the MORB. These high soil erosional areas should be prioritized according to the severity classes, and appropriate land use/land cover (LU/LC) management and water conservation practices should be implemented as recommended by this study to restore degraded lands.

Studies on the impacts of a particular land use type change are relatively rare, especially in the Tibetan Plateau region (TP). This study focused on the impacts of farmland use change on grain supply and ecosystem stability in the Yarlung Zangbo river and its two tributaries (also known as One River and Two Streams, ORTS), using net primary productivity (NPP), known as the total amount of organic matter left after removal of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere by vegetation through photosynthesis, as a common proxy for farmland productivity and ecosystem stability. The trend analysis method was applied to measure the inter-annual change of NPP, and an ecological impact index was constructed to quantify the impact of farmland use change on the NPP change in the ORTS region. The results showed that: (1) The total area of farmland decreased by 6.09% from 2000 to 2018. Built-up land occupation and ecological restoration were the main reasons for the decrease of farmland area, while there was also new reclaimed farmland, transferred from ecological land. (2) The NPP in the ORTS region was roughly on an increasing trend, while the trends of NPP in different farmland change areas were not the same. Specifically, the NPP of ecological restoration, newly reclaimed farmland, and unchanged farmland areas all showed a significant increasing trend, while the NPP in the area of farmland occupied by built-up land showed a significant decreasing trend. (3) The impact of farmland changes from 2000 to 2018 contributed 1.22% to the increase of NPP in the ORTS region. This study not only provides a research paradigm in quantifying the production and ecological impacts of a particular land use type change that can be applied in related studies in other regions, but at the same time, the results of the empirical analysis in the ORTS region can also provide suggestions for the rational use and conservation of farmland and the stability and sustainable development of ecosystems for the region and even the TP.

During the last three decades, the expansion of the Tabriz Metropolitan Area (TMA) to the surrounding areas has caused the destruction of environmental resources and problems such as disturbing ecological balance, increasing service costs, construction over unsuitable lands, exacerbation of air pollution, and lack of consideration of existing deteriorated textures and previous ongoing trends, reducing the environmental quality of the TMA. The goal of this study was to perform ecological modeling of urban development in the TMA with respect to the preservation of environmental resources, prevention of urban sprawl, and the management of the physical expansion of the TMA in an eco-friendly manner. In this research, to investigate the previous pattern of growth of the TMA, Landsat satellite imagers from 1984 to 2018 were used to discover the non-ecological and sprawl development of the TMA, and artificial neural networks and logistic regression techniques were applied to simulate future development up to 2038. According to information from the Iranian Statistical Center and 34 year of satellite imagery analysis, the population of the TMA increased from 1,007,992 to 1,961,560 during this period. Additionally, urban and rural land area increased from 7220.34 hectares to 27,640.57 hectares. A lack of coordination between population and urban expansion, as well as a decrease of 8513.61 hectares of agricultural and garden lands was inferred from the Holdern model. Detailed Calculations of the Holdern index (sprawl tendency) showed a lack of consideration of urban development capacity with population growth rate, and the Holdern index is equal to 0.6 in Tabriz. For future ecologic development of the TMA, hexagonal blocking of the urbanization probability map was used alongside environmental development policies in the form of using 30 percent of infill development capacities of inefficient land uses to prevent sprawl growth in Tabriz. Additionally, to preserve ecological landscapes, ecological networks in the form of green belts and bows with a length of 91 km were designed that may be effective in preventing the merging of small cities and nearby villages in the Tabriz metropolis.

Xylella fastidiosa (Wells 1987, hereafter Xf), the causal agent of several devastating plant diseases, is threatening new countries of the Euro-Mediterranean, Balkans, Middle East, and North Africa (MENA) regions. In this perspective, a study was carried out to: (a) explore the potential establishment and spread and losses caused by Xf in Euro-Mediterranean countries (i.e., France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) and the Balkans (i.e., Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia); (b) assess the potential introduction of Xf in the MENA countries (i.e., Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey); and (c) project the socio-economic impacts of Xf on olives, grapes, citrus, and almonds in these countries. A novel socio-economic risk assessment technique was developed and applied for these purposes. It revealed that Albania had the highest risk for Xf dispersal. In addition, the risk assessment also confirmed the vulnerability of Euro-Mediterranean countries in terms of Xf dispersal. In the MENA and Balkans regions, countries with fragmented and small farms are likely to face the worst social impacts, whereas the Euro-Mediterranean region runs the highest economic losses on the target crops.

Road construction fragments the landscape, reduces connectivity, and drives land use changes. To our knowledge, little is known about the scope and intensity of the effects of cross-border roads on changes in land use. Here, with the land use data products provided by the US Agency for International Development’s SERVIR Mekong project, using the GIS-based spatial analysis to quantitatively analyze and compare the effects of the cross-border road on land use changes within a 30 km buffer area along the Kunming–Bangkok Highway between Laos and Thailand. The results show the following: The greater the distance was from the highway, the smaller were the overall changes in land use within the buffer zone. A comparison of the situation before and after the road was opened in 2013 revealed significant differences in the most influential land use types of agricultural expansion, i.e., from 47.07% to 52.07% (the buffer zone was 1 km). In particular, 57.32% (1381.93 ha) and 40.08% (966.46 ha) of the land occupied by forests had been converted into land for plantation and agriculture, respectively, from 2013 to 2018. The scope of the impact of the operational route on the dynamics of land use was inconsistent. The largest impact before the road became operational was within 4 km of the buffer zone (0.26 to 0.24). Once the road had been opened, the range of its impact was beyond 10 km (0.63 to 0.57). The work here can provide a scientific basis for regional transportation planning and the sustainable use of land resources.

It has been predicted that spatial beta diversity shows a decreasing trend in the Anthropocene due to increasing human impact, causing biotic homogenisation. We aimed to discover if vascular aquatic macrophyte communities show different spatial patterns in beta diversity in relation to land use and environmental characteristics in different decades from 1940s to 2010s. We aimed to discover if spatial structures differ between species‐, phylogeny‐ and functional‐based beta diversity. We used presence–absence data of aquatic macrophytes from five decades from small boreal lakes. We utilized generalised dissimilarity modelling to analyse spatial patterns in beta diversity in relation to environmental gradients. We found that lake elevation and pH were the most important variables in each decade, while land use was not particularly important in shaping beta diversity patterns. We did not find signs of a decreasing trend in spatial beta diversity in our study area during the past 70 yr. We did not find signs of either biotic homogenisation or biotic differentiation (taxonomic, phylogenetic or functional). Vascular aquatic macrophyte communities showed only slightly different beta diversity patterns in relation to human impact across decades. The patterns of different facets of beta diversity diverged only slightly from each other. Lake position in the landscape, reflecting both natural connectivity and lake characteristics, explained the patterns found in beta diversity, probably because our study area has faced only modest changes in land use from 1940s to 2010s when compared globally. Our study highlights the fact that biotic homogenisation is not an unambiguous process acting similarly at all spatial and temporal scales or in different environments and different organism groups.

Climate and socioeconomic and policy factors are found to stimulate land use changes along with changes in greenhouse gas emissions and adaption behaviors. Most of the studies investigating land use changes in the U.S. have not considered potential spatial effects explicitly. We used a two-step linearized multinomial logit to examine the impacts of various factors on conterminous U.S. land use changes including spatial lag coefficients. The estimation results show that the spatial dependences have existed for cropland, pastureland, and grasslands with a negative dependence on forests but weakened in most of the land uses except for croplands. Temperature and precipitation were found to have nonlinear impacts on the land use shares in the succeeding years by exerting opposite effects on crop versus pasture/grass shares. We also predicted land use changes under different climate change scenarios. The simulation results imply that the southern regions of the U.S. would lose cropland shares with further severity under the business-as-usual climate scenarios, while the land use shares for pasture/grass and forest would increase in those regions. As land use plays an important role in the climate system and vice versa, the results from this study may help policymakers tackle climate-driven land use changes and farmers adapt to climate change.

Wentling, C., Campos, F. S., David, J., & Cabral, P. (2021). Pollination potential in Portugal: Leveraging an ecosystem service for sustainable agricultural productivity. Land, 10(4), 1-14. [431]. https://doi.org/10.3390/land10040431 As urbanization and agriculture increase worldwide, habitats and food sources for wild pollinators are often fragmented or destroyed. As wild pollinators contribute both resilience and variety to agricultural fields, it is desirable to implement land management practices that preserve their well-being and ability to contribute to food production systems. This study evaluates continental Portugal for its change in suitability to host bee’s pollinator species (Apis mellifera) from 1990 to 2018. It uses the InVEST crop pollination modeling tool and CORINE Land Cover, as well as parameterization to produce pollinator abundance and supply maps. These are generalized to municipality boundaries to provide actionable insights to farmers and policymakers and strengthen land management practices. It finds that the potential for pollination services is growing, with averages of both pollinator abundance and supply indices improving by 8.76% across the continental territory in 28 years. The study results are validated using another pollination index derived from a study that is based on expert opinion and field sampling in a sub-region of Portugal. This method of aggregation of model results and comparison of the percent difference by administrative boundary has the potential to better inform both policymakers and farmers about the pollination potential on a local level, as well as inspire interventions for future productivity. publishersversion published

Agricultural land-use change is a dynamic process that varies as a function of social, economic and environmental factors spanning from the local to the global scale. The cumulative regional impacts of these factors on land use adoption decisions by farmers are neither well accounted for nor reflected in agricultural land use planning. We present an innovative spatially explicit agent-based modelling approach (Crop GIS-ABM) that accounts for factors involved in farmer decision making on new irrigation adoption to enable land-use predictions and exploration. The model was designed using a participatory approach, capturing stakeholder insights in a conceptual model of farmer decisions. We demonstrate a case study of the factors influencing the uptake of new irrigation infrastructure and land use in Tasmania, Australia. The model demonstrates how irrigated land-use expansion promotes the diffusion of alternative crops in the region, as well as how coupled social, biophysical and environmental conditions play an important role in crop selection. Our study shows that agricultural land use reflected the evolution of multiple simultaneous interacting biophysical and socio-economic drivers, including soil and climate type, crop and commodity prices, and the accumulated effects of interactive decisions of farmers.

As urbanization and agriculture increase worldwide, habitats and food sources for wild pollinators are often fragmented or destroyed. As wild pollinators contribute both resilience and variety to agricultural fields, it is desirable to implement land management practices that preserve their well-being and ability to contribute to food production systems. This study evaluates continental Portugal for its change in suitability to host bee’s pollinator species (Apis mellifera) from 1990 to 2018. It uses the InVEST crop pollination modeling tool and CORINE Land Cover, as well as parameterization to produce pollinator abundance and supply maps. These are generalized to municipality boundaries to provide actionable insights to farmers and policymakers and strengthen land management practices. It finds that the potential for pollination services is growing, with averages of both pollinator abundance and supply indices improving by 8.76% across the continental territory in 28 years. The study results are validated using another pollination index derived from a study that is based on expert opinion and field sampling in a sub-region of Portugal. This method of aggregation of model results and comparison of the percent difference by administrative boundary has the potential to better inform both policymakers and farmers about the pollination potential on a local level, as well as inspire interventions for future productivity.

The present paper highlights the importance of hedgerows and enclosures in the mountains of Central Spain. Now, these landscapes have suffered profound variations in terms of agroforestry practices, especially in the Mediterranean mountains where the characteristic multifunctional has largely been lost. The article analyzes land uses changes, dynamics, and their morphological features between the first half of the 20th Century (1956) and the second decade of the present time (2019). The paper was divided into three sections. First, the identification of land uses using orthophotograph and aerial photograph; after that the info was checked with fieldwork. Eleven categories were identified according to the dominant use and land use changes and size of land parcels were taken into consideration. Second, the configuration and the information collected through the type and intensity of change in land uses made it possible to recognise and quantify their distribution and trend between these two dates. Also, the kernel density algorithm available in the Arcgis 10.5 software was used to obtain density and changes in land parcels. Finally, an overview is given of the main role that this agroforestry plays due to the social, ecological, and economic benefits that they provide for allowing sustainable development., This research was funded by Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PID2019- 105711RB-C61 /AEI/10.13039/501100011033. Project: “Multifunctional and territorialized agri-food systems in Spain. Conceptuation and governance. Case studies in Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha (SAMUTER MadClM).

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-28T19:44:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2021-01-01 The intensification of land-use changes in tropical forests during the 20th century, mainly caused by deforestation for agricultural uses, had an overwhelming influence on bird assemblages. However, how these historical anthropogenic changes have impacted the habitat use and diet of tropical birds is poorly known. Stable isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) can be useful in this regard since it provides information not only on the habitat and food resource use but also insights on the dietary niche of species. Here, we aimed to evaluate whether centenary anthropogenic impacts, mainly caused by changes in landscape composition, have affected the resource and habitat use and isotopic niche width of Neotropical birds in a region that comprises two biodiversity hotspots – the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado in southeastern Brazil. We found that the niche width of all bird guilds (frugivore, granivore, insectivore, nectarivore and omnivore) was largely reduced (28–70%) from the 20th century until recently. This niche width reduction was likely associated with historical anthropogenic impacts (e.g. fragmentation, forest loss and change in agricultural practices), which are responsible for the decrease in the availability of habitat and food resources. Moreover, the mean values of δ15N decreased over the years in all bird guilds, which might be attributed to the expansion of agricultural areas and the increase in the use of synthetic nitrogen-based fertilizers. All the analyzed species, even though some of them are diet and habitat generalists, were strongly influenced by centenary anthropogenic actions. Our results show the consequences of human-induced changes in land use on the diet and habitat use of tropical birds that persist in fragmented landscapes, which might compromise their long-term survival and provide useful information to the conservation strategies of bird assemblages in modern landscapes. Laboratório de Ecologia Manejo e Conservação de Fauna Silvestre (LEMaC) Depto de Ciências Florestais Escola Superior de Agricultura ‘Luiz de Queiroz’ Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação de Mamíferos Carnívoros Inst. Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade Inst. Nacional da Mata Atlântica Seção de Aves Museu de Zoologia da Univ. de São Paulo Laboratório de Ecologia Isotópica Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura – Univ. de São Paulo Laboratório de Interações Vertebrados Plantas Depto de Biologia Animal Inst. de Biologia Univ. Estadual de Campinas Inst. de Biociências Depto de Zoologia Univ. Estadual Paulista Inst. de Biociências Depto de Zoologia Univ. Estadual Paulista

International audience; *Questions Does urbanization promote biotic differentiation or homogenization of swamp plant communities? What is the contribution of natives and exotics to swamp response to urbanization?*Location Quebec City, Canada.*Methods Plant communities of 34 swamps located in low, moderately or highly urbanized landscapes were sampled, and species classified into three exclusive groups: native wetland, native upland and exotic plants. Urbanization's influence on the richness of each plant group was assessed using mixed models. Between-site compositional similarities were calculated to identify variations in beta diversity with urbanization level using tests for homogeneity in multivariate dispersion. Beta diversity was further partitioned into species replacement and richness difference for each plant group. Finally, the relationships of ten environmental variables representing soil water saturation and microtopography with plant assemblages were determined by redundancy analysis.*Results Although the richness of exotics increased with urbanization intensity, revealing increasing propagule pressure, it remained six to 27 times lower compared to the richness of natives, which remained stable with urbanization. On the other hand, beta diversity increased with urbanization, with higher dissimilarities in species composition between highly urbanized swamps than between low-urbanized ones. This pattern resulted from high species replacement among natives, while richness difference mainly contributed to exotic beta diversity. Changes in plant assemblages were mostly associated with bryophyte cover and soil drainage and red mottle size, suggesting that hydrological conditions likely acted as a strong driver of swamp plant community response to urbanization.*Conclusions Swamp plant communities experienced biotic differentiation with increasing urbanization. This differentiation pattern likely was linked to the unpredictable effect of urbanization on hydrological regimes, which promoted high native turnover while limiting exotic spread. Long-term monitoring is recommended to ensure that exotics do not outcompete natives through time. Designing sustainable cities requires a greater understanding of the multifaceted effect of urbanization on biodiversity.

Using Linkage Mapper corridor simulation software, which is based on minimum cost distance, we identify ecological corridors and build potential ecological networks in response to recent land cover changes in Xinjiang, China. Based on the analysis of land use/cover changes, the change of landscape pattern index is also calculated. The results show that: (1) During the year 2000&ndash, 2015, cultivated land and built-up areas of Xinjiang showed an increasing trend. Due to urbanization, Xinjiang&rsquo, s landscape connectivity is getting worse, and the landscape is becoming more and more fragmented and isolated. (2) We have constructed 296 ecological corridors, with a total length of 2.71 &times, 104 km and an average corridor length of 90.98 km. A total of 145 ecological source patches and 500 ecological nodes were connected by 296 ecological corridors. (3) The ecological corridor of Xinjiang presents the characteristics of &ldquo, dense-north and sparse-south&rdquo, in space. The areas with dense distribution of ecological corridors mainly include Urumqi, Changji, Turpan, Tacheng, Kizilsu Kirgiz, Karamay, and Yining, and the Taklimakan desert fringe. The sparse distribution is mainly in the whole Taklimakan desert.

The low profitability of agricultural products in a globalized market context is causing the abandonment of less profitable agroforestry systems in Spain. This fact is implicated in a change in land use, increasing the forest area, which could alter the carbon stock in the soil. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine if the abandonment of rural areas and the change in land use has an impact on the soil organic carbon stock in agroforestry systems in southwestern Spain. Through historical aerial photographs and current satellite images, sites were identified where samples of abandoned agricultural soils in the 1950s were collected. They were compared with soil samples from adjacent locations whose agricultural activities continue to this day. After more than 60 years, the abandonment of agricultural activity is associated with a 54% increase in C concentration and 34.8% in soil organic carbon in the upper 30 cm of soil profiles. Therefore, the abandonment of agricultural land has influenced the carbon stock of this territory, becoming a carbon sink.

Neotropical forests are extremely diverse ecosystems, listed within the biological hotspots of our planet. However, species from these forests are threatened by diverse anthropogenic activities. Small dung beetles (Scarabaeidae, Aphodiinae) assemblages were studied within different habitats of the Brazilian Amazon. The monitored habitats encompassed the main gradients of disturbance, from pristine to highly anthropogenic situations, with the aim of supporting their use as indicators of neotropical forests’ ecological status. Additionally, seasonal patterns and bait attractiveness were evaluated in the scope of more effective monitoring studies. Our main results demonstrate that the diversity and distribution of small dung beetles along disturbance gradients, represented by the monitored locations, is associated with particular habitats within the forest landscape. Although spatially and temporally restricted, the results of this study highlight the potential of using small dung beetles, due to their sensitivity and habitat specificity, as ecological indicators for assessing the extent of disturbance in neotropical forest landscapes. We also suggest specific techniques and periods to be used in order to increase captures of small dung beetles within the different habitats.

11 Pags.- 6 Figs.- 4 Tabls. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license., Despite the exponential increase in human population at global scale, some rural areas have experienced a progressive abandonment over the last decades. Under particular socioecological and policy contexts, changes in demography may promote land-use changes and, consequently, alter ecosystem services (ES) supply. However, most studies on this topic have targeted urban population increase, whereas depopulation has been rarely addressed. Here, we examined how shifts in demographic variables (human population, population density, and number of villages) affect provisioning (water supply, food and biomass production) and regulating (soil retention, water and nutrient regulation) ES in Mediterranean rural areas with contrasting environmental, socioeconomic and land-use contexts. When depopulation results in underuse of socio-ecological systems, we expected a decrease of provisioning and an increase of regulating ES, whereas we expected the opposite pattern when it results in land-use intensification. To test this hypothesis, we compared demographic data and ES estimated with Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) linked to land-use changes between the 1950s and 2000s in three rural areas of Aragón (NE Spain). Generalized Additive Mixed Models and Linear Mixed-Effect Models were used to analyze demographic trends, ES changes and the relationship between them. We found severe depopulation (−42% inhabitants) and associated land-use changes in the three areas, which was particularly evident in isolated mountainous zones (−63% inhabitants). Depopulation trends significantly affected land use and, consequently, all of the ES evaluated. In mountainous depopulated areas, land abandonment and rewilding resulted in the increase in water regulation (>1000%) and soil retention (>400%). In contrast, agriculture was intensified in more fertile and easy-to-access lowland areas, boosting the food production service (>600%). Accordingly, the interactions among depopulation, crop production and regulating ES should be considered in the management schemes and policies targeting rural areas for a balanced and sustainable supply of ES in the long term., This study, which is part of the Ecological Restoration Research Group (E40-17R) work, was funded by Aragón Government, Dpt. Innovation, Research and University and the European Regional Development Fund. DB was funded by “PTI ECOBIODIV” through the "Vicepresidencia Adjunta de Áreas Científico-Técnicas (VAACT-CSIC) and “Juan de la Cierva” research contract (Spanish MINECO FJCI-2016-29856) at Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC, Spain). CC was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport under FPU contract (FPU14/01682). BG was supported by a research fellowship funded by the Spanish Program of R+D+I (RyC2018-025160-I). JJJ acknowledges the support of ARAID foundation. FP was funded by “Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidad-Fondo Social Europeo de Andalucía 2014-2020”. Finally, we thank the AMUSE project funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Research Challenge projects: CGL2014-53017 C2-1-R) for ecological data.

Land use changes often lead to soil erosion, land degradation, and environmental deterioration. However, little is known about just how much humans accelerate erosion compared to natural background rates in non-agricultural settings, despite its importance to knowing the magnitude of soil degradation. The lack of understanding of anthropogenic acceleration is especially true for arid regions. Thus, we used 10Be catchment averaged denudation rates (CADRs) to obtain natural rates of soil erosion in and around the Phoenix metropolitan region, Arizona, United States. We then measured the acceleration of soil erosion by grazing, wildfire, and urban construction by comparing CADRs to erosion rates for the same watersheds, finding that: (i) grazing sometimes can increase sediment yields by up to 2.3–2.6x, (ii) human-set wildfires increased sediment yields by up to 9.7–10.4x, (iii) after some post-fire vegetation recovered, sediment yield was then up to 4.2–4.5x the background yield, (iv) construction increased sediment yields by up to 5.0–5.6x, and (v) the sealing of urban surfaces led to one-tenth to one-half of the background sediment yields. The acceleration of erosion at the urban–rural interface in arid lands highlights the need for sustainable management of arid-region soils.

Landscape changes in the Carpathians are related to centuries of human activity, which can be regarded as the key component of global change. Changes in mountainous regions are mainly caused by agriculture, urbanization, forest cutting for production and land abandonment. This paper aimed to assess the impact of natural and historical-cultural factors on forest ecosystem transformations occurred in the period 1848-2014 in two small areas (about 45 km2) on the Beskid Mountains (southern Poland). The comparison of historical and current maps, along with the application of GIS and field verification, allowed a full interpretation of changes in land use in the studied areas. A decrease of 58.0% in non-forest areas was observed in the considered period, while the forested area grew systematically by 28.3% and the forest-field boundary lowered in altitude. Current forest ecosystems are distributed as a mosaic and mainly consist of Dentario glandulosae-Fagetum, Luzulo nemorosae-Fagetum, Abieti-Piceetum montanum, with logged sites taking up large areas. Forest ecosystems include valuable semi-natural meadows such as Gladiolo-Agrostietum, Hieracio-Nardetum, Arrhenatheretum medioeuropaeum, Cirsietum rivularis or Juncetum effusi, whose extension is reducing and fragmentation increasing due to the recolonization of forest tree species after abandonment. We concluded that trends in land use in the Carpathians were mainly determined by non-environmental factors related to the development of farming-pasturing and forest management. The applied approach could be extended to other regions in the Carpathians which were subject to analogous historical-cultural influences. Moreover, our results allow for a comparison with other regions which are subject to similar impacts of natural processes, but to different impact of historical and cultural processes.

Bioclimatic transition zones are supposed to encompass sensitive areas to global change effects on forest ecosystems. In this study, we attempt to detect shifts in the ranges of contrasting Iberian tree species in the submediterranean transition zone in Navarra, northern Spain. These shifts are analysed in the context of a significant increase in temperature over recent decades along with moderate land use changes. Data from national forest inventories (1971 and 2010) are compared through universal kriging (UK) and block kriging models to assess the shifts in the ranges of Quercus subpyrenaica, Quercus ilex, Pinus sylvestris and Fagus sylvatica. UK results predicted an increase in the presence probability of the four target species for the whole Navarra region. However, in the submediterranean zone, the presence probability of Q. subpyrenaica, P. sylvestris and F. sylvatica shows a shrinking trend, whereas Q. ilex is expanding its range, supporting a previous hypothesis of a “mediterranization” of this bioclimatic transition region. These trends are concomitant with recent elevational shift patterns towards higher elevations in the case of Q. subpyrenaica, P. sylvestris and F. sylvatica in the transition zone. Moreover, the expected increase in species richness as a consequence of geographical shifts and vegetation recovery is identified. The moderate human influence detected in the study area confirms the major role of climate warming as driver of species range shifts over the period. The results of this study highlight the suitability of bioclimatic transition zones for monitoring the effects of global change on natural ecosystems, providing evidences of the complex mechanisms affecting the distribution of forests. © 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Mountain areas often hold special species communities, and they are high on the list of conservation concern. Global warming and changes in human land use, such as grazing pressure and afforestation, have been suggested to be major threats for biodiversity in the mountain areas, affecting species abundance and causing distribution shifts towards mountaintops. Population shifts towards poles and mountaintops have been documented in several areas, indicating that climate change is one of the key drivers of species' distribution changes. Despite the high conservation concern, relatively little is known about the population trends of species in mountain areas due to low accessibility and difficult working conditions. Thanks to the recent improvement of bird monitoring schemes around Europe, we can here report a first account of population trends of 44 bird species from four major European mountain regions: Fennoscandia, UK upland, south-western (Iberia) and south-central mountains (Alps), covering 12 countries. Overall, the mountain bird species declined significantly (-7%) during 2002-2014, which is similar to the declining rate in common birds in Europe during the same period. Mountain specialists showed a significant -10% decline in population numbers. The slope for mountain generalists was also negative, but not significantly so. The slopes of specialists and generalists did not differ from each other. Fennoscandian and Iberian populations were on average declining, while in United Kingdom and Alps, trends were nonsignificant. Temperature change or migratory behaviour was not significantly associated with regional population trends of species. Alpine habitats are highly vulnerable to climate change, and this is certainly one of the main drivers of mountain bird population trends. However, observed declines can also be partly linked with local land use practices. More efforts should be undertaken to identify the causes of decline and to increase conservation efforts for these populations.

Mainland Southeast Asia (MSA) has seen sweeping upland land use changes in the past decades, with transition from primarily subsistence shifting cultivation to annual commodity cropping. This transition holds implications for local upland communities and ecosystems. Due to its particular political regime, Myanmar is at the tail of this development. However, with Myanmar&rsquo, s official strategy of agricultural commercialization and intensification, recent liberalization of the national economy, and influx of multinational agricultural companies, the effects on upland land transitions could come fast. We analyze the current state of upland land use in Myanmar in a socio-economic and political context, identify the dynamics in three indicator commodity crops (maize, cassava, and rubber), and discuss the state driven economic, tenurial and policy reforms that have occurred in upland areas of mainland Southeast Asian countries in past decades. We draw on these insights to contextualize our study and hypothesize about possible transition pathways for Myanmar. The transition to annual commodity cropping is generally driven by a range of socio-economic and technical factors. We find that land use dynamics for the three indicator crops are associated with market demand and thus the opening of national Southeast-Asian economies, research and development of locally suitable high yielding varieties (HYVs), and subsidies for the promotion of seeds and inputs. In contrast, promotion of HYVs in marginal areas and without adequate agricultural extension services may results in agricultural contraction and yield dis-intensification. The environmental impacts of the transition depend on the transition pathway, e.g., through large-scale plantation projects or smallholder initiatives. The agricultural development in upland MSA follows a clear diffusion pattern with transition occurring first in Thailand, spreading to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. While these countries point to prospects for Myanmar, we hypothesize that changes will come slow due to Myanmar&rsquo, s sparse rural infrastructure, with uncertainty about tenure, in particular in areas still troubled by armed conflicts, and unwillingness of international investors to approach Myanmar given the recent setbacks to the democratization process.

Ground Beetles (Carabidae) have been suggested to be used as indicators of ecological status under the effects of anthropogenic land use and land cover changes in highly biodiverse regions such as the Neotropics. In this study Ground Beetles' assemblages from a region in the Brazilian Amazon were investigated for evaluating their applicability as disturbance indicators. Differences in assemblages between ecosystems, discriminated by complimentary methodologies, demonstrate a sensitive reaction from the most pristine forests to increasingly disturbed systems. Besides capturing the influence of different prevailing conditions between ecosystems, Ground Beetles are easy to communicate and to link with the other components of the system, being effortless and routinely measurable using standard methodologies. This study represents a step forward in using Ground Beetles for the purposes of planning, management and public reporting on the ecological status of Neotropical ecosystems. Additionally, the methods depicted could support projections for trends of relevant ecosystem attributes under realistic social-ecological change scenarios, which can be used to guide effective conservation planning.

This paper deals with the new classification of land use changes. We chose Nitra town in Slovakia as a model area. We examined changes of land use for the period 2003-2013. The main result of this work is a table for types of land use changes and a map that shows the location of these changes in Nitra town. Nitra is constantly expanding its area and it is also significantly changing within its borders. Agriculturally used surroundings of the town are being transformed into build-up areas and industrial parks. This transformation causes a loss of agricultural land and vegetation, in general. Agriculture in this region has been gradually declining and disappearing in the past years. On the other side, urbanisation, technicisation and industrialisation are highly supported

Species response to land-use changes are usually assessed by investigating factors affecting distribution, with a single snapshot in time. However, several processes can lead to a same pattern. Focusing on observed, short-term patterns limits our ability to make inferences about ecological processes and responses to environmental change over time. In this study, we assessed changes in occupancy of two primate species in southeastern Brazil, following a major habitat loss due to implementation of a hydroelectric dam. Occupancy was assessed before dam construction and 11 years after, while explicitly accounting for imperfect detection. We assessed the effect of forest patch size and isolation on occupancy and rates of extinction and colonization, driven by landscape modification. Then we calculated occupancy under metapopulation equilibrium and expected time-lags resulting from non-equilibrium. We compared two primate species inhabiting forest patches, the black penciled marmoset Callithrix penicilatta and the black-fronted titi monkey Callicebus nigrifrons , with markedly different ecological characteristics. Those differences may explain why occupancy dynamics were driven by distinct elements. A fast response to habitat changes was observed only for marmoset, an opportunistic species. However, non-equilibrium states and the possibility of time-lag effects were observed for titi monkey, a species dependent on forest habitat. Our analyses support the need to establish long term monitoring and assess system vital rates over time. A single snapshot in time may lead to erroneous interpretations of a species response to habitat alteration.

Habitat loss and degradation are frequently associated with negative effects on biodiversity in natural and semi-natural landscapes. Innovative spatio-temporal modelling tools may be valuable to support the design and optimization of conservation strategies for endangered species in a context of changes in land use and land cover (LULC). The Red-billed Chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) is a vulnerable corvid that exhibits high levels of population fragmentation and decline trends, due to its dependence on open habitats shaped by traditional agriculture and pastoralism. Here, we apply a spatially-explicit framework based on the stochastic dynamic methodology (StDM) principles to capture the trends of relevant population foraging ground attributes, assumed as proxies of the habitat suitability for two endangered Portuguese chough populations. StDM simulations were produced in order to capture the densities and distribution patterns of foraging flocking choughs in response to the complexity and dynamics of some realistic abandonment LULC scenarios expected to occur in the near future. Our modelling outputs reflect satisfactorily the seasonality of these patterns and suggest that the maintenance of traditional agriculture/pastoralism practices in at least 75% of the actual favourable areas is mandatory to ensure the foraging habitat suitability for choughs, evidencing the species high vulnerability in their last refuges in Portugal. This modelling approach represents a step forward in evaluating the consequences of LULC changes on endangered birds, which can be used in the future to guide effective conservation planning in the scope of habitat suitability management.

Although islands are model systems for investigating assembly of biological communities, long-term changes in archipelago communities are not well understood because of the lack of reliable data. By using a vast amount of floristic data we assembled a dataset of the plant species occurring on 16 islands of the Tuscan Archipelago, Italy, across two periods, 1830–1950 and 1951–2015. We collected 10,892 occurrence records for 1,831 species. We found major changes in the island plant assemblages between the two periods, with native flora significantly decreasing (−10.7%) and alien flora doubling (+132.1%) in richness. The species–area relationships demonstrated the scale-dependence of the observed changes for native and alien species. The observed floristic changes were dependent on island area, with smaller islands displaying high variability in richness and compositional changes and larger islands having more stable species assemblages. The richness of species associated with open landscapes, that had been maintained for centuries by traditional practices, markedly reduced while the number of woody species, associated with afforestation processes and invasion by alien woody plants, significantly incresed. These results demonstrate the great power of floristic studies, often available in grey literature, for understanding long-term biotic changes in insular ecosystems.

Amongst human practices, agricultural surface-water management systems represent some of the largest integrated engineering works that shaped floodplains during history, directly or indirectly affecting the landscape. As a result of changes in agricultural practices and land use, many drainage networks have changed producing a greater exposure to flooding with a broad range of impacts on society, also because of climate inputs coupling with the human drivers. This research focuses on three main questions: which kind of land use changes related to the agricultural practices have been observed in the most recent years (~30 years)? How does the influence on the watershed response to land use and land cover changes depend on the rainfall event characteristics and soil conditions, and what is their related significance? The investigation presented in this work includes modelling the water infiltration due to the soil properties and analysing the distributed water storage offered by the agricultural drainage system in a study area in Veneto (north-eastern Italy). The results show that economic changes control the development of agro-industrial landscapes, with effects on the hydrological response. Key elements that can enhance or reduce differences are the antecedent soil conditions and the climate characteristics. Criticalities should be expected for intense and irregular rainfall events, and for events that recurrently happen. Agricultural areas might be perceived to be of low priority when it comes to public funding of flood protection, compared to the priority given to urban ones. These outcomes highlight the importance of understanding how agricultural practices can be the driver of or can be used to avoid, or at least mitigate, flooding. The proposed methods can be valuable tools in evaluating the costs and benefits of the management of water in agriculture to inform better policy decision-making.