Landscape-scale biodiversity monitoring embedded within Indigenous governance and management remain relatively uncommon despite the importance of Indigenous managed lands to biodiversity conservation. In response to Traditional Custodian concerns about declines in biocultural diversity Bininj Nawarddeken established an Indigenous-governed monitoring program across the Warddeken Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) in northern Australia. The monitoring program sought to establish a reference baseline of threatened and culturally significant mammals within the Warddeken IPA and examine relationships between species occurrence, habitat characteristics and potential threats to inform ongoing management and monitoring. Camera-trap surveys were conducted at 120 sites between 2017–2018 to assess the influence of fire history, introduced large feral herbivores, feral cats, and fine-scale habitat features on the occurrence of native mammals. Several woodland mammals had low naïve occupancy or were not detected, consistent with regional evidence of mammal declines and Bininj Nawarddeken observations of long-term changes on Country. Feral cats were predicted to occur across 64% of sites and were more likely to occupy areas where distance to unburnt vegetation was greater. These associations identify extensive fire and predation pressure by the feral cat are priorities for future conservation management. The program establishes a repeatable baseline against which population trajectories and management impact can be evaluated over time, with ecological evidence interpreted through Bininj Nawarddeken knowledge and governance to inform ongoing biocultural stewardship of Country.
Trematodes are diverse and abundant parasites that can influence ecosystem functioning through food-web dynamics, yet they remain underrepresented in spatial conservation planning. We integrated publicly available mitochondrial sequence data and distributional information for trematodes and their vertebrate hosts (fishes, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals) to evaluate whether parasite-associated molecular information changes conservation prioritization in Mexico. Nucleotide diversity (π) and haplotype diversity (Hd) were estimated at the family × grid-cell level, these were used as descriptors of documented mitochondrial sequence variation. Using Marxan, we evaluated four scenarios: (1) parasite–host π, (2) parasite–host Hd, (3) host-only π and Hd, and (4) integrated parasite–host π and Hd, and assessed their spatial congruence with the Protected Natural Areas (PNA) network. Southeastern Mexico contained many of the selected planning units across scenarios, whereas the integrated scenario additionally identified areas in northwestern and central Mexico. Spatial similarity between the host-only and integrated scenarios was low (Jaccard index = 0.323), showing that parasite inclusion altered the prioritization configuration. Approximately 80.7% of planning units selected under the integrated scenario occurred outside the current PNA network. Given the uneven taxonomic and geographic coverage of public sequence databases; these results represent an exploratory spatial assessment of documented parasite–host mitochondrial variation rather than population-level genetic diversity. Overall, parasite information provided complementary spatial information and revealed priorities not recovered from host data alone.
Iran is one of the world’s floristically richest countries, hosting a high diversity of endemic plant species whose distribution is increasingly affected by climate change and anthropogenic pressures, including overgrazing, deforestation, land-use change, and resource overexploitation. We conducted a systematic review (2000–2025) of studies indexed in major databases to synthesize current knowledge on the distribution, conservation challenges, and climate–anthropogenic pressures affecting Iran’s endemic plant species. Article selection followed PRISMA guidelines, resulting in 23 eligible studies for final analysis. The reviewed studies were synthesized based on phytogeographical and ecological classifications commonly used to describe Iran’s major biogeographic regions. The results highlight climate change, reduced forest cover, overexploitation of plant resources, habitat degradation, and land-use change as the most significant threats to the distribution of endemic plants. At the same time, important conservation opportunities emerge, including the identification of priority conservation areas and climate refugia, the application of geospatial tools such as GIS and spatial modeling, and the adoption of sustainable vegetation and resource management practices. Effective conservation of Iran’s endemic flora requires prioritization of vulnerable regions, sustainable use of medicinal plants, and the development of integrated, multi-sectoral policies involving sectors such as agriculture, forestry, tourism, and land-use planning. The establishment of a national conservation roadmap is essential to ensure the long-term protection and sustainable management of Iran’s endemic plant diversity under future environmental change.
We elaborated a hierarchical list of conservation priority flora in Sierra de las Nieves National Park (SNNP), a protected natural area situated in the Baetic System (Andalusia, Spain). To this end, we first compiled a list by filtering the taxa present in the SNNP, considering only those taxa that were, simultaneously, included in the Andalusian Red List (or in subsequent assessments) and that presented a biogeographical significance (i.e., Andalusian endemics and relict taxa). The resulting list was ranked according to the following criteria: species abundance within the SNNP, biogeographical rarity, and habitat vulnerability. Our results reveal that more than 10% of the flora harbouring the SNNP was included on the list of priority flora and, approximately, 5% of overall flora ranked as high conservation priority (e.g., the relict fern Dryopteris filix-mas (L.) Schott, and the endemic of the SNNP Astragalus nevadensis Boiss. subsp. andres-molinae (B.Díez & Asensi) Rivas Mart., B.Díez & Asensi). The distribution of these taxa enabled us to identify specific areas and habitats that harbour a remarkable set of conservation-relevant taxa, thereby providing a floristic key map for the conservation and management of this protected natural area. Our study highlights that implementation of a hierarchical framework provides an effective approach for identifying conservation priorities in species-rich Mediterranean protected areas with the limitations of using single-criterion approaches by integrating three complementary criteria with equal weighting.
