Monitoring biodiversity is crucial for comprehending the status and distribution of species, thereby aiding in the management and conservation of protected areas. Mal & aacute; Fatra National Park, renowned in Slovakia for its natural richness and environmental diversity, has undergone biodiversity monitoring for decades, with data consolidated in the Comprehensive Information and Monitoring System. This study assesses mapping efforts across various taxonomic groups within the park and highlights characteristics of adequately mapped groups. It presents heat maps depicting biodiversity hotspots generated through QGIS, analysing 48,995 observations and 1,558 mapped plant and animal species by the end of 2022. Findings indicate that plants represent the most mapped organism group, while animals record the highest number of observations. Mapping levels vary significantly across taxonomic groups, with Tracheophyta, Aves and Mammalia relatively well-mapped, contrasting with poorly mapped groups such as Bryophyta and Invertebrata. Geographically, Rozsutec and Such & yacute; Nature Reserves are the best-mapped areas, with Rozsutec identified as a significant hotspot. These results underscore the necessity for intensified mapping efforts to enhance understanding of the area's biodiversity and species distribution.
Protected Natural Areas (PNAs) play a crucial role in driving rural and local development within their regions. Certain PNAs feature iconic mountain peaks that serve as major attractions for mountaineering tourism. While economic impact stands as a fundamental component within the triad of sustainable tourism, and mountaineering significantly propels economic growth in destination areas, a noteworthy gap exists in the available data concerning the impact and determinants of spending within this context. This study, conducted among mountaineering visitors in PNAs, aims to analyse the distribution of spending overall and by mountain peak and to identify the determinants influencing direct spending. The research involved a sample of 562 mountaineers who ascended five Spanish peaks during the summer of 2020. The investigation revealed an average expenditure of approximately & euro;10.62 per mountaineer. Logistics regression identified a total of six variables influencing spending. Remarkably, the research revealed overcrowding as a substantial predictor of mountaineering expenditure; specifically, the perception of overcrowding correlated with decreased spending. Understanding how visitors perceive and react to crowded environments is crucial for devising strategies that foster local economies and protect the natural environment of these destinations. The study's findings are relevant to mountaineering economic management in PNAs.
The second edition of the Research Symposium SNP+, organized on the occasion multidimensional phenomenon. Far from being a static physical structure, a landscape embodies ecological, cultural, historical, perceptual, and political dynamics. The symposium contributions highlighted ambiguities in landscape perception, the potential of landscape in mediating tensions between nature and society, and showcased a variety of approaches for investigation and research. This article synthesizes key insights from the symposium, focusing on four topics: (1) landscape as a multidimensional experience, (2) contested use of landscape, (3) potential for up-scaling, and (4) methodological diversity in landscape research. Long-term datasets from the SNP underscore the critical importance of historical perspectives for understanding landscape evolution driven by different factors, from climate change to biodiversity loss. Ultimately, the symposium emphasized that research not only generates knowledge but also enables landscapes to act as bridges between disciplines, practices, and societies.
Many peripherally located Alpine regions have faced decades of depopulation and infrastructure decline. In response, protected areas (PAs) such as biosphere reserves and regional nature parks are increasingly seen as instruments to integrate nature conservation and regional development. Yet public acceptance remains limited due to concerns over potential economic restrictions. This study analyses the structural conditions shaping the actions of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Mont Viso in the Cottian Alps, framing PAs as strategic corporate actors by triangulating structuration theory and actor-centred institutionalism. It conceptualizes territorial agency as the capacity of PAs to initiate and sustain structural transformation. Findings show that such an agency critically depends on access to legal authority and financial resources.
Species inventories are fundamental to understanding biodiversity and guiding conservation efforts. This study presents the first comprehensive butterfly (Papilionoidea) checklist for the Mont Avic-Mont Emilius Massif (Northwest Italy), a Special Protected Area within the Natura 2000 network. The area includes four additional Special Areas of Conservation and the Mont Avic Natural Park. Data collected between 2019 and 2024 confirmed 140 taxa of butterflies out of 146 total for the area, these last representing 50.3% of the Italian fauna. The butterfly community includes: i) two new species for the Aosta Valley region (Apatura ilia and Neptis rivularis); ii) 17 newly recorded taxa for the study area; iii) four species of conservation concern listed in the European Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC (Phengaris arion, Parnassius apollo, Euphydryas aurinia, Zerynthia polyxena); iv) a significant proportion of species endemic to the mountains of Southern Europe (11.6%), particularly within the genus Erebia (15 species). Additionally, we provide distributional, ecological or conservation insights for 28 taxa of particular interest.
Managing multiple interests in landscape and land use management is an element critical to sustainable economic and social development. Structuring and visualizing conflicting interests in a such a way as to drive the constructive engagement of multiple stakeholders is, however, a difficult task. With the aim of addressing this challenge, an initial concept on how to benchmark different landscape management models based on their ability to minimize trade-offs was presented in 2020 at the example. During 2021-2022 the author further developed the methodology and framework to assess trade-offs, updating and complementing the UBE characterization with new data and insights. This paper describes the results and conclusions of this deep dive work. The UBE exercise indicated that since its creation there has been a simultaneous improvement of various social, economic and environmental aspects at the biosphere region, with a visible minimization of trade-offs and a fair distribution of the value created. It remains open how many of these positive developments can exclusively be attributed to the UBE model. Comparisons with similar areas are therefore key to allowing a better interpretation of mechanisms and achievements and this paper is an invitation to other parks to participate in a similar exercise.
High Andean wetlands play a strategic role in water provision, climate regulation and biodiversity conservation. Located in the Valparaiso Region of the Central Andes of Chile, Parque Andino Juncal encompasses part of a hydrological network composed of rivers, ravines, glaciers, high Andean peatlands (vegas) and springs. Established in 2004 as a privately led conservation initiative open to the public, the park was designated a RAMSAR site in 2010. Since 2017, it has gained greater visibility as a sustainable tourism project, drawing visitors primarily from the Valparaiso Region, but also from other parts of Chile and abroad. This initiative integrates tourism with passive restoration practices. Considering the alarming vulnerability of the vegas due to climate change-particularly glacial melt and prolonged drought periods-it is essential to consider both the climatic and the anthropogenic factors threatening these ecosystems to develop climate adaptation and resilience strategies. Parque Andino Juncal offers one such alternative. However, its development may be hindered by the installation of mining projects in the area. In this context, our objective is to highlight the importance of maintaining private protected areas such as the one presented here, as they serve as strategic spaces for monitoring and mitigating the effects of climate change on fragile and vital ecosystems.
Soil is crucial for human survival and sustainable development. However, research on large-scale soil quality assessment and its variability mechanism remains largely unexplored. This study introduces a novel Property-Function-Quality (PFQ) framework to evaluate soil functions and quality, and an explainable deep learning approach, the Convolutional Neural Network-based Integrated Gradients (CNN-IG) model, to decipher the spatial variation of soil quality by quantifying the individual and interactive effects of driving factors. Applied across China, the PFQ and CNN-IG approaches revealed that: (1) the Soil Quality Index (SQI) ranged from 0.133 to 0.890 across the country, with higher values in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and lower values in the northern windy and sandy regions; (2) the CNN model outperformed traditional Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models in soil functions and SQI simulations, with determination coefficients (R2) 5.4–21.3
Converting the invasive species Spartina alterniflora into sulfur-modified biochar (SBC) offers a dual solution for managing biological invasions and remediating contaminated wetlands. This study investigated the efficacy and underlying mechanisms of SBC in remediating Cd-contaminated sediments and promoting native plant growth. Mechanistically, sulfur modification introduced functional groups that significantly enhanced Cd adsorption and immobilization compared to unmodified biochar. In pot experiments, SBC application raised sediment pH and facilitated the transformation of Cd from the bioavailable acid-soluble fraction (decreased from 55.5 to 46.9
Abstract Background Recent decades brought persistent warming and declining precipitation to the North Patagonian Andes, raising concerns about the capacity of temperate mountain forests to withstand climate stress at the semiarid forest–steppe ecotone. We assess whether current growth declines in Austrocedrus chilensis are unprecedented in a late Holocene context and whether intensified drought has contributed to a weakening of the relationship between climate and tree growth. Methods Increment cores from living trees were combined with subfossil cross-sections to develop cross-dated, millennial-length ring-width chronologies at three ecotonal sites in northern Patagonia. Site chronologies were standardized using multiple detrending approaches and integrated into a regional chronology. Recent growth trends were evaluated against long-term variability using chronology comparisons, climate–growth regression models, observed-minus-predicted residual analyses, and drought legacy approaches. Results Sustained growing-season warming since mid-1970s, together with more frequent severe droughts after 1997, has induced persistent multi-year moisture deficits since 2009. Across all sites, recent decades show a pronounced, persistent decline in A. chilensis growth that remains evident after accounting for age-related trends and differences in intrinsic growth rates among trees. Millennial records were integrated into a composite regional chronology extending back to CE 178, with a robust common signal from CE 520 onward. For 1917–2022, warm-season temperature and annual precipitation explain 42% of tree-growth variance, increasing to 46% when long-memory hydroclimatic variables capturing multi-year moisture deficits are included. Consistently, model performance deteriorates from the mid-1990s onward, overestimating observed growth and suggesting a loss of stationarity in climate–growth relationships. Residual analyses further show that growth reductions intensify under higher antecedent composite stress and persist for several years after droughts, consistent with drought legacy effects. Conclusions Our results reveal an unprecedented, persistent low-growth regime in ecotonal A. chilensis forests over the past two to three decades. This decline falls outside the range of natural variability observed in the millennial-length records and is not captured by long-term climate–growth models, pointing to a weakening of the relationship between climate and radial growth under ongoing warming and recurrent drought. These findings identify antecedent stress and drought legacy effects as key drivers of current forest performance in Patagonian forest–steppe ecotone.
Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition has the potential to affect forest ecosystem carbon (C) storage and sequestration both positively and negatively. Effects on aboveground biomass increment seem to be largely positive, but the impact of elevated N inputs on soil microbial systems in forests is often negative, reducing microbial biomass and soil respiration rates. Twenty-four years of experimental N deposition at a rate of 3 g N m−2 y−1 broadly suppressed soil microorganisms across four northern hardwood forest sites. To assess responses to reductions in chronic N inputs, soil and sugar maple root samples from the study sites were collected and examined for phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) and neutral lipid fatty acid (NLFA) indicators of microbial groups at one- and three-years after the cessation of the N deposition treatment, and tree growth was measured annually for six years after treatments stopped. In the first year post-treatment, all soil and root microbial indicators remained suppressed, but by three years post-cessation of N additions, indicators for soil fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) showed much less suppression, with several bacterial groups and measures of the total microbial community showing full recovery. By year three, significant differences also no longer existed between control and previously N-amended plots for PLFA and NLFA biomarkers indicative of AMF in tree fine roots. During active N loading, trees receiving the N deposition treatment increased their annual aboveground growth increment, in concert with reduced carbon allocation to AMF, but this growth enhancement faded during the six years after cessation of N additions. Indicators of suppressed microbial community abundance showed gradual recovery from one to three years after cessation of long-term experimental N loading. This recovery indicates the potential for microbially-mediated ecosystem C sequestration responses to high anthropogenic N deposition, such as enhanced tree growth, reduced decomposition rates, and increased surface soil carbon content, to also fade when N inputs are reduced.
Extreme ice storms (EIS) can severely disrupt forest productivity and stability, yet their differential impacts across forest types remain poorly understood, particularly in subtropical regions. Here, we assessed changes in gross primary productivity (GPP), resistance (Rt), and resilience (Rs) across evergreen needle-leaved forest (ENF), evergreen broad-leaved forest (EBF), deciduous broad-leaved forest (DBF), and mixed forest (MF) in mid-to-north subtropical China following two unexpected EIS events in early 2008 and 2018. Random Forest and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) were used to identify key drivers and disentangle their underlying causal pathways. Except for DBF, both EIS events led to declines in forest GPP, with the stronger 2008 event exerting a more pronounced suppressive effect. Forest stability exhibited a clear Rt–Rs trade-off across forest types—the 2008 event was characterized by lower Rt but higher Rs, whereas the opposite pattern was observed in 2018. Among forest types, DBF showed the highest stability, while EBF exhibited the lowest. Freezing duration had contrasting effects between the two events: prolonged freezing duration significantly reduced Rt and Rs in 2008, but enhanced both in 2018. Moreover, freezing intensity, particularly minimum-temperature stress and cumulative precipitation, was the foremost determinant of forest stability, whereas geographical factors acted mainly indirectly through climate interannual variability, freezing intensity, and phenology. Furthermore, biological attributes made relatively modest overall contributions but provided important insights into forest-type-specific stability mechanisms. Specifically, phenology dominated DBF stability, whereas forest structure acted primarily through leaf area index in DBF and MF and through stand age in ENF and EBF. Subtropical forest responses to EIS are highly heterogeneous and jointly controlled by disturbance intensity, forest composition, and spatial environmental context. By revealing the mechanisms underlying forest-type-specific stability responses to EIS, this study provides useful insights for differentiated risk-resilience management aimed at enhancing ecosystem stability and sustainable development.
