Agricultural sustainability in closed endorheic basins is constrained by periodic water scarcity, hydrological isolation, and the cumulative effects of intensive land use. The Cuauhtémoc region of northern Mexico hosts long-established Mennonite farming communities whose mechanized and irrigation-dependent agriculture constitutes an important component of the regional economy and resource-use system. This study examined the prevalence, diversity, and drivers of sustainable agricultural practices among 95 Mennonite farmers in the Bustillos Lagoon region. Thirteen practices spanning soil and residue management, water conservation, biological soil-fertility management, and agrochemical stewardship were assessed, while a conservation-practice breadth indicator quantified the number of ten resource-management practices used by individual farmers. Among 92 farmers with complete practice data, conservation-practice breadth ranged from 2 to 8 practices (mean = 3.76 ± 1.06). Residue incorporation (98.9
Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) has been widely promoted as a market-based mechanism in which conservation is achieved through conditional, monetary transactions between service providers and beneficiaries. However, this framing often overlooks the relational, cultural, and moral dimensions through which many Indigenous communities engage with ecosystems. This paper examines an alternative understanding of “payment” among the Batak people in Tapanuli, Indonesia. Drawing on qualitative methods, including participant observation, oral histories, in-depth interviews and group discussions, we analyse how governance arrangements such as the Jago Bondar system and Parpatihan organize contributions that sustain human–nature relationships beyond market-based exchange. We develop the concept of relational payment to describe contributions embedded in socially recognized institutional and normative systems, tied to rights of access, participation, or belonging, and necessary for the reproduction of ecosystem governance over time. In this context, contributions in rice, benzoin resin, labor, and ritual practice function not as market transactions or generalized reciprocity, but as structured obligations that sustain both social relations and ecological systems. By situating these findings within debates on ecosystem services and value pluralism, the paper complicates the universality of transaction-based PES frameworks and highlights the limits of approaches that conceptualize conservation primarily through market transactions. Rather than extending PES, we argue for a reconsideration of what constitutes “payment” in contexts where value is produced through enduring social–ecological relationships.
Understanding how grassland productivity responds to increasing aridity is critical under climate change, yet whether consistent thresholds exist and how underlying mechanisms shift remain unclear. Here, we conducted a global meta-analysis to examine the response of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) to the aridity index (AI) and the role of plant functional traits. ANPP showed a significant nonlinear relationship with AI, with a threshold at AI ≈ 0.51. Below this threshold, ANPP increased strongly with AI, whereas this relationship weakened above it. This threshold coincided with a shift in trait–productivity relationships. Before the threshold, ANPP was positively associated with traits linked to resource acquisition and conservation (LCN and SLA). After the threshold, key traits (LCN and SRL) showed reduced or reversed effects, indicating a reorganization of functional controls. Structural equation modeling further showed that the relative importance of direct climatic and trait-mediated pathways differed across the threshold. These results identify a distinct aridity threshold associated with changes in grassland productivity responses and their functional controls, emphasizing the importance of incorporating nonlinear climatic responses and trait-mediated pathways into predictions under future climate change.
Wind energy offers cleaner benefits over fossil fuels. However, wind farms also pose complex ecological consequences, including risk to birds. We leveraged a dataset of bird fatalities collected over 15 years of carcass searches at eight wind farms in southern Mexico, to evaluate three aspects of bird collisions with wind turbines. First, we examined the taxonomic and spatiotemporal patterns of bird collisions; then we evaluated how fatalities relate to residency status and other species classifications; finally, we explored the relationship of fatalities with environmental and spatial factors. We recorded 1527 bird carcasses of 123 species. Pigeons and doves accounted for nearly 40
Biodiversity across Africa faces escalating threats from agricultural expansion, urbanisation, resource overexploitation, and pollution, particularly at the margins of protected areas (PAs). These land‑use changes intensify interactions between people and wildlife by compressing habitats, increasing competition for space and resources, and disrupting ecological processes, thereby exacerbating human–wildlife conflict and threatening conservation outcomes. In this context, conservation practitioners play an important role in managing these conflicts by implementing conservation management interventions. A total of 49 conservation practitioners across KwaZulu‑Natal, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga in South Africa were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire to document the implementation of key conservation measures and to examine their association with practitioner-reported poaching occurrence. Most reserves implemented perimeter fencing and shared boundaries with adjacent local communities. Community engagement and environmental education programmes were also widely reported. The proportion of practitioners reporting poaching was highest in KwaZulu‑Natal (84.2
