Context: Reversing the global biodiversity crisis requires not only conservation and management of species, but the habitats in which they live. While there is a long history of biodiversity recording by volunteers, at least in Europe, information on habitats is less frequently recorded. Habitat data is needed to map and monitor habitat extent and condition; to train and validate earth observation (EO) data; and to explain biodiversity change. The complexity of habitat classifications means that it is challenging to record habitat well, but citizen science provides diverse opportunities to improve the range and scale of habitat recording.
Objectives/methods: We reviewed how citizen science can complement surveys by professionals and EO for habitat recording, and discuss its opportunities and challenges. We summarised a survey of 458 volunteer biodiversity recorders asked about their interest in and barriers to recording habitat. From this we developed a framework of questions to design citizen science that is appropriate and effective for habitat recording.
Results/conclusions: We found that existing biodiversity recorders were willing to consider habitat recording, but many lacked confidence and some lacked motivation. Our framework of six questions addresses the interplay between volunteer motivation and confidence, and data accuracy. It highlighted design considerations such as clarity of purpose, cost to volunteers, protocol complexity and scale of sampling. This impacts the training and support required by volunteers. Building this understanding into citizen science design enables us to develop activities that meet the needs for habitat data for monitoring, EO validation and research.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02155-4.
Context: Invasive species pose a significant threat to biodiversity, creating a need for accurate methods to assess their spread. Although multiple introductions are common, estimates of expansion rates often assume a single introduction site due to limited knowledge of population structure.
Objectives: This multidisciplinary study aimed to develop a novel spatio-temporal approach to delineate potential populations without prior knowledge of population structure. We applied this approach to the Sculptured Resin Bee, Europe's first non-native bee species, providing regional expansion rate estimates for its spread across Europe.
Methods: Observation data from 2008 to 2024 were analysed. Based on an environmental suitability map, sequential least-cost modelling was applied in annual time steps, linking each new observation to the nearest known observation via a least-cost path. Populations were delineated by excluding high-cost paths and analysing the connectivity of the remaining paths, and expansion rates were calculated using the distance regression method.
Results: We identified two populations, which align with known genetic groups in the area of France, Switzerland and Austria. Our modelling results also indicate two additional populations introduced to Italy and Serbia. Expansion rates ranged from 13.3 km/year to 58.6 km/year and peaked at 89.7 km/year during expansion phases, exhibiting a consistent sigmoidal expansion pattern.
Conclusions: Our spatio-temporal approach delineates introduced populations without prior genetic knowledge, improving expansion rate estimation and informing targeted genetic sampling, monitoring, and management efforts of invasive species.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02188-9.
Context: In mammals, reproductive strategies and movement behavior can differ between sexes, influenced by biological and environmental factors. Whereas males typically adopt a "roam-to-mate" strategy, increasing movement to locate females, females may also adjust their behavior to enhance mating opportunities. Habitat and human disturbance can further shape the spatial structure of mating encounters.
Objectives: This study investigates sex-specific habitat use during mating in brown bears. We test (1) which habitats facilitate initial male-female encounters, and (2) how habitat use differs between solitary and consorting individuals, focusing on sex-based differences and responses to anthropogenic features.
Methods: We used GPS data from 70 unique adult brown bears (44 females, 26 males) during the mating season in Sweden (2006-2016). We contrasted initial encounter areas of male-female pairs with surrounding available habitat to assess encounter site preferences, accounting for natural and anthropogenic landscape features. Additionally, we compared habitat use for each sex when solitary versus consorting.
Results: Bears most often encountered the opposite sex in clearcuts and young forests. When consorting, males moved farther away from anthropogenic areas than when solitary and increased their use of clearcuts, whereas females reduced their use of young and old forests, in contrast to males. Both sexes approached roads more when consorting.
Conclusion: This study revealed distinct sex-specific habitat preferences during brown bear consorting behavior, supporting the evidence of female "roam-to-mate" behavior by adjusting to males' habitat use. Our findings emphasize the importance of managing anthropogenic landscapes for conservation efforts, especially if they disrupt mating behaviors.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02250-6.
Context: Trees play a vital role in reducing street-level particulate matter (PM) pollution in metropolitan areas. However, the optimal tree growth type for maximizing the retention of various sizes of PM remains uncertain.
Objectives: This study assessed the PM reduction capabilities of evergreen and deciduous broadleaf street trees, focusing on how leaf phenology influences the dispersion of pollutants across particle sizes.
Methods: We collected data on six PM size fractions from 72 sites along streets lined with either evergreen or deciduous broadleaf trees in Wuhan, China, during the summer and winter of 2017-2018.
Results: Evergreen trees demonstrated superior PM reduction capabilities compared to deciduous trees, with evergreen street canyons showing 27.2% and 12.6% lower PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations in summer, and 13% and 5.5% lower concentrations in winter. During summer, evergreen streets predominantly contained fine particles (PM1, PM2.5), posing potential health risk due to their ability to infiltrate the human respiratory system. In contrast, deciduous streets primarily harbored coarser particles (PM4, PM7, PM10, and total suspended particulate [TSP]). During winter, larger particles were dominant, regardless of the tree growth form.
Conclusions: Evergreen trees showed superior PM reduction capabilities compared to deciduous trees due to their year-round leaf retention, enhanced surface properties, and denser canopies that maximize PM capture. We recommend prioritizing evergreen broadleaf trees as the primary street trees while interspersing deciduous trees at appropriate intervals. This approach will ensure that urban greenery provides maximum ecological benefits while reducing the PM concentration.
Context: Silviculture-managing tree establishment for landscape objectives-influences ecological outcomes of forests. While forest harvest impacts on wildlife are well-documented, silvicultural treatment effects remain unclear.
Objectives: We investigated how forest harvest and silviculture shape predator and ungulate distributions and interactions, providing ecological insights for forest management.
Methods: We deployed two camera arrays in extensively harvested North American landscapes to evaluate relationships between forest harvest, silviculture, and predator and ungulate occurrences.
Results: Forest harvest, silviculture, and predator/prey activity shape wildlife occurrences. Wolf (Canis lupus), influenced by moose (Alces alces), decreased with regenerating (9-24 years) clearcuts, new (0-8 years) clearcuts with reserves, and fertilized cutblocks. Wolves increased with regenerating/older (25-40 years) clearcuts with reserves. Coyote (C. latrans) increased in manually or chemically brushed cutblocks at high or low deer occurrence, respectively. Black bear (U. americanus), influenced by prey, increased with regenerating prepared cutblocks and fewer new prepared cutblocks. Prey elevated lynx (Lynx canadensis) occurrence with regenerating prepared or older unprepared cutblocks. Depending on predators, mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) decreased with regenerating and older prepared cutblocks; white-tailed deer (O. virginianus) decreased with selection- and new even-aged cutblocks. Harvest age and wolves best explained moose, although silviculture mattered seasonally.
Conclusions: Silviculture shapes wildlife distributions and interactions. Integrating these effects into research and forest management is essential for meeting ecological objectives.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02095-z.
Context: Forest canopies shape subcanopy environments, affecting biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Empirical forest microclimate studies are often restricted to local scales and short-term effects, but forest dynamics unfold at landscape scales and over long time periods.
Objectives: We developed the first explicit and dynamic implementation of microclimate temperature buffering in a forest landscape model and investigated effects on simulated forest dynamics and outcomes.
Methods: We adapted the individual-based forest landscape and disturbance model iLand to use microclimate temperature for three processes [decomposition, bark beetle (Ips typographus L.) development, and tree seedling establishment]. We simulated forest dynamics with or without microclimate temperature buffering in a temperate European mountain landscape under historical climate and disturbance conditions.
Results: Temperature buffering effects propagated from local to landscape scales. After 1,000 simulation years, average total carbon and cumulative net ecosystem productivity were 2% and 21% higher, respectively, and tree species composition differed in simulations including versus excluding microclimate buffering. When microclimate buffering was included, Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) increased by 9% and European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) decreased by 12% in mean basal area share. Some effects were amplified across scales, such as a mean 16% decrease in local-scale bark beetle development rates resulting in a mean 45% decrease in landscape-scale bark beetle-caused mortality.
Conclusions: Microclimate effects on forests scaled nonlinearly from stand to landscape and days to millennia, underlining the utility of complex simulation models for dynamic upscaling in space and time. Microclimate temperature buffering can alter forest dynamics at landscape scales.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02054-8.
Context: The vegetation composition of northeastern North American forests has significantly changed since pre-settlement times, with a marked reduction in conifer-dominated stands, taxonomic and functional diversity. These changes have been attributed to fire regime shifts, logging, and climate change.
Methods: In this study, we disentangled the individual effects of these drivers on the forest composition in southwestern Quebec from 1830 to 2000 by conducting retrospective modelling using the LANDIS-II forest landscape model. The model was run based on pre-settlement forest composition and fire history reconstructions, historical timber harvest records, and climate reanalysis data. We compared counterfactual scenarios excluding individual factors to a baseline historical scenario.
Results and conclusions: Our results indicated that timber harvesting had the greatest impact on forest dynamics over the past centuries. In the absence of timber harvesting, pre-settlement species abundances were largely maintained, preserving key functional traits like fire and shade tolerance that contribute to ecosystem resilience. Increased fire activity during the settlement period contributed to the increase of early-successional aspen (Populus tremuloides), but timber harvesting played the dominant role. Fire exclusion had no influence on vegetation composition, suggesting mesophication unfolds over longer timescales than those captured in this study. Climate change, characterized by modest increases in temperature and precipitation, had a minor effect on vegetation shifts, as increased precipitation might have mitigated the adverse effects of rising temperatures. However, future climate change is projected to become a more significant driver of forest composition. These findings underscore the importance of forest restoration and continued research on past forest dynamics to better understand current and future changes.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02043-x.
Context: Habitat loss and degradation caused by human land use change is one of the major drivers of global biodiversity decline. Understanding historical patterns of land use/land cover (LULC) change over multiple time periods is essential for improving our knowledge of the magnitude and scale of habitat loss, but also for predicting future changes and targeting biodiversity conservation and restoration policy and actions.
Objectives: This study assesses habitat loss resulting from LULC change in England and Wales between 1930 and 2020 at four different time points.
Methods: We digitise a selection of published 1960s land use maps based on detailed field surveys, to use alongside existing published historical data (1930s) and more recent land cover datasets derived from satellite imagery (1990, 2020) for England and Wales.
Results: Broadleaved woodland was the only semi-natural habitat to increase between the 1960s and 2020. Rough grassland, heath and wetland experienced the greatest loss between the 1930s and 1960s, predominantly through conversion to grassland. Grassland, which included species rich neutral grassland and agriculturally improved grassland was largely lost to arable land and this was greatest between the 1960s and 1990. This provides further evidence of post-war agricultural intensification as a key driver of habitat loss in England and Wales. Although this rate declined after 1990, it did not halt completely suggesting LULC change is still an important driver of biodiversity loss.
Conclusions: The patterns revealed in this study may be used to predict where future land use changes are likely to occur or conversely where restoration of semi-natural habitats should be targeted. Knowledge of habitat loss over multiple time periods can increase the likelihood of restoration success since the location and timing of habitat destruction are both known.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02189-8.
Context: Urban green infrastructure (GI) multifunctionality is widely valued within the academic literature, and underpins calls from policy makers to enhance and expand GI resources. However, there is a gap in understanding concerning how GI connectivity and size influence GI multifunctionality outcomes.
Objectives: The objectives are to: (1) present the current status of research on urban GI multifunctionality (encompassing ecosystem services and disservices) and the GI traits of connectivity and size; (2) identify relationships between these topics within the literature; (3) provide research insights and present actionable GI planning recommendations based on the findings of the research.
Methods: A systematic review of 139 academic sources (2010-2023) was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines.
Results: Key findings include that multifunctionality themes are more commonly considered within research exploring GI connectivity across urban boundaries than within them, where a wider range of flows of ecosystem functions and associated services (and disservices) are enabled. Also, research predominantly focuses on multiple large GI sites, with limited attention to the multifunctionality of single small GI sites that are commonly found in dense urban areas.
Conclusions: Greater consideration is needed of how the manipulation of GI size and connectivity influence multifunctionality outcomes, whilst also recognising the threat of ecosystem disservices emerging as a result of such actions. Through uncovering gaps in understanding concerning these issues, and highlighting topics benefiting from stronger research foundations, this research can support GI policy, practice and research in realising GI multifunctionality outcomes in urban settings, whilst minimising ecosystem disservices.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-025-02069-1.
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