Due to a high number of specialized species and unique environmental conditions, alpine spring ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to environmental change and human impact. Therefore, the assessment of ecosystem integrity through habitat monitoring over long periods of time is of particular importance, especially in protected areas. Bioindication by conventional ecosystem assessment and monitoring

Understanding the drivers of aboveground biomass (AGB) variation in present-day tropical forests can contribute to management strategies that help mitigate against CO2-driven climate change and provide other services related to high AGB. Higher tree diversity can lead to higher woody productivity and carbon storage, but how diversity interacts with land-use history is less certain. We assessed variation

Alpine grasslands are sensitive to grazing and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition. Despite increases in N deposition, few field studies have assessed the effects of grazing in conjunction with increased N deposition on alpine grassland vegetation. In this two-year field study, we examined the effects of overgrazing and overgrazing plus N deposition on eco-physiological processes of alpine grassland

A novel method is proposed for the development of ecosystem specific water quality indices in accordance with specific guidelines for the protection of aquatic life and with the capacity to demonstrate annual cycles, spatial and temporal variations, and trends in water quality. An ecosystem-specific water quality index for the Santiago-Guadalajara River (SGR-WQI) was developed using a method based

Sustainable intensification (SI) of agriculture is a promising strategy for boosting the capacity of the agricultural sector to meet the growing demands for food and non-food products and services in a sustainable manner. Assessing and quantifying the options for SI remains a challenge due to its multiple dimensions and potential associated trade-offs. We contribute to overcoming this challenge by

Increasing effort has been devoted to restoring coastal ecosystems to counteract their degradation globally. Restoration success of coastal ecosystems often relies on harnessing biotic interactions that shape the performance of foundation plant species. Crabs acting as essential ecosystem engineers and consumers are commonly present in coastal saltmarshes. Previous work has focused on the grazing effect

Changes in freeze–thaw processes as a result of climate change significantly affect the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems, especially peatlands. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau contains substantial permafrost and seasonal frozen soils and its peatlands feature a huge carbon stock highly sensitive to global change. In this paper, we used an eddy covariance flux tower to monitor carbon fluxes on the

The strong signal of vegetation increases since the 1980s is considered as reliable evidence of anthropogenic climate change. However, some studies have alerted us to the recent stalling or even reversal of vegetation greening. To determine whether vegetation browning exists on Tianshan Mountain, we investigated the changes in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based on long-term satellite-derived

Epibiosis among plankton communities and the role of environmental forcing therein are discussed in this study. We hypothesized that a sub-surface thermal inversion phenomenon and associated hydrographical changes during winter monsoon promoted group/species-specific epibiosis among the plankton in the western Bay of Bengal. Plankton samples were collected from discrete depths along five transects

Forest regeneration is a critical indicator of the overall health of forest ecosystems, and is considered to be a vital process in which old and senescent trees are replaced by young ones. The seed-to-seedling transition entails seedlings’ emergence from seeds and their establishment, this phase being the most vulnerable to mortality effects from biotic and abiotic factors. Larix principis-rupprechtii

At present, most governments, particularly in low and middle-income countries, are not effectively using ecosystem services (ES) indicators for conservation monitoring, which is in part due to the complexity of current indicators. This study seeks to contribute to this implementation gap by illustrating the performance of a remote sensing based indicator, the Ecosystem Services Provision Index (ESPI)

The delineation of spatiotemporal urban expansion highly depends on the selection of moving window size. Few studies examine the effects of moving window size and the scaling mechanism when analyzing urban expansion patterns. This study selected nine moving windows from 450 m to 4050 m with a scale (size) interval of 450 m to examine the urban expansion dynamics of Shanghai from 1995 to 2005, and from

The prevailing role of environmental filtering in community assembly has been widely corroborated at large spatial scales. However, how environmental filtering and plant competition collectively determine trait distributions among coexisting individuals at within-community scales remains an unresolved question. We measured four leaf and wood traits of 2700 co-occurring plants and soil physicochemical

C/N/P stoichiometry offers important indicators of ecosystem function and productivity. The aim of this research was to determine how planting methods in biogroups influence C/N/P stoichiometry in soil and plants. We hypothesised that planting methods, consisting in different initial spacing and shape would affect the growth characteristics of trees, and consequently, change soil properties – microbiological

Due to the huge energy demand and the influences from the technology, cost, production, and consumption structures, urban system has become a hot topic for the assessment of the energy security of energy systems. In this study, all the energy sources of the energy system of Tangshan, an industrial city that primarily depends on energy resources in Hebei Province, China, have been chosen as case study

In this multi-proxy palaeo study, the response of primary producers and consumers to anthropogenic disturbances in a large shallow lake was investigated. Overall, eutrophication and water-level changes (partly inferred by bisaccate pollen grains) are well-reflected in changes in sedimentation rates of pigments, diatom and cladoceran species composition and other proxies (e.g. Rhabdocoela oocytes).

It is essential to understand biodiversity’s contribution to maintaining river ecosystem functioning and stability, which will us help to develop more effective strategies for river ecosystem conservation. However, knowledge regarding the relationship between multidimensional characteristics of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and stability in aquatic ecosystems remains limited. This study examined

Climate refugia management is an emerging natural resource sub-discipline but identifying which species would benefit, their climatic requirements, and where both species and suitable conditions are located remains problematic. Land snails have species specific temperature needs and are one of the most imperiled groups of animals. The goal of our study was to 1) determine the distribution of land snails

The Amazonian rain forests of Yasuni National Park, Ecuador (YNP), count among the world's forests regions with highest biodiversity, but are strongly threatened by deforestation. Cryptogams (bryophytes and lichens) are common and characteristic organisms in these forests, are sensitive to environmental changes, and are considered effective ecological indicators. The objective of this study was to

Standing dead trees are known to house diverse assemblages of vertebrates in temperate forests worldwide. In temperate austral forests of South America, however, the functional role of dead trees has been mostly focused on cavity provision, but other functions remain poorly understood. Thus, we conducted a preliminary study examining the effect of dead trees on the taxonomic diversity of vertebrates

The functional response of natural patches to surrounding land-use changes is strongly related to variations in functional traits of coexisting species. To exemplify the effects on species of a general pattern of land-use intensification mountains-coastland, we investigated the variation of a key plant trait - seed mass - in small woodlots located along a land-use intensification gradient for two common

The landscape structure of an agro-ecosystem can directly influence its biodiversity. In order to better understand the ongoing worldwide biodiversity collapse, a comprehensive landscape characterisation method is indispensable. In this paper we propose a robust and universal methodological approach to describe agricultural landscape properties tailored for the species of interest. In the proposed

Among all proxy archives, tree rings are highly promising indicator of ecological and environmental processes due to their high climatic sensitivity, better annual resolution, and large spatial coverage. Seasonal importance of soil moisture dynamics and impact of drought events on tree growth development and carbon sequestration potential in tropical moist forests was assessed using the teak tree ring

The abundance of insects has been strongly decreasing over the last decades, at least in the temperate zones of North America and Europe. This decrease has generally been attributed to increased human activity, especially increased agricultural production. Therefore, one would expect that insect abundance is spatially distributed according to human land use, more specifically that the abundance of

Substantial pesticide use results in severe negative externalities. The relationship of technology information with pest control practices and pesticide use among farmers is a crucial issue. However, it remains unclear how various information sources impact on farmers’ correct pesticide use. Using cross-sectional survey data covering 1135 rice-producing farmers in China, this study analyzes farmers’

The Yangtze finless porpoise has become as significant indicator of current ecological conservation effectiveness in Poyang Lake, where nearly half of the population is found. Serious water shortages in the lake during the dry season has led the government to consider the establishment of a hydraulic project (PLHP) in order to remedy the deteriorating situation. However, the possible impacts of the

The role of functional biodiversity for favouring natural regulation and reducing pesticide use in fruit production is generally acknowledged. Although a number of farmers attempt to favour biodiversity through different strategies (e.g. diversified hedges, nesting boxes), they often lack means to evaluate how their actions contribute in practice to functional biodiversity. We assumed here that to

Under combined air pollution conditions, the coordinated control of PM2.5 and O3 has significant implications for environmental management. To better understand the coordinated control capability of different metropolises, a prime consideration is how to develop a scientific and objective index for quantifying it. In this paper, based on the multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis (MF-DCCA)

Vegetation plays an important role in ecosystem stability in tectonically active regions such as the eastern Tibetan Plateau (ETP). To determine the response of mountain ecosystem to climate change and tectonic activity on the ETP, detailed analyses of chronology, pollen, grain size and magnetic susceptibility (SUS) were conducted on a lacustrine sequence from the upper reaches of the Min River. The

Factors that influence the composition and diversity of soil nematode communities on oceanic islands are poorly understood. In this study, we evaluated the soil nematode communities and associated biotic and abiotic factors on five oceanic islands in the north of the South China Sea. We detected 38 nematode genera and found that bacterivores and fungivores were the dominant trophic groups, representing

There is growing awareness in cities all over the world that blue-green infrastructure (BGI) can offer a wide range of ecosystem services that support a healthy urban environment. Green areas, including meadows and river valleys within cities, are useful for short-term water storage. This possibility has become more visible in recent years, as water management is increasingly combined with ecological

The freeze–thaw process of active layer can alter soil hydrothermal dynamics and plays an important role in the stability of permafrost ecosystem, particularly under the background of permafrost degradation resulting from climate warming. Wetlands in permafrost regions are considered to be symbiotic with permafrost. However, despite being the principal region of high-latitude permafrost in China, research

The fairy ring is an ecological phenomenon that consists of a visible green ring composed of mushroom fruiting bodies and a green plant stimulating zone. Agaricus bisporus fairy ring stimulates the growth of alpine meadow plants on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, however, the underlying eco-physiological and molecular mechanisms still unclear. Here, using physiological and metabolomic analyses, we showed

To investigate biomarkers representing the physiological and biochemical responses of the brackish-water clam Corbicula japonica, we conducted a full factorial-design experiment to test different water-temperature levels (20 °C and 25 °C), salinity levels (5 and 20 psu), and food-availability levels (0.5 and 2.0 mg suspended solids (SS)·ind−1·d−1). Increase in water temperature significantly decreased

Forest fire disaster is currently the subject of intense research worldwide. The development of accurate strategies to prevent potential impacts and minimize the occurrence of disastrous events as much as possible requires modeling and forecasting severe conditions. In this study, we developed five new hybrid machine learning algorithms namely, Frequency Ratio-Multilayer Perceptron (FR-MLP), Frequency

Labile fractions of soil carbon pools are sensitive to environmental changes, which would influence the stabilization of soil carbon. However, it is unclear whether the dynamics of labile organic carbon (LOC) and soil organic carbon (SOC) are coupled and how they influence each other in coastal wetland. The present work investigated the trends of soil carbon fractions among mangrove and Spartina alterniflora

We studied the growth reaction of silver poplar trees (Populus alba) to a large flood in November 2014 in the semi-arid High Atlas Mountains, Morocco. The flood resulted in half of the studied trees developing wider tree rings in 2015 and the other half developing narrower rings in 2015, next year after the flood. For 57.1% of trees which released growth in 2015, this was the most significant increase

Livestock grazing and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition have been reported as important factors affecting soil communities. However, how different large herbivore grazing and N addition may interact to affect soil biota in grassland ecosystems is unclear. Nematodes are the most abundant metazoan in soil ecosystems, play critical roles in regulating carbon and nutrient dynamics, and are valuable bioindicators

Economic development is accompanied by the production of pollutants. Coordinating the relationship between economic development and haze pollution is of great significance to future development in China. Based on the original decoupling index (Tapio decoupling index), this study developed a new decoupling index that overcomes some of the original defects and highlights the trends to a better extent

Obtaining hydraulic properties is crucial for describing the transport of groundwater and pollutants in the faults area. In this way, the spatial distribution of hydraulic conductivity plays a major role in expressing the heterogeneous flow and non‐Fickian behavior of solute transport which both are common in nature. However, the existing methods are focusing on obtain the mean value (1D) of the aquifer’s

Rapidly expanding urban areas urgently need to transform into sustainability-oriented developments. In this study, we manage to establish a spatio-temporal coupling coordinated development (CCD) model for urban environments by exploring the relationship between the quality of the built environment and environmental pressure. We empirically analyze the status of Shandong Peninsula, one of such urbanized

Marine biota is a great source of ecosystem services. Recently, the involvement of marine organisms in biotechnological applications has been discovered and become useful for the development of alternative and healthy food, natural medicine and cosmetics. The most known ecosystem service is the provision of seafood; however, fishery management has to be implemented in order to avoid fishing exploitation

Freshwater biodiversity is rapidly declining due to accelerated human-induced disturbances. Increased human-induced environmental disturbances are believed not to only decrease species numbers, but to also diminish beta diversity, for instance, by the local extinction of native species and wide-spread introduction of non-native species – a process widely known as biotic homogenization. Here, we investigated

As a critical ecosystem type, wetlands have received extensive attention from scholars worldwide. Previous studies have mostly taken the entire wetland as the research object, and there is a lack of differentiated research on wetland subsystems. Ponds are a vital component of wetland ecosystems, and they are widely distributed, provide high ecological service value, and are related to many ecosystem

Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are the largest producers of cocoa in the world. In recent decades the cultivation of this crop has led to the loss of vast tracts of forest areas in both countries. Efficient and accurate methods for remotely identifying cocoa plantations are essential to the implementation of sustainable cocoa practices and for the periodic and effective monitoring of forests. In this study

Although the concept of ecological drought was first defined by the Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) in 2016, there remains no widely accepted ecological drought monitoring index. Therefore, this study constructed a new ecological drought index, the standardized ecological water deficit index (SEWDI). The SEWDI is based on the difference between ecological water requirement and consumption

The “Ecological Value” (EV) term has been spread in the literature since 1860; however, there is no consensus on its definition and the criteria for its assessment. To identify, assess and summarize the main definitions, criteria, indicators and applications behind the EV term, we performed a systematic literature review of 209 articles published over the last 10 years. Methods included documentation

Macroalgae have been utilized as biological indicators of ecosystem health in many monitoring programs worldwide. These programs have utilized various methods to quantify macroalgal community structures. The aim of this study was to provide an overview of current progress by reviewing techniques and methods in both monitoring programs and impact evaluation studies that use macroalgal assemblage data

Changes in the marine environment, particularly climate change, can have large effects on the distribution patterns of various marine species, and alter the biodiversity, structure and functions of the affected ecosystems. Species distribution models (SDM) are tools often used to link species’ ecological niches with their environment. We applied SDM to investigate the effects of five biologically relevant

Saltmarsh is a coastal ecosystem providing crucial ecosystem services, and its continued degradation and fragmentation has drawn increasing attention. However, how to effectively restore the connectivity between fragmented saltmarsh patches remains an open challenge. In this study, we developed a metric and modelling framework that prioritised saltmarsh patches for restoration. To demonstrate our approach