Assessing ecosystem states quantitatively or qualitatively is important for ecosystem management. Currently, Traditional Comprehensive Assessment (TCA), including ecosystem health, risk, and service assessment is used most often. Ecosystem stability theory (EST) and ecosystem regime shift theory (RST) from mathematical ecology have not been widely used. In this paper, we compare TCA and EST and RST

Bat populations in eastern North America have experienced precipitous declines following the spread of white-nose syndrome (WNS) and other population stressors. It is imperative to understand changes in bat populations as WNS spreads to provide appropriate guidance for species management. We developed generalized linear mixed-models of population trend and habitat associations for five indicator bat

We assessed the spatial variation in concentrations of ten metals in faeces of the lesser black-backed gull (LBBG) Larus fuscus wintering at seven localities in South-West Spain. We found high concentrations of metals in gull faeces, with several elements (As, Cu, Mo, Pb, Zn) locally exceeding (by 2 to 11 times) derived Lowest Effect Level (LEL) values. We also found strong spatial variation, related

Growing degree days (GDD) and chilling requirements (CR) of canopy phenological onset are popular thermal indicators showing forest adaptation to local temperature regimes. This study proposes a satellite-based approach for mapping the canopy-onset thermal traits and analyzing their controlling factors in temperate forests. GDD and CR from 2003 to 2017 were estimated with canopy onset dates and air

The Yarlung Zangbo River is the largest river on the Tibetan Plateau, which is considered a hotspot of biodiversity conservation efforts. In this study, the fish fauna of the middle and lower Yarlung Zangbo River was investigated, to explore the species composition and spatial patterns of fish assemblages as well as the associated environmental factors. Thirty-four sites across an elevation of 589

Thailand is a biodiversity hotspot and home to over 1000 bird species, 15,000 plant species, and five of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global 200 Ecoregions of ecological significance. To preserve their unique ecosystems, the Thai government has established and maintained protected areas (PA) which in 2020, are estimated to cover 19% of Thailand’s land area. The success of these areas in preserving biodiversity

The aim of this study was to test the sensitivity of epiphytic and epixylic bryophytes and lichens as indicators of forest naturalness, by comparing their diversity patterns with forest structural, compositional and historical features associated with different management/protection regimes and protection time spans. The study was carried out in the Białowieża Forest (Poland). Out of 1370 pre-existing

The analysis of temporal trends and spatial patterns of marine sounds can provide crucial insights to assess the abundance, distribution, and behavior of fishes and of many other species. However, data on species-specific temporal and seasonal changes are still extremely limited. We report here the result of the longest recording ever conducted (five years, from 2014 to 2018) on fish vocalization.

The ecological and efficient use of saline–alkaline lands is very important worldwide. The main objective of this paper is to identify an eco-farming system suitable for saline–alkaline lands via emergetic and cosmic exergy-based ecological assessments. Three ecosystems were compared: an agriculture-free system, a local agricultural system, and a superior agricultural system. In the latter two systems

Above-ground biomass (AGB) is an essential indicator for assessing ecosystem health and carbon storage in desert shrub-related research. Above-ground volume (AGV) of vegetation is a crucial parameter to estimate the AGB. In unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing, the AGV and AGB are mainly estimated by vegetation feature metrics (for example, spectral indices, textural, and structural metrics)

Over the last decade, there have been increasing calls for robust impact evaluations of voluntary agricultural sustainability standards (VSS’s). In response, this study reviews the literature regarding 13 major agricultural standards, asking: where are certified crops being studied? Which sustainability outcomes and indicators are measured? And finally, what does the current evidence base suggest about

Coastal environments are affected by multiple pressures resulting from anthropogenic activities, among which organic enrichment (Corg) is particularly important. Foraminiferal communities react to organic enrichment by changes in community structure (density, diversity, species composition) and behaviour (metabolism, feeding strategy, reproduction, mortality, etc.). A number of biotic indices based

The vulnerability of species richness to several factors like, climate change, habitat fragmentation, resource exploitation, etc., poses a challenge to conservation biologists and agencies working to sustain the ecosystem services. Hence, there is a clear need for early warning indicators of species loss generated from empirical data. The tree community of the long-term 50-hectare plot on Barro Colorado

Indices of biological integrity (IBIs) have been developed for a wide variety of locales and ecological systems to describe their biological condition. Due to variability in geophysical and chemical conditions, IBIs are often developed regionally and applied to similar ecological systems. Researchers in Minnesota previously developed a fish IBI (FIBI) for lakes; however, its application was limited

Agroforestry plays a pivotal role for Sahelian communities by allowing simultaneous improvement of food security and conservation of natural ecosystems and their biodiversity. However, agroforestry systems (AFSs) are particularly heterogeneous in sub-Saharan Africa due to small to very small fields, a large variety of agricultural practices and a diversity of parkland compositions and configurations

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are one of the important environmental pollutants that are mainly originated from industrial activities, vehicle emissions, biomass combustion, etc. Nowadays, the surrounding environment of the abandoned industrial area may still have potential health effects on the population, but current researches have paid less attention to this issue. Therefore, we report

In temperate perennial grasslands, the recruitment/regeneration of aboveground vegetation predominantly relies on belowground bud bank. Thus, understanding how belowground bud bank density and composition respond to global changes is essential to explain and predict plant community dynamics and ecosystem functions under global change context. The belowground bud bank and aboveground vegetation under

We assessed the sampling effort requirements for detecting the presence of extant bat species following the impact of white-nose syndrome in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. We acoustically sampled 27,796 nights across 846 sites between 15 May and 15 August 2016–2018 within the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. We developed simulations to determine

Artificial reefs have been employed to promote enrichment of degraded habitats communities and support local fisheries. To better evaluate the performance of artificial reefs, simultaneous comparisons with relatively undisturbed natural reefs nearby are essential. With the inclusion of the stable isotope method to characterize and compare ecosystem functioning for two reef systems, both trophic structure

The variation of phenotypic traits with environmental gradient can reveal the plant adapting strategies and predict reactions to future climate changes. However, it remains elusive, especially for alpine timberline tree species. To quantify the variation and explore the patterns of twig, leaf, stoma traits, and determine the scaling relationships along the topographic gradients, 576 current-year branches

Industrial pollution remains a driving force to ecosystem alteration. Pollutants are released in the atmosphere interacting in turn with other components of earth system such as plant species. Despite the long-term exposition of vegetation cover to pollution is drastically devastating, less is known about the contribution of ecological indicators for its monitoring. The aims of this study are (i) to

The species composition of a community is driven by the dispersal capacity of the species forming that community and their ecological niche. While the ecological niches of EPTs (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera) are well-studied due to their wide use as indicators for the ecological status of freshwater ecosystems, their dispersal capacity has not yet been accurately characterized. Dispersion

Small mountainous rivers (SMRs), particularly those in the tropics, play a disproportionate role in global carbon cycling and have been heavily disturbed by anthropogenic activities during the Anthropocene. Identifying the sources of particulate organic matter (POM) in SMRs and their influencing factors have crucial scientific significance in terms of filling a cognitional gap concerning the fate of

Geological disasters not only hinder the ecological security guarantee in urban agglomerations, but also pose serious threat to the life and property of residents in the areas. The study establishes a “hazard-vulnerability-exposure” three-dimensional ecological risk assessment model, adopts an information value model to assess hazard, use landscape indices to analyze vulnerability and nighttime light

In the past decades, some desert wetlands have become critical regions for dust production in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Accurate prediction of the number of dusty days (NDDs) in these areas is of great importance. The most popular method for predicting climatic and environmental variables is machine learning (ML). Although it has received more attention for spatial prediction, it

The eco-environmental vulnerability is an important indicator of the development in wetland. However, the vulnerability is influenced by various interacting factors. The interaction among these factors is fuzzy and stochastic, making it difficult to describe the evaluation results accurately and quantitatively. To overcome the difficulty, this study takes the Yellow River Delta wetland as object, and

Ecosystem respiration (Reco) and its components, the autotrophic respiration (Ra) and soil respiration (Rs) are the essential indicators of the global carbon cycle. They are represented as functions of either temperature or soil moisture, or a combination of both in the widely-used Earth System Models (ESMs). Thus, it is difficult to evaluate the influence of other environmental factors (such as, precipitation

Climate change caused by human activities leads to nitrogen deposition, phosphorus input and changes in rainfall patterns, which also result in heterogeneous distribution patterns of resources and biological invasion. Clonal plants grow in environments with spatial and temporal heterogeneity; they can effectively adapt to heterogeneous environments and further increase growth performance through their

The Loess Plateau is famous for its water shortages and soil erosion, quantitatively assessing the water conservation function is of great significance to maintain regional ecological security. Zhanghe River Basin with severe water conflicts in eastern Loess Plateau, was selected to investigate the variation characteristics of water conservation. The results showed that water conservation decreased

Rocky desertification is the most typical ecological and environmental problem in Karst mountainous areas, which hinders sustainable development. Clarifying spatial relationship of ecosystem services including soil conservation and water retention and their dominant factors can provide scientific basis for containment of rocky desertification. The spatialization and quantification of dominant, interaction

The loss and fragmentation of natural spaces in rapidly urbanized areas have greatly reduced their capacity to provide multiple ecosystem services (ESs). It is of great importance to identify natural spaces with key ecological functions, which are used to construct effective and efficient ecological networks, especially in urbanized areas where natural spaces are limited. This paper individually evaluated

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) in sediment pore water plays a key role in lake water quality, complexation of the contaminants, biogeochemical cycles, and even climate. To better understand the vertical dynamics and characteristics of DOM among pore water profiles, we investigated concentrations, chemical structures, and benthic fluxes of DOM in plateau lake sediments via stoichiometric analysis, ultraviolet–visible

The recreational use of water bodies presents new challenges and pressures on lake ecosystems. We focused on how recreational beaches influence the shoreline biodiversity of Lake Balaton, Hungary. Taking into account the establishment of beaches, we examined natural reed vegetated shorelines (representing natural situation), open areas (representing areas, where reed has been removed), as well as beaches

In the semiarid environment, low vegetation cover and deforestation on the banks of rivers represent a strong impact on the flow resistance process, altering the interaction of the flow with the banks, one of the conditioning factors of the morphological balance of the river channel. In extreme hydrological events, turbulence and high speeds can cause a marked erosion process at the banks, increasing

Due to the growing demand for land resources, coastal reclamation has become a global land use practice. Although the reclamation of coastal wetlands brings substantial economic benefits, it can lead to a series of adverse ecological impacts. Considerably, economic and ecological trade-offs of reclamation activities must be analyzed to make targeted land use policy decisions. This study focuses on

Farmland resources are the most basic material for grain production. Therefore, the impact of farmland use transition (FUT) on grain production is receiving increasing attention from scholars. However, only a few studies have explored the spatial spillover effects of FUT on grain production and investigate the impact difference under topographical constraints. To fill this gap, this study uses county-level

The use of a high-density lichen transplant network together with quantitative wind relationships (WQRs) made it possible to evaluate the influence of an airport and surrounding road network on the spatial variation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and trace elements at both the local and whole study area scale. WQRs clearly showed that the parking/idling/taxiing area (PIT), but not the landing/take-off

The phrase “soil health” describes the condition of a soil in terms of its physical, chemical, and biological properties. The relationship between soil health and crop yield is rather complex, and quantifying their spatial characteristics at field scale is often limited in the literature. To explore the significance and spatial characteristics of soil health and its indicators in crop production, field-based

Habitat disturbance of native forests is currently the major threat to biodiversity conservation. Plant species can be negatively affected as a result of landscape conversion; thus, it is essential to detect the potential effects of environmental stress on plant performance using reliable bioindicators of quick, cheap diagnosis. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) describes the degree of the random differences

The variation of land surface phenology (LSP) in natural ecosystems has received much attention at the regional and global scales. In this paper, we explore the relationship between variations in the start of the growing season (SOS) and their direct and indirect drivers for the Mongolian Plateau. Our results show that wildfire events mainly occurred in 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2016. The frequency

The efficiency of biodiversity assessments and biomonitoring studies is commonly challenged by limitations in taxonomic identification and quantification approaches. In this study, we assessed the effects of different taxonomic and numerical resolutions on a range of community structure metrics in invertebrate compositional data sets from six regions distributed across North and South America. We specifically

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) threatens public health severely, which, luckily, can be governed by referring to its spatiotemporal distribution and key driving factors. However, very few explored it in the long-term, broadly, and systematically. In this study, nine Chinese key urban agglomerations were targeted to explore the spatial distribution of PM2.5 and the evolution of its major driving factors

With the continuous development of society, the contradiction between human and nature becomes increasingly prominent, and ecological vulnerability assessment is an effective tool to alleviate the contradiction. In this study, AHP-PSR (Analytic Hierarchy Process - Press-State-Response) model was used to assess the ecological vulnerability of Weifang City. PSR model was used to select parameters, AHP