Spatial ecology in a changing world
A new study published in Global Change Biology reviews the potential impacts of climate change on the provision of ecosystem services and the risk of fire and other climatic risks linked to Mediterranean forests. Forests provide a wide range of provisioning, regulating and cultural services […]
A new article published in Climatic Change reviews the major mechanisms behind the occurrence of novel extreme wildfire events occurred around the globe between 2016 and 2020. Extreme wildfire events in recent years are shaking our established knowledge of how fire regimes respond to climate […]
Check out our important paper published in Science in which we highlight forward-looking methods for predicting the combined effects of human drivers and fire on biodiversity, and foreshadow emerging actions and strategies that could evolutionize how society manages fire for biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Fire […]
The box tree moth is an invasive species that impacts forests in Europe. What is its dynamic? What defines its impact pattern? What are the main factors determining its ecological niche? In this new publication in Ecology and Evolution we answer all these questions. Invasive […]
Is the whole greater than the sum of his parts? In this new publication in Landscape Ecology, we performed a literature review to describe how insect pests interact with fire, drought, pollution and other disturbances and we discuss their role on forest landscape dynamics. Forest […]
Objective quantification of damages caused by conservation interest birds in the rice crops of the Ebro Delta to compensate farmers, based on satellite images and drone. An example of science applied to protected areas management. Since 2018, the Catalan Government quantifies in an objective manner […]
A new study published in Ecosystems explores whether new croplands and pastures allocated across the territory facilitate fire extinction activities. The authors found that more heterogeneous agro-forest mosaics increase fire suppression effectiveness and thus final burnt area decreases In densely populated fire-prone regions, interactions between […]
How does a forest change after a fire?In this new work published in the Ecological Modeling journal, the authors propound this question for the Mediterranean forest. They propose specific responses via simulating species regeneration and species growth in burned areas. Landscape models are comprehensive tools […]
A new article published in Science of the Total Environment evaluates fire management effects on fire regime under climate change. The authors found that prescribed burning reduce high-intensity fires associated with climate change and that adaptive prescribed burning gain in cost-efficiency compared to rigid strategies […]
A new article led by Sergi Herrando (Catalan Institute of Ornithology and CREAF) examines the role played by temperature and precipitation preferences in determining population trends for birds and butterflies in a Mediterranean area, concluding that water availability is likely an important driver of animal […]
Global change challenges traditional conservation approaches based on the selection of static protected areas due to their limited ability to deal with the dynamic nature of driving forces relevant to biodiversity. The Natura 2000 network (N2000) constitutes a major milestone in biodiversity conservation in Europe, […]
In this work, recently published in Ecography, we provide a method based on modern atlas data to guide the establishment of monitoring projects that will deliver useful data to build accurate distribution models. Long-term monitoring data are used to evaluate population trends, but they may […]
Mediterranean landscapes are highly dynamic systems. Climate change is one of the most powerful driving forces of these dynamics and, in the Mediterranean basin, its severity has markedly increased in recent years. However, climate change impacts on biodiversity are often also indirect through changes in […]
In a new work published recently in International Journal of Wildland Fire, we present a modelling exercise for predicting different fire spread patterns in Catalonia, NE Spain. We introduce mathematically a novel classification of fires according to dominant fire spread pattern, an approach considered in […]
Land-use change is a large component of global change and the effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services currently represent a major challenge for ecologists and conservationists. Several authors have recently suggested that REWILDING may be an appealing conservation response to farmland abandonment in areas of […]
