Is Joint Management between Conservationists and Farmers Sustainable and Biodiversity-friendly? A Ten-year Study in Residual Grasslands of a Protected Area.

In recent decades, there has been a discernible reduction in temperate and Mediterranean grasslands with consequences on the decline of biodiversity and landscape heterogeneity. When this decline is due to agricultural abandonment, a renewed joint management, combining bush clearing by conservationists and grazing by farmers, should favor the maintenance of grasslands, their protected habitats and species and forage production. Rainfall irregularity explains part of the variation of these parameters. To verify these hypotheses, we conduct a comprehensive, multi-scale, multi-taxa study over a ten-year period in a Mediterranean protected area. At the regional scale, experimental plots in which this joint management was implemented are representative of residual managed grasslands of the protected area. At the mesoscale, rainfall irregularity is the main factor explaining inter-annual differences in the biomass of open landscapes, while fauna depends on management, tree cover and trophic resources. At the local scale, in a representative experimental plot, clearing had an immediate negative impact on plant richness and bird and positive on forage. Over a decade, plant biodiversity increased while forage, specialist plants and bird maintained, despite the regrowth of bush. Drought had a negative impact on richness, plant and forage abundance and phenological asynchrony on butterflies. In conclusion, joint management has positive, neutral and negative impacts to be considered before implementing this strategy. This long-term monitoring study draws important lessons for designing a sustainable management of grasslands under abandonment and irregular climate, that should be applied in temperate and Mediterranean regions that are increasingly vulnerable to these trends.

Biomolecules from olive pruning waste in Sierra Mágina - Engaging the energy transition by multi-actor and multidisciplinary analyses.

The price volatility of fossil resources, the uncertainty of their long-term availability and the environmental, climatic and societal problems posed by their operation lead to the need of an energy transition enabling the development and utilization of other alternative and sustainable resources. Acknowledging that indirect land-use change can increase greenhouse gas emission, the European Union (EU) has reshaped its biofuel policy. It has set criteria for sustainability to ensure that the use of biofuels guarantees real carbon savings and protects biodiversity. From a sustainability perspective, biofuels and bioliquids offer indeed both advantages (e.g., more secure energy supply, emission reductions, reduced air pollution and production of high added-value molecules) as well as risks (monocultures, reduced biodiversity and even higher emissions through land use change). Approaching economic, environmental and social sustainability at the local level and in an integrated way should help to maximize benefits and minimize risks. This approach has been adopted and is described in the present work that combines chemical, biological, social and territorial studies on the management of pruning waste residues from olive trees in the Sierra Mágina in Spain. The biological and social analyses helped to orientate the research towards an attractive chemical process based on extraction and pyrolysis, in which high added value molecules are recovered and in which the residual biochar may be used as pathogen-free fertilizer. In this region where farmers face declining economic margins, the new intended method may both solve greenhouse gas emission problems and provide farmers with additional revenues and convenient fertilizers. Further research with a larger partnership will consolidate the results and tackle issues such as the logistics.

Distribution of trace and major elements in subarctic ecosystem soils: Sources and influence of vegetation.

Artic and subarctic environments are particularly sensitive to climate change with a faster warming compared to other latitudes. Vegetation is changing but its role on the biogeochemical cycling is poorly understood. In this study, we evaluated the distribution of trace elements in subarctic soils from different land covers at Abisko, northern Sweden: grassland, moor, broad-leaved forest, and peat bog. Using various multivariate analysis approaches, results indicated a spatial heterogeneity with a strong influence of soil horizon classes considered: lithogenic elements (e.g., Al, Cr, Ti) were accumulated in mineral horizon classes and surface process-influenced elements (e.g., Cd, Cu, Se) in organic horizon classes. Atmospheric influences included contamination by both local mines (e.g., Cu, Fe, Ni) and regional or long-range atmospheric transport (e.g., Cd, Pb, Zn). A non-negative matrix factorization was used to estimate, for each element, the contribution of various sources identified. For the first time, a comparison between geochemical and ecological data was performed to evaluate the influence of vegetation on element distribution. Apart from soil pH that could control dynamics of As, Cu, and Se, two vegetation classes were reported to be correlated to geochemical factors: forbs and shrubs/dwarf shrubs probably due to their annual vs. perennial activities, respectively. Since these are considered as the main vegetation classes that quickly evolve with climate change, we expect to see modifications in trace element biogeochemical cycling in the future.

Suitable habitats for endangered frugivorous mammals: small-scale comparison, regeneration forest and chimpanzee density in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Landscape patterns and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) densities in Kibale National Park show important variation among communities that are geographically close to one another (from 1.5 to 5.1 chimpanzees/km2). Anthropogenic activities inside the park (past logging activities, current encroachment) and outside its limits (food and cash crops) may impact the amount and distribution of food resources for chimpanzees (frugivorous species) and their spatial distribution within the park. Spatial and temporal patterns of fruit availability were recorded over 18 months at Sebitoli (a site of intermediate chimpanzee density and higher anthropic pressure) with the aim of understanding the factors explaining chimpanzee density there, in comparison to results from two other sites, also in Kibale: Kanyawara (low chimpanzee density) and Ngogo (high density, and furthest from Sebitoli). Because of the post-logging regenerating status of the forest in Sebitoli and Kanyawara, smaller basal area (BA) of fruiting trees most widely consumed by the chimpanzees in Kanyawara and Sebitoli was expected compared to Ngogo (not logged commercially). Due to the distance between sites, spatial and temporal fruit abundance in Sebitoli was expected to be more similar to Kanyawara than to Ngogo. While species functional classes consumed by Sebitoli chimpanzees (foods eaten during periods of high or low fruit abundance) differ from the two other sites, Sebitoli is very similar to Kanyawara in terms of land-cover and consumed species. Among feeding trees, Ficus species are particularly important resources for chimpanzees at Sebitoli, where their basal area is higher than at Kanywara or Ngogo. Ficus species provided a relatively consistent supply of food for chimpanzees throughout the year, and we suggest that this could help to explain the unusually high density of chimpanzees in such a disturbed site.