Topography regulates vegetation functioning by controlling water redistribution, microclimate, and solar exposure. In Mediterranean ecosystems, where water availability constitutes a fundamental limiting factor, vegetation functioning is also influen...
The loss of aquatic biodiversity is increasing at a rapid rate globally. There is a worldwide effort to protect, preserve and restore aquatic ecosystems. For efficient biodiversity monitoring and reliable management tools, comprehensive biodiversity...
Mediterranean ecosystems are highly susceptible to wildfires, and shifts in fire patterns pose a threat to biodiversity, soil stability, and overall ecosystem health resilience. Implementing prescribed burning as a management strategy to lower wildfi...
Sub-Mediterranean ecosystems along the northeastern Black Sea coast remain insufficiently studied despite their importance for the regional carbon cycle and their sensitivity to human disturbance. This study presents an exploratory case study of abov...
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are increasingly recognised as effective approaches for enhancing coastal resilience while simultaneously supporting biodiversity, ecosystem services, and, where appropriate, climate-change mitigation. Their importance is...
The intense human pressures in the Anthropocene epoch are causing an alarming decline in marine coastal ecosystems and an unprecedented loss of biodiversity. This situation underscores the urgency of making ecological restoration a global priority to...
Background/Objectives: Fire is a dominant ecological force in Mediterranean ecosystems, shaping the adaptive traits of forest species such as Pinus brutia. Prescribed burning (also called controlled burning) is the intentional, carefully planned use...
Wood-pastures are among the most valuable types of farmland for ecosystem services, including biodiversity, landscape, soil protection, water management and cultural values. This paper reviews the scientific literature regarding the dynamic role and...
Mediterranean cultural landscapes have been recognized as multifunctional landscapes that are currently threatened by two opposing trends: rural abandonment and agricultural intensification. Uncovering people’s perceptions of different landscap...
The role of helminths of the wood mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus, as biological indicators of the post-fire regeneration process in Serra Calderona Natural Park, a Mediterranean forest ecosystem located between the provinces of València and Castelló (Val...
In the Mediterranean region, the high frequency of fire events is combined with climatic conditions that hinder vegetation recovery. This underscores the urgent need for a post-fire restoration of natural ecosystems and implementation of emergency re...
Considering the fragility of the Mediterranean environment, there is an increasing need to improve the knowledge of this forest environment. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of air pollution on the forest ecosystem’s condition b...
In recent times, the misleading belief that the indiscriminate planting of a million trees is the panacea to some of the most serious and urgent environmental problems of our planet (such as soil erosion, climate change, etc.) has gained increasing p...
Although pathogenic Leptospira DNA has been detected in water and soil from different climatic regions, information from Mediterranean-climate agricultural systems remains limited. This study characterized the environmental detection of pathogenic Le...
In the Mediterranean, the dune–beach ecosystem is characterized by the presence of thick deposits of dead leaves of the endemic seagrass Posidonia oceanica, called banquettes (Dune–Beach–Banquette ecosystem—DBB). This ecosyste...
The Mediterranean area is one of the most significantly altered biodiversity hotspots on the Earth’s surface; it has been intensively affected by anthropogenic activity for millennia, forming complex socioecological systems. In parallel, the lo...
To manage multiple ecosystem services (ES) effectively, it is essential to understand how the dynamics of ES maintain healthy ecosystems to avoid potential negative impacts on human well-being in the context of sustainable development. In particular,...
Allelopathy is a frequent interaction between species in Mediterranean ecosystems and it is also one of the proposed strategies to explain the colonisation of invasive species. To confirm the importance of allelopathic potential as a mechanism of inv...
According to EuroStat data, the recorded landings of fisheries products from European waters were estimated at about 6 million tons in 2001, down to 3.2 million tons in 2022. This gradual decline slowed after the entering into force of the reform of...
Francisella tularensis is a vector-borne zoonotic bacterium that causes tularemia, a disease of great importance for animal and public health. Although wild lagomorphs are considered one of the major reservoirs of this bacterium, information about th...
Coxiella burnetii is an important zoonotic pathogen of worldwide distribution that can infect a wide range of wild and domestic species. The European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) can play a role as a reservoir for this bacterium in certain epi...
31 October 2026
Satellite-based characterization of vegetation phenology in structurally complex Mediterranean ecosystems remains challenging because of the contrasting spatial and temporal properties of remote sensing platforms. This study evaluates how differences...
The aim of the study was to investigate the bacterial community diversity and structure by means of 16S rRNA gene high-throughput amplicon sequencing, in the rhizosphere and phyllosphere of halophytes and drought-tolerant plants in Mediterranean ecos...
The invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) poses a significant threat to ecosystem stability worldwide. In Mediterranean citrus ecosystems, its spread may be limited by interactions with dominant native ant species. We conducted laboratory exper...
Assessing post-fire disturbance in Mediterranean ecosystems is essential for quantifying ecological impacts and guiding restoration strategies. This study evaluates fire severity following an extreme wildfire event (~28,000 ha) in northwestern Spain...
Soil quality offers a holistic approach for understanding the relationships between soil’s biological, chemical, and physical properties, which is crucial for sustainable land use and the management of non-renewable soil resources. This study e...
Saproxylic beetles are key bioindicators of forest ecosystem quality and play essential roles in deadwood decomposition and nutrient cycling. However, their populations are increasingly threatened by habitat fragmentation, deadwood removal, and clima...
Forest restoration has become one of the most important challenges for restoration ecology in the recent years. In this regard, soil fungi are fundamental drivers of forest ecosystem processes, with significant implications for plant growth and survi...
Mining and metallurgical activities negatively impact ecosystems due to the release of potentially toxic elements (PTEs). This study assesses PTE pollution and accumulation in native plant species that have spontaneously colonized a historical mining...
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are determinant for the performance of plant communities and for the functionality of terrestrial ecosystems. In natural ecosystems, grazing can have a major impact on mycorrhizal fungi and consequently on plant gro...
In Mediterranean fire-prone ecosystems, plant functional traits and burn severity have decisive roles in post-fire vegetation recovery. These traits may reflect plant fitness to fire regimes in the Mediterranean Basin. The aim of this study was to ev...
Corsica Island is a sub-basin of the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea, with hydrological features typical of both oligotrophic systems and eutrophic coastal zones. Phytoplankton assemblages in two coastal ecosystems of Corsica (the deep Bay of Calvi an...
This work provides insights into the effect of fire on soil processes in Mediterranean-type ecosystems in Cyprus. Soil samples from mountainous sites that were subjected to a summer wildfire and adjacent control samples were collected. Incubations we...
The current study assesses the potential of two modeling approaches to simulate the daily site water budget in Mediterranean ecosystems. Both models utilize a simplified one-bucket approach but are fed with different drivers. The first model, BIOME-B...
Olive cultivation (Olea europaea L.) is one of the most significant sources of income for agricultural areas in the Mediterranean basin, and the olive oil industry as well as the environmental protection are an important part of the Greek agricultura...
(1) Background: The present study examines the effects of fire on the ecosystem services of forest ecosystems in Greece. Being a Mediterranean country, Greece has been affected by fires of increasing intensity and frequency in recent years; (2) Metho...
The catastrophic impact of wildfires on the economy and ecosystems of Mediterranean countries in recent years, along with insufficient policies that favor disproportionally high funding for fire suppression, demand a more comprehensive understanding...
This article describes a field- and laboratory-based framework that can be used to monitor the C balance in Mediterranean pine forest ecosystems under different management practices that determine their structure and function. By jointly monitoring s...
Plastic debris occurring in freshwater environments, which can either come from the surrounding terrestrial areas or transported from upstream, has been identified as one of the main sources and routes of plastic pollution in marine systems. The ocea...
Mediterranean ecosystems are threatened by water and nutrient scarcity and continuous loss of soil organic carbon. Urban agglomerations and rural ecosystems in the Mediterranean region and globally are interlinked through the flows of resources/nutri...
This review provides insights on livestock farming in the Mediterranean regions, highlighting strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. Biodiversity conservation and production of high-value, certified products are the main strengths of Mediter...
Tree–grass ecosystems are widely distributed. However, their phenology has not yet been fully characterized. The technique of repeated digital photographs for plant phenology monitoring (hereafter referred as PhenoCam) provide opportunities for...
Beach litter, an anthropogenic and hazardous component, can interact with psammophilous plant species and communities. These are particularly prominent in the Mediterranean Basin, renowned for its highly specialized and unique flora but recognized as...
Urban ecosystems are structurally and functionally distinct from their natural counterparts, with anthropogenic management potentially altering fundamental ecological processes such as seasonal community dynamics and impairing their sustainability. H...
There is a growing need to map rice ecosystems and to develop methods for monitoring rice distribution in order to account for rapid land use changes worldwide. In this study, we evaluated a methodology based on Vegetation Indices time series derived...
Environmental degradation and the decrease of ecosystem service provision are currently of major concern, with current agricultural systems being a major driver. To meet our future environmental and sustainability targets a transformation of the agro...
Mediterranean-type ecosystems (METs) occur on five continents and represent some of the most climatically constrained yet biologically rich regions on Earth. In these environments, legumes and their nitrogen-fixing rhizobial symbionts—including...
Forest ecosystems are divided into three major groups: boreal, temperate, and tropical. These can be subdivided according to the particularities of each type due to its relative location (littoral, mountain, etc.), climatic conditions, or even geolog...
The implementation of DNA metabarcoding and environmental DNA (eDNA) to the biodiversity assessment and biomonitoring of aquatic ecosystems has great potential worldwide. However, DNA metabarcoding and eDNA are highly reliant on the coverage of the D...
Algeria, the main fire hotspot on the southern rim of the Mediterranean Basin, lacks a complete fire dataset with official fire perimeters, and the existing one contains inconsistencies. Preprocessed global and regional burned area (BA) products prov...
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