Conservation

Urban areas worldwide face significant pressure from population growth and urban expansion, resulting in habitat loss. Urban planners need to develop a comprehensive strategy for protecting, restoring and enhancing natural heritage (such as natural features and assets), at the municipal and regional levels. Here, we propose an approach to design a Natural Heritage System (NHS) that interconnects natural features and areas. This resulting NHS aims to guide and prioritize the protection, restoration, and enhancement of ecological areas and their functions. The NHS integrates terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem functions for conservation planning. We leverage the Marxan optimization tool to identify target areas using 36 ecological features. We compare three spatial scenarios: regional-scale, watershed-scale, and a hybrid approach. We found that the hybrid scenario proved to be the most effective, covering 52% of the jurisdiction. Then, we classified the target areas into three tiers of the NHS: (1) existing natural cover (23.4%), (2) potential natural cover (12.3%), and (3) contributing areas (16.3%). Contributing areas represent additional parts of the NHS within developed or partly developed landscapes to support overall NHS health and ecological function. These tiers allow for tailored management actions: protection of existing natural cover and restoration of potential natural cover. Altogether, the areas identified for the NHS by Marxan provide a strong, science-based framework to address urbanization impacts and support long-term implementation of biodiversity and urban sustainability solutions. It also provides enhancement opportunities through green infrastructure in contributing areas using nature-based solutions aiming to conserve biodiversity in urban areas.

Madagascar is a global biodiversity hotspot, with approximately 90% of all its plant and animal species being endemic, most of them associated with forest ecosystems. This rich biodiversity is threatened by relentless deforestation; in 2014 only about 15% of the national territory retained highly fragmented native forests, and deforestation continues with worrying forecasts for the coming decades. This rapid loss of habitat is not only causing species losses, but also the loss of important ecological functions that may disappear well before the extinction of the species involved. Here we want to draw attention to the three species of parrots endemic to Madagascar, for which there is a lack of systematically collected data on their distribution and population trends. We compiled available evidence, including data derived from citizen science, suggesting that the distribution and abundance of at least two of the three parrot species have declined in recent decades. These declines are likely driven not only by forest loss but also by persecution for the pet trade, crop protection, and hunting for food. There is also evidence, although still scarce, showing that these parrot species not only act as plant antagonists, but also fulfill mutualistic functions such as seed dispersal by different mechanisms, pollination, and maintenance of plant health. We urge researchers to study the current distribution and population size of the Malagasy parrots, as well as the full antagonism–mutualism spectrum of relationships with their food plants. This is needed for assessing their current conservation status, which may be significantly worse than that reflected by the IUCN Red List, and for identifying important ecological functions that may be lost before the disappearance of the species involved, which can be key to the maintenance and regeneration of the forests they inhabit.

This study examines a long-term dataset where 16 passerine species, classified as long-distance migrants, short-distance migrants, and residents were monitored at the Santo André National Ringing Station (Portugal) from 1997 to 2024. Using standardized capture data from 16 passerines species collected during the autumn migration period, we evaluated trends in population abundance over a 27-year time span. Our analyses revealed pronounced and statistically robust declines in all long-distance migratory species, particularly savi’s warbler, grasshopper warbler, and sedge warbler, which are now almost locally extinct. In contrast, short-distance migrants and resident species exhibited more heterogeneous patterns depending on their ecological specialization, yet all strictly insectivorous taxa, except for the chiffchaff, showed marked population declines, particularly the bluethroat and the sardinian warbler. The parallel decline in insectivorous species across migratory strategies points to a widespread trophic effect, likely linked to the global depletion of insect populations, driven by habitat destruction, pesticide use, pollution, and climate change. Collectively, these findings emphasize the urgent need for regionally adapted, long-term monitoring programs to inform effective conservation strategies in the face of accelerating climate and land-use change.