Detecting low fragmented sites surrounding European protected areas – Implications for expansion of the Natura 2000 network

EU member states have set an ambitious goal of establishing additional protected areas (PAs) preserving 30 % of terrestrial land by 2030, specifying that additions should be of high ecological quality. A targeted selection of existing PA expansions into surroundings marginally fragmented by human infrastructure, may be an efficacious strategy to secure high ecological quality by maximizing PA area, accommodating species movement, and boosting climate change resilience. We used high-resolution data on effective mesh density, a metric measuring landscape fragmentation, in the vicinity of Natura 2000 PAs (N2k) to assess their potential for expansion. Our results show that contrary to most of Central Europe, mountainous and remote territories exhibit the lowest degree of fragmentation in N2k surroundings. Fragmentation in N2k surroundings is highly correlated with national population density, while economic wealth, measured by GDP per capita, plays a minor role. To address the long-standing dilemma of where scarce economic resources in nature conservation do the most-good, we conducted a country-level comparison between fragmentation in N2k surroundings and national expenditures on nature conservation relative to N2k area. Our results show a vast incongruity in resource availability for nature conservation among EU countries. Eastern European states, especially Romania, host underfunded N2k PAs while holding the highest potential for expanding N2k PAs into low fragmented lands. If protecting low fragmented lands is accepted as an efficacious strategy to meet EU biodiversity targets our results could be used to formulate pragmatic conservation decisions, while also ensuring high ecological quality of PA additions under climate change.     

Does conservation on farmland contribute to halting the biodiversity decline?

Biodiversity continues to decline, despite the implementation of international conservation conventions and measures. To counteract biodiversity loss, it is pivotal to know how conservation actions affect biodiversity trends. Focussing on European farmland species, we review what is known about the impact of conservation initiatives on biodiversity. We argue that the effects of conservation are a function of conservation-induced ecological contrast, agricultural land-use intensity and landscape context. We find that, to date, only a few studies have linked local conservation effects to national biodiversity trends. It is therefore unknown how the extensive European agri-environmental budget for conservation on farmland contributes to the policy objectives to halt biodiversity decline. Based on this review, we identify new research directions addressing this important knowledge gap.     

Agricultural intensification and the collapse of Europe's farmland bird populations

The populations of farmland birds in Europe declined markedly during the last quarter of the 20th century, representing a severe threat to biodiversity. Here, we assess whether declines in the populations and ranges of farmland birds across Europe reflect differences in agricultural intensity, which arise largely through differences in political history. Population and range changes were modelled in terms of a number of indices of agricultural intensity. Population declines and range contractions were significantly greater in countries with more intensive agriculture, and significantly higher in the European Union (EU) than in former communist countries. Cereal yield alone explained over 30% of the variation in population trends. The results suggest that recent trends in agriculture have had deleterious and measurable effects on bird populations on a continental scale. We predict that the introduction of EU agricultural policies into former communist countries hoping to accede to the EU in the near future will result in significant declines in the important bird populations there.     

Conservation status of freshwater mussels in Europe: state of the art and future challenges

Freshwater mussels of the Order Unionida provide important ecosystem functions and services, yet many of their populations are in decline. We comprehensively review the status of the 16 currently recognized species in Europe, collating for the first time their life‐history traits, distribution, conservation status, habitat preferences, and main threats in order to suggest future management actions. In northern, central, and eastern Europe, a relatively homogeneous species composition is found in most basins. In southern Europe, despite the lower species richness, spatially restricted species make these basins a high conservation priority. Information on freshwater mussels in Europe is unevenly distributed with considerable differences in data quality and quantity among countries and species. To make conservation more effective in the future, we suggest greater international cooperation using standardized protocols and methods to monitor and manage European freshwater mussel diversity. Such an approach will not only help conserve this vulnerable group but also, through the protection of these important organisms, will offer wider benefits to freshwater ecosystems.     

Interpreting ‘favourable conservation status’ for large carnivores in Europe: how many are needed and how many are wanted?

The EU Habitats Directive is a key biodiversity conservation instrument. It contains legal obligations for the 28 EU member states in order to safeguard a ‘favourable conservation status’ (FCS) for selected species and habitat types. The crucial FCS concept itself, however, remains subject to considerable confusion regarding its proper interpretation and operationalization, impairing the Directive’s effective implementation. Diminishing this confusion is the purpose of this review. It focuses specifically on large carnivores—wolf (Canis lupus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) and wolverine (Gulo gulo). These pose particular challenges, given their low densities, transboundary populations, and human-wildlife conflict potential. Large carnivores are also the only species for which specific guidance has been adopted by the European Commission—and subsequently contested. Our methodology combines legal analysis with an understanding of the species’ ecology and associated social, economic and cultural dimensions. We analyze the methods and processes through which EU law is interpreted, implemented, and enforced, by member states, European Commission, and EU Court of Justice—which is the ultimate authority regarding EU law interpretation. On that basis, we engage three particularly complex interpretation questions which are also of great practical significance: (1) the appropriate scale to achieve FCS (national or transboundary population level); (2) the respective roles of demographic, genetic and ecological factors in determining FCS; and (3) the use of extinction versus carrying capacity as benchmark. Regarding these questions, we identify approaches that are workable and effective, as well as likely to be endorsed by the EU Court.     

The past and future of farmland birds in Hungary

Capsule Populations of birds on farmland are larger and more stable in Hungary than in the UK and may provide baseline targets when planning population restoration programmes in more intensively farmed regions of Europe.

Aims To review the available evidence on farmland bird populations and their changes over the past century in Hungary, and to compare this with similar data for the UK.

Methods Published papers and grey literature were searched to determine long-term bird population trends for birds on farmland in Hungary, and for research evidence on the relationship between farmland management and bird diversity in Hungary.

Results Population density of common farmland birds is higher and trends are more positive in Hungary compared to the UK. These findings correlate with the recent change to generally less intensive agriculture in Hungary. However, while the birdlife associated with farmland in Hungary can be considered to have high diversity and density, it is still lower than it was in the first half of the 20th century and earlier. The few studies available showed that low-intensity traditional management promotes a rich biodiversity in both grasslands and arable systems in Hungary. Agri-environment schemes were introduced when Hungary joined the EU in 2004; however, their influence on biodiversity has not been systematically monitored.

Conclusions Insights emerging from farmland bird research in those European countries which still practice extensive agricultural techniques could be used to set general baseline targets for restoring biodiversity in regions where farmlands are now intensively managed. At the European scale urgent tasks are to: (1) investigate the relationships between management and bird diversity and density on a much wider geographical scale, (2) evaluate the geographical generality of the existing evidence base (which is mainly based on studies conducted in more intensively farmed regions), and (3) enhance the policy impact of conservation research.     

An enlarged European Union challenges priority settings in conservation

Biodiversity is declining worldwide under increasing human pressure. Since the location of and the threats are unevenly distributed and the resources available for conservation are limited, prioritization is essential to reduce the losses. Most conservation efforts until now proved to be ineffective in stopping the present worldwide decline of threatened species. We focus on the European Union (EU) after the repeated enlargements in the last decade, from 15 to 27 countries, by considering the present conservation priorities that have shifted towards a continental scale approach. The situation in the EU indicates that despite the differences in wealth across countries, there are no significant differences in the number and surface of protected areas between them, so re-evaluating conservation priorities at a continental scale and a reallocation of funds is required. A major limitation in priority settings for conservation is data availability. We recommend including in the decision process data provided by phylogeographic studies. This will prevent the decline of populations and species with evolutionary potential from centres of speciation and climate refugia. Recent EU members from central and eastern Europe still retain high biodiversity with a rather good conservation status. A large number of areas with high evolutionary potential identified by phylogeographic studies are located there and should be considered priorities within the context of global changes, as a proactive approach. We recommend a periodic re-evaluation of the status of species and habitats based on current research results, harmonization between the priority species listed in the conventions, directives and Red Lists at both EU and national levels.     

Bundles of ecosystem (dis)services and multifunctionality across European landscapes

We present an assessment of the spatial pattern of ecosystem services (ES) associations across Europe based on models of eleven ES and one dis-service, mapped at the extent of twenty-seven Member States of the European Union (EU27) on a 1 km² grid. We isolated three clusters of cells sharing common features in multi-ES supply associated with the main land-use-land-cover types such as forests and agricultural lands. Confronting these spatial patterns with biophysical and socio-economic drivers revealed two strong gradients structuring European ES bundles, climate and land use intensity. Variations in the diversity of ES bundles provided across administrative units (NUTS 2), quantified by the Shannon diversity index, tend to be higher in forested regions (e.g. SE Romania) and in the mosaic landscapes in the central EU27 (from eastern France to Austria). Lower diversity prevails in areas of homogeneous terrain and land use in north-western Europe (e.g. Western France). Our findings illustrate that ES trade-offs and bundles cannot be reduced to land use conflicts but also depend on climate and, for a specific bundle, to biodiversity.     

Low-Intensity Agricultural Landscapes in Transylvania Support High Butterfly Diversity: Implications for Conservation

European farmland biodiversity is declining due to land use changes towards agricultural intensification or abandonment. Some Eastern European farming systems have sustained traditional forms of use, resulting in high levels of biodiversity. However, global markets and international policies now imply rapid and major changes to these systems. To effectively protect farmland biodiversity, understanding landscape features which underpin species diversity is crucial. Focusing on butterflies, we addressed this question for a cultural-historic landscape in Southern Transylvania, Romania. Following a natural experiment, we randomly selected 120 survey sites in farmland, 60 each in grassland and arable land. We surveyed butterfly species richness and abundance by walking transects with four repeats in summer 2012. We analysed species composition using Detrended Correspondence Analysis. We modelled species richness, richness of functional groups, and abundance of selected species in response to topography, woody vegetation cover and heterogeneity at three spatial scales, using generalised linear mixed effects models. Species composition widely overlapped in grassland and arable land. Composition changed along gradients of heterogeneity at local and context scales, and of woody vegetation cover at context and landscape scales. The effect of local heterogeneity on species richness was positive in arable land, but negative in grassland. Plant species richness, and structural and topographic conditions at multiple scales explained species richness, richness of functional groups and species abundances. Our study revealed high conservation value of both grassland and arable land in low-intensity Eastern European farmland. Besides grassland, also heterogeneous arable land provides important habitat for butterflies. While butterfly diversity in arable land benefits from heterogeneity by small-scale structures, grasslands should be protected from fragmentation to provide sufficiently large areas for butterflies. These findings have important implications for EU agricultural and conservation policy. Most importantly, conservation management needs to consider entire landscapes, and implement appropriate measures at multiple spatial scales.     

Large‐scale,long‐term ecosystem monitoring: Interview with David Lindenmayer

David Lindenmayer leads six large‐scale, long‐term research programmes in south‐eastern Australia to help conserve biodiversity in restored areas on farmland as well as conservation in reserves, national parks, wood production forests and plantations. What makes this award‐winning researcher tick and how is the research influencing biodiversity management and policy?     

Geographic variation in the population trends of common breeding birds across central Europe

Recent declines of many European bird species have been linked with various environmental changes, especially land-use change and climate change. Since the intensity of these environmental changes varies among different countries, we can expect geographic variation in bird population trends. Here, we compared the population trends of bird species among neighbouring countries within central Europe (Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland) between 1990 and 2016 and examined trait-associations with population trends at both national and international scales. We found that Denmark had the highest proportion of declining species while Switzerland had the lowest. Species associated with farmland had negative trends, but the effect size tended to differ among countries. A preference for higher temperature was positively associated with population trends and its effect size was similar among countries. Species that were increasing across all four countries were associated with forest; while species that were decreasing across all countries were long-distance migrants or farmland birds. Our results suggest that land-use change tends to be a more regionally variable driver of common bird population trends than climate change in central Europe. For species declining across all countries, international action plans could provide a framework for more efficient conservation. However, farmland birds likely need both, coordinated international action (e.g. through a green agricultural policy) to tackle their widespread declines as well as regionally different approaches to address varying national effect trajectories.     

Central European vascular plants requiring priority conservation measures – an analysis from national Red Lists and distribution maps

A joint analysis considering the world-wide distribution and threat status of Central European vascular plants was carried out to derive conservation priorities for threatened species. A list of 417 taxa is presented, which are threatened throughout Central Europe and/or show a predominantly Central European distribution. As a first step, all plants mentioned in Central European national Red Lists were included in a synoptic table, resulting in a total of 3255 taxa threatened or rare in at least one country. To select species with a high conservation priority, two parameters were estimated: threat status for Central Europe and a new category termed responsibility for the conservation of a species. As criteria for this second parameter, we used the proportion of Central Europe on the world range of a species, the position of Central Europe within this range, and its world-wide threat status. A simple category system including four responsibility categories is proposed. For all species selected, threat status and a responsibility assessment for the whole of Central Europe is given, as well as position and proportion of Central Europe on their world range. By comparison of threat status and responsibility, this list provides a background for assessing national conservation priorities as well as for making decisions about inclusion in international conventions on species conservation. This was shown by a comparison of the species selected using this approach with those included in the two most important European instruments for species conservation – the Berne Convention and the Habitats Directive.     

Phylogeography of noble crayfish (Astacus astacus) reveals multiple refugia

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Reconstructing range dynamics and range fragmentation of European bison for the last 8000 years

Aim Understanding what constituted species’ ranges prior to large‐scale human influence, and how past climate and land use change have affected range dynamics, provides conservation planners with important insights into how species may respond to future environmental change. Our aim here was to reconstruct the Holocene range of European bison (Bison bonasus) by combining a time‐calibrated species distribution models (SDM) with a dynamic vegetation model. Location Europe. Method We used European bison occurrences from the Holocene in a maximum entropy model to assess bison range dynamics during the last 8000 years. As predictors, we used bioclimatic variables and vegetation reconstructions from the generalized dynamic vegetation model LPJ‐GUESS. We compared our range maps with maps of farmland and human population expansion to identify the main species range constraints. Results The Holocene distribution of European bison was mainly determined by vegetation patterns, with bison thriving in both broadleaved and coniferous forests, as well as by mean winter temperature. The heartland of European bison was in Central and Eastern Europe, whereas suitable habitat in Western Europe was scarce. While environmentally suitable regions were overall stable, the expansion of settlements and farming severely diminished available habitat. Main conclusions European bison habitat preferences may be wider than previously assumed, and our results suggest that the species had a more eastern and northern distribution than previously reported. Vegetation and climate transformation during the Holocene did not affect the bison’s range substantially. Conversely, human population growth and the spread of farming resulted in drastic bison habitat loss and fragmentation, likely reaching a tipping point during the last 1000 years. Combining SDM and dynamic vegetation models can improve range reconstructions and projections, and thus help to identify resilient conservation strategies for endangered species.     

Agricultural intensification and farmland birds: new insights from a central European country

The relationship between agricultural intensification and a decline in farmland bird populations is well documented in Europe, but the results are mostly based on data from the western part of the continent. In the former socialist eastern and central European countries, political changes around 1990 resulted in a steep decline in the intensity of agriculture. Therefore, one would expect populations of farmland birds to have recovered under these conditions of lower agricultural intensity. We explored population trends of 19 farmland bird species in the Czech Republic between 1982 and 2003 using data from a large‐scale monitoring scheme, and, additionally, we looked for relationships between such population changes and a number of variables describing the temporal development of Czech agriculture. Most farmland species declined during the focal period, and this decline was steepest in farmland specialists (Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus, Skylark Alauda arvensis, Linnet Carduelis cannabina and Yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella). Although the intensity of agriculture was lower after than before 1990, the overall decline continued in most farmland bird species, albeit at a slower rate. The correlations between agricultural intensity and farmland bird decline showed opposite patterns to that found in other European studies, because bird populations were highest in years with the most intensive agriculture. We speculate that this pattern could have resulted from the impact of different driving forces causing farmland bird decline in different periods. The high intensity of agriculture could have caused the decline of the originally abundant populations before 1990. After 1990, the decreasing area of arable land could be the most important factor resulting in the continued decline of farmland bird populations. Our results demonstrate that the drivers of farmland bird population changes could differ across Europe, and thus investigations into the effect of farmland management in different parts of the continent are urgently required.     

Climate change, conservation and management: an assessment of the peer-reviewed scientific journal literature

Recent reviews of the conservation literature indicate that significant biases exist in the published literature regarding the regions, ecosystems and species that have been examined by researchers. Despite the global threat of climatic change, similar biases may be occurring within the sub-discipline of climate-change ecology. Here we hope to foster critical thought and discussion by considering the directions taken by conservation researchers when addressing climate change. To form a quantitative basis for our perspective, we assessed 248 papers from the climate change literature that considered the conservation management of biodiversity and ecosystems. We found that roughly half of the studies considered climate change in isolation from other threatening processes. We also found that the majority of surveyed scientific publications were conducted in the temperate forests of Europe and North America. Regions such as Latin America that are rich in biodiversity but may have low adaptive capacity to climate change were not well represented. We caution that such biases in research effort may be distracting our attention away from vulnerable regions, ecosystems and species. Specifically we suggest that the under-representation of research from regions low in adaptive capacity and rich in biodiversity requires international collaboration by those experienced in climate-change research, with researchers from less wealthy nations who are familiar with local issues, ecosystems and species. Furthermore, we caution that the propensity of ecologists to work in essentially unmodified ecosystems may fundamentally hamper our ability to make useful recommendations in a world that is experiencing significant global change.     

Europe and ESTRO moving East. A story of betrayal and redemption—Candid observations by a privileged witness

After briefly looking into the dramatic twist of history that caused Central- and Eastern Europe to be separated from the West, the author observes the impact of 40 years of cold war and isolation on the state of radiotherapy (RT) in Central Europe. From her privileged position as a staff member in charge of public relations and society development at the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO), she witnesses and helps drive the “rapprochement” between radiation oncology professionals from both sides of the former iron curtain. Thanks to substantial support from target tailored EU projects, ESTRO was in a position to give a powerful impulse to the re-integration of Central European RT in the mainstream of European health care. The author describes from her own and privileged perspective the excitement of discovering the rich heritage of a shared common past and expresses her concern that in the dynamic repositioning of Europe''s point of gravity towards the East, the multiple but still fragile links between Central- and West European radiotherapy, tied within ESTRO, should not get dissolved in transition.     

Applying red lists to the evaluation of agricultural habitat: regular occurrence of threatened birds,vascular plants,and bryophytes in field margins of Poland

Using the assessments of conservation status of flora and fauna, we discuss declining species in semi-natural field margins and stress the importance of these vanishing habitats. Seventy field margins in the diverse farmland of SW Poland were investigated with regard to their vascular plants, bryophytes and breeding birds. We checked the occurrence of threatened and conservation concern species, i.e. those listed in local, national or European threatened species lists, and birds with an unfavorable conservation status in Europe. Of a total of 673 species, 18 classified as threatened were recorded: 12 vascular plants (2.2 % of the total number of species), five bryophytes (5.6 %), and one bird species (2.0 %). Threatened plants occurred in 18.6 % of study plots, bryophytes in 20.0 % and birds in 12.9 %. Eleven bird species, noted in 95.7 % of study plots, had an unfavorable conservation status in Europe. Increasing volumes of trees and shrubs significantly increased the overall richness in each taxa. In percentage terms the occurrence of focal species in all three taxa tended to be higher in shrubby than in herbaceous and tree-lined margins. Our data demonstrate that field margins in Central European arable farmland regularly support rare and threatened species, and therefore deserve greater conservation efforts. Red lists along with alternative listing approaches can be employed to evaluate the biodiversity of fine-scale habitats, but their applicability depends on the taxonomic group and geographical scale of the lists, reflecting different conservation priorities.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of retention forestry to enhance biodiversity in production forests of Central Europe using an interdisciplinary,multi‐scale approach

Retention forestry, which retains a portion of the original stand at the time of harvesting to maintain continuity of structural and compositional diversity, has been originally developed to mitigate the impacts of clear‐cutting. Retention of habitat trees and deadwood has since become common practice also in continuous‐cover forests of Central Europe. While the use of retention in these forests is plausible, the evidence base for its application is lacking, trade‐offs have not been quantified, it is not clear what support it receives from forest owners and other stakeholders and how it is best integrated into forest management practices. The Research Training Group ConFoBi (Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Multiple‐use Landscapes of Central Europe) focusses on the effectiveness of retention forestry, combining ecological studies on forest biodiversity with social and economic studies of biodiversity conservation across multiple spatial scales. The aim of ConFoBi is to assess whether and how structural retention measures are appropriate for the conservation of forest biodiversity in uneven‐aged and selectively harvested continuous‐cover forests of temperate Europe. The study design is based on a pool of 135 plots (1 ha) distributed along gradients of forest connectivity and structure. The main objectives are (a) to investigate the effects of structural elements and landscape context on multiple taxa, including different trophic and functional groups, to evaluate the effectiveness of retention practices for biodiversity conservation; (b) to analyze how forest biodiversity conservation is perceived and practiced, and what costs and benefits it creates; and (c) to identify how biodiversity conservation can be effectively integrated in multi‐functional forest management. ConFoBi will quantify retention levels required across the landscape, as well as the socio‐economic prerequisites for their implementation by forest owners and managers. ConFoBi's research results will provide an evidence base for integrating biodiversity conservation into forest management in temperate forests.