Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes

Funder

Organizational Unit

Publications

Plant growers' environmental consciousness may not be enough to mitigate pollinator declines : a questionnaire‐based case study in Hungary

Publication . Varga‐Szilay, Zsófia; Pozsgai, Gabor

BACKGROUND: Pesticides are one of the most important anthropogenic-related stressors. In times of global pollinator decline, the role of integrated farming and urban gardens in supporting wild pollinators is becoming increasingly important. We circulated an online questionnaire to survey plant protection practices among Hungarian farmers and garden ownerswith a particular emphasis on pollinator protection. RESULTS: We found that plant growers rely heavily on pesticide use, and pesticides are used widely in otherwise pollinatorfriendly gardens. Whether pesticide use practices were driven by expert opinion and respondent gender were the best predictors of pesticide use. Although most respondents supported pollinators, pesticides are also used widely among home garden owners, which can pose a non-evident ecological trap for pollinator populations in the gardens. CONCLUSION: Special attention should be paid to implementing measures to reduce pesticide use not only in farmland, but also in home gardens. Environmental education and financial support through agroecological schemes could efficiently promote the transition away from pesticide use. However, whereas farmers can be encouraged to reduce pesticide use mostly by expert advice, garden owners are likely to rely on more conventional information channels. The attitudes of Hungarian plant growers can provide an insight into pesticide use practices of Central and Eastern European countries, but similar surveys are needed across Europe for a complete understanding of broad-scale processes. This work lays the foundations for similar studies that can inform and facilitate the transformation to pesticide-free farming and gardening.

2022-11Journal article

Open access

Integrated climate, ecological and socioeconomic scenarios for the whale watching sector

Publication . Sousa, Andreia G.; Coelho, R. Encarnação; Costa, Hugo; Lourenço, T. Capela; Azevedo, José M. N.; Santos, C. Frazão

Unprecedented human induced changes to the climate system have already contributed to a variety of observed impacts to both ecosystems and populations. Decision-makers demand impact assessments at the regional-to-local scale to be able to plan and define effective climate action measures. Integrated socio-ecological assessments that properly consider system uncertainties require the use of prospective scenarios that project potential climate impacts, while accounting for sectoral exposure and adaptive capacity. Here we provide an integrated assessment of climate change to the whale watching sector by: 1) extending the European Shared Socio-economic Pathways (Eur-SSPs) and developing four whale watching SSP narratives (WW-SSPs) and 2) characterize each key element comprised in the WW-SSPs for the time period 2025–2055. We applied this approach in a case study for the Macaronesia region where we developed scenarios which integrate the socio-economic (WW-SSPs), climate (RCPs) and ecological (species' thermal suitability responses) dimensions of whale watching. These scenarios were used by local stakeholders to identify the level of preparedness of the whale watching sector. When confronted with scenarios that combine this ecological dimension with projected climate changes and the four different socioeconomic narratives, stakeholders assessed the whale watching sector in Macaronesia as being somewhat prepared for a Sustainable World and a Fossil Fuel Development World, but somewhat unprepared for a Rivalry World. No consensus was reached regarding the sector's preparedness level under an Inequality World scenario. Our study demonstrates the importance of considering multiple dimensions when assessing the potential challenges posed by climate change and provides a needed resource to help the whale watching sector in Macaronesia, and elsewhere, in its effort to devise efficient climate action policies and strategies.

2023-01Journal article

Restricted access

Land use change through the lens of macroecology : insights from Azorean arthropods and the maximum entropy theory of ecology

Publication . Brush, Micah; Matthews, Thomas J.; Borges, Paulo A. V.; Harte, John

Human activity and land management practices, in particular land use change, have resulted in the global loss of biodiversity. These types of disturbance affect the shape of macroecological patterns, and therefore analyzing these patterns can provide insights into how ecosystems are affected by land use change. We here use arthropod census data from 96 sites at Terceira Island in the Azores archipelago across four different land uses of increasing management intensity: native forest, exotic forest, semi-natural pasture and intensive pasture, to examine the effects of land use type on three macroecological patterns: the species abundance distribution, the metabolic rate distribution of individuals and the species–area relationship. The maximum entropy theory of ecology (METE) has successfully predicted these patterns across habitats and taxa in undisturbed ecosystems, and thus provides a null expectation for their shapes. Across these patterns, we find that the forest habitats are the best fit by METE predictions, while the semi-natural pasture is consistently the worst fit, and the intensive pasture is intermediately well fit. We show that the direction of failure of the METE predictions at the pasture sites is likely due to the hyper-dominance of introduced spider species present there. We hypothesize that the particularly poor fit for the semi-natural pasture is due to the mix of arthropod communities out of equilibrium, leading to greater heterogeneity in composition and complex dynamics that violate METE's assumption of static state variables. The comparative better fit for the intensive pasture plausibly results from more homogeneous arthropod communities that are well adapted to intensive management, and thus whose state variables are less in flux. Analyzing deviations from theoretical predictions across land use type provides useful information about how land use and disturbance affect ecosystems, and such comparisons could be useful across other habitats and taxa.

2022-05Journal article

Open access

A novel expert-driven methodology to develop thermal response curves and project habitat thermal suitability for cetaceans under a changing climate

Publication . Sousa, Andreia G.; Fernandez, Marc; Alves, Filipe M. A.; Arranz, Patricia; Dinis, Ana; González García, Laura; Morales, Misael; Lettrich, Matthew D.; Coelho, R. Encarnação; Costa, Hugo; Lourenço, T. Capela; Azevedo, José M. N.; Santos, Catarina Frazão

Over the last decades, global warming has contributed to changes in marine species composition, abundance and distribution, in response to changes in oceanographic conditions such as temperature, acidification, and deoxygenation. Experimentally derived thermal limits, which are known to be related to observed latitudinal ranges, have been used to assess variations in species distribution patterns. However, such experiments cannot be undertaken on free-swimming large marine predators with wide-range distribution, like cetaceans. An alternative approach is to elicit expert's knowledge to derive species' thermal suitability and assess their thermal responses, something that has never been tested in these taxa. We developed and applied a methodology based on expert-derived thermal suitability curves and projected future responses for several species under different climate scenarios. We tested this approach with ten cetacean species currently present in the biogeographic area of Macaronesia (North Atlantic) under Representative Concentration Pathways 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5, until 2050. Overall, increases in annual thermal suitability were found for Balaenoptera edeni, Globicephala macrorhynchus, Mesoplodon densirostris, Physeter macrocephalus, Stenella frontalis, Tursiops truncatus and Ziphius cavirostris. Conversely, our results indicated a decline in thermal suitability for B. physalus, Delphinus delphis, and Grampus griseus. Our study reveals potential responses in cetaceans' thermal suitability, and potentially in other highly mobile and large predators, and it tests this method's applicability, which is a novel application for this purpose and group of species. It aims to be a cost-efficient tool to support conservation managers and practitioners.

2023-02Journal article

Restricted access

Sampling of Azores seabirds with camera-traps - Year 2019

Publication . Lamelas-López, Lucas; Borges, Paulo A. V.

The Azores holds the largest population of Cory´s shearwater Calonectris borealis (Cory, 1881) in the world. One of the major threats of this species in the Azores is the predation by invasive mammals, which were introduced from European colonization of the islands. The present publication provides a data set from a camera-trapping survey performed in colonies of Cory’s shearwater. The sampling was conducted between 8 April and 23 October of 2019, covering the entire breeding season, in three colonies of the Terceira Island (Azores). A total of 32 nests were sampled using motion-triggered cameras. This publication aims to provide information about the ecological patterns of the Cory Shearwater, and to identify potential nest predators. This publication includes a total of 6972 records across 15 species (9 species of birds, 5 of mammals and 1 of reptiles), which 5414 records are of Cory’s shearwater, 478 of potential mammal predators and 1080 of another vertebrate species. Information about biology of the species is also provided, as species circadian behaviour and habitat description.

2023-02Dataset

Open access