Catenas are undulating hillslopes on a granite geology characterised by different soil types that create an environmental gradient (zones) from crest to bottom. Main aim was to determine mammal species (>mongoose) present on one catenal slope and its waterholes over three short survey periods. A total of 33 mammal species were observed with camera traps: 18 herbivore species, 10 carnivores, two insectivores, and three omnivore species. Eight species were small mammals, two dwarf antelopes, 11 medium, six large and six mega-sized mammals. Species richness was highest at waterholes (22 species), followed by midslope (19) and sodic patch (16) on the catena. Small differences were noted in species presence between different zones, and survey periods, but were not significant (p = 0.5267; p = 0.9139, respectively). Some species might not have been recorded because of drought, seasonal movement, or because they travelled outside the view of cameras. Movement of mammals inside Kruger Park is not restricted, except if they are bound by territorial boundaries, available space, or if they are habitat specific. Presence of different sized mammals from different feeding guilds possibly indicates a functioning catenal ecosystem. This knowledge can be beneficial in monitoring and conservation of species in the park.

Zooplankton biodiversity is deemed as a realiable indicator of water quality. For 40 years, the Guatemalan lake Amatitlán has shown signs of eutrophication, with measurable impacts on the local zooplankton diversity. Biotic and abiotic variables were surveyed at four sites of lake Amatitlán (Este Centro, Oeste Centro, Bahía Playa de Oro and Michatoya) in 2016 and 2017. The species richness and abundance of rotifers, cladocerans, and copepods were analyzed. The dynamic composition of zooplankton was studied and the system environmental parameters were analyzed in two seasons (rainy and dry season) for both years. Characteristical values of eutrophied tropical systems were obtained, with high rotifer diversity (11 species) and abundance. At present, the rotifers Brachionus havanaensis (109 ind/L) and Keratella americana (304 ind/L) were the most abundant species in the system. The copepod Mastigodiaptomus amatitlanensis considered as endemic in 1941 is absent nowadays, but we reported the unprecedented occurrence of two exotic copepods (i. e., Thermocyclops crassus, Mesocyclops thermocyclopoides) for lake Amatitán and all Guatemala. The presence of large zooplankton like adults and immature copepods (Arctodiaptomus dorsalis) and cladocerans (Ceriodaphnia sp.), in site “Este Centro”, indicates a relatively healthy community and represents a focal point for the conservation for this lake.

Organs and nutrient allocation are linking the evolved strategies of plant species with their variations affecting the effects on ecosystems process. The differences in litter quality are important factors shaping the decomposition rate, although the works are centered only on leaf litter quality. We aimed to analyze the trait coordination and phylogenetic signal in leaf and flower litter for 29 species. We evaluated the decomposition rate for each litter type in a common garden approach. Also, we measured 13 functional traits, included physical and chemical. And we estimated phylogenetic signal in litter decomposition rates for each litter type using Blomberg’s K. Flower litter had higher rates of decomposition, exhibited 11.81% mean remaining mass, while the leaf litter had 40%. The measured traits reflected a gradient from a conservative to acquisitive, but their prediction was dependent on each litter type. Despite this, we found the un-coordination among flower and leaf litter and the absence of phylogenetic signal. In this work, we were able to show that floral and leaf litter are uncoordinated and poorly correlated. Despite the lack of phylogenetic signal, we show that leaf litter is not a good predictor for the plant as a whole, so to better understand decomposition we need to take into account other compartments of variation, such as within-individual.

Climate change and deforestation have figured among the main causes of the pollinators’ decline. Especially for bees, the resulting losses of genetic diversity might cause higher levels of nonviable diploid male production, compromising population survival. Herein we evaluate the impact of both climate change and genetic diversity on the present and future of the orchid bee Euglossa annectans Dressler, 1982. We estimated the frequency of diploid males in 359 individuals using eight microsatellite loci. We also build ecological niche models based on 71 occurrence points to project the environmental suitability over time from the past 21 Ka towards 2050 considering the IPCC – RCP 4.5 scenario. We confirmed a diploid male frequency in E. annectans 10-folds higher than any other report for orchid bee species. The niche models also indicate an average reduction of 45.12% in suitable areas for the last 21 Ka and 36.34% up to 2050. Considering the species trend to diploid male production and the projected reduction of suitable area, we strongly recommend connecting and monitoring relictual populations as a strategy to increase the species potential distribution area.

Lichens are poikilohydric organisms resulting from the symbiosis between a fungus and a population of green algae and/or cyanobacteria. Their vital functions strictly depend both on exchanges with the atmosphere and on the chemical and physical characteristics of their substrate. Because of the fragile balance to which they are subjected, many species have suffered a considerable decline in their abundance and distribution in recent decades. Moreover, most models predict a worsening of their declines as a direct and indirect consequence of global change. In the face of this worrying picture, lichen conservation policies and actions are still largely insufficient to mitigate lichen biodiversity loss in the near future. In this presentation, we will review some of the key issues in this regard, including:

(i) the insufficient level of knowledge of the distribution of most species, due to the lack of large-scale surveys, the difficulty of taxonomic identification and the poor detectability of many groups with small thalli and

(ii) The almost total lack of consideration of lichen species in national and international legislation on the conservation of biodiversity.

Perspective for more effective conservation will also be outlined on the basis of specific studies, aimed at finding some operational tools to counteract the loss of lichen biodiversity before knowing it.

Decline of farmlands and grasslands’ biodiversity is one the major conservation concerns nowadays. The European roller (Coracias garrulus) has suffered large declines both in size and range of the population, but due to direct conservation actions, this negative trend has been reversed in several countries. Here, we aimed to evaluate the current habitat suitability of the historical breeding area of the species in Hungary to promote the recolonization and the enlargement of the breeding range in the Carpathian basin and evaluate potential significance of the Natura 2000 network in this process. We applied species distribution modelling (MaxEnt) to map potential areas for nest-box supplementation. The most important predictors were the grasslands, broad-lived forests, agriculture sites with significant areas of natural. We found that the majority of the predicted area was without current nest-box occupancy data. Significantly larger proportion of grid cells with archive data still preserve suitable land cover composition for rollers than cells where the former breeding wasn’t confirmed, and only small proportion of former breeding area has become completely unsuitable for the species. Our results highlights the importance to promote the recolonization of the European roller in the western region of Hungary and suggest that coordinated network of protected areas such as Natura 2000 can potentially serve as core areas in the recolonization processes. Our study also showed that species distribution modelling could be a useful tool for direct conservation planning.

Wetlands are important carbon sinks, yet many have been destroyed and converted to other uses over the past few centuries, including industrial salt making. A renewed focus on wetland ecosystem services (e.g., flood control, habitat) has resulted in numerous restoration efforts whose effect on microbial communities is largely unexplored. We investigated the impact of restoration on microbial community composition, metabolic functional potential, and methane flux by analyzing sediment cores from two unrestored former industrial salt ponds, a restored former industrial salt pond, and a historic wetland. We observed elevated methane emissions from unrestored salt ponds compared to the restored and historic wetlands, which was positively correlated with salinity and sulfate. 16S amplicon and shotgun metagenomic data revealed that the restored salt pond harbored communities more phylogenetically and functionally similar to the historic wetland than to unrestored ponds. Archaeal methanogenesis genes were positively correlated with methane flux, as were genes encoding enzymes for bacterial methylphosphonate degradation, suggesting methane is generated both from bacterial methylphosphonate degradation and archaeal methanogenesis in these sites. These observations demonstrate that restoration effectively converted industrial salt pond microbial communities back to compositions more similar to historic wetlands and lowered salinities, sulfate concentrations and methane emissions.

Amphibians are the most threatened group of vertebrates. While habitat loss poses the greatest threat to amphibians, a spreading fungal disease caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is seriously affecting an increasing number of species. Although Bd is widely prevalent, there are identifiable heterogeneities in the pathogen’s distribution that are linked to environmental parameters. Our objective was to identify conditions that affect the geographic distribution of this pathogen using species distribution models (SDMs), with a special focus on Eastern Europe. SDMs can help identify hotspots for future outbreaks of Bd, but perhaps more importantly identify locations that may be environmental refuges ("coldspots") from infection. In general, climate is considered a major factor driving amphibian disease dynamics, but in particular temperature has received increased attention. Here, 42 environmental raster layers containing data on climate, soil and human impact were used. Mean annual temperature range (or 'continentality') was found to have the strongest constrain on the geographic distribution of this pathogen. Using the partial dependence visualization module in the R package 'embarcadero', a number of corresponding coldspots were identified.

The abundance and community composition of small mammals play a key role as biological indicator for environment health in functioning of any ecosystem. The small mammals serve on second trophic level in food chain and have versatile nature to adopt any habitat (wild to commensal habitat). The present study is conducted in district Gilgit rural areas (Shigar, Khaplu, Kharmang). The study started was conducted from 1 February 2019 to 1july 2019. In experimental design of (6 houses, 3 shops and one farm house), 300 small mammals were trapped during 600 trap nights and 600 traps. Among the captured small mammals were, the house rat (Rattus rattus), house mouse (Mus musculus), Kashmir Field Mouse (Apodemus rusiges), one species of the Kashmir pigmy shrew, (Sorex planiceps) and one species of (Rattus turkistanica).The order of dominance was (Rattus rattus) 30%, followed by mus musculus 23%, followed by apodemus rusigus 20% Sorex planiceps 17% and least occurred species was Rattus turkistanica 10%.

The occurrence of temporary wetland habitats was once frequent in Europe, especially in the Mediterranean region, but attenuating nowadays. The role of anthropogenic aquatic habitats (such as irrigation ponds) in biodiversity and nature conservation has recently become more important. Small irrigation ponds and greater water reservoirs are common parts of the landscape in Albania. The persistent drought of 2016–2017 allowed us to explore the floristic diversity of the beds of dried irrigation ponds and reservoirs. The timing of the field survey was early autumn based on knowledge of the expected appearance of mud vegetation. We recorded the physical parameters of the ponds (location, altitude, the slope angle of the embankment, and bedrock). The cover of each species, water surface, and mud has been estimated by circuiting the whole reservoir. Altogether 129 ponds and reservoirs were studied, more than 3400 new floristic records referring to 324 vascular plant species (of which 35 are adventive) were recorded. Most of the dried irrigation ponds were rather sparsely colonized. Irrigation ponds can serve as a refuge for plants that are connected to wet habitats, but grazing and manuring in and around them can be a threat by promoting the spread of invasive and nitrophilous plants.