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Obtaining information on the distribution of rural landscape types is an active research topic within Spanish rural studies. This paper presents a new hierarchical object‐based classification method for the automatic detection of various land use classes in a rural area, combining lidar data and aerial images. In view of the upcoming availability of low‐density lidar data (0·5 pulses/m2) for most of the territory of Spain, this paper assesses the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed method for various lidar data densities. Such an assessment was conducted using two approaches: firstly, based on the final classification, which produced an overall accuracy over 96% and a kappa index above 0·95 for the combinations of the aerial image and lidar data‐sets with four different densities; and secondly, based solely on the areas classified as buildings. In the second approach, the accuracy of the classification for building detection at pixel and object level was assessed. The object‐oriented classification of buildings produced an index of correctness of over 99% and an index of completeness of about 95%. The results reveal a high agreement between classification and ground truth data.

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Humid montane scrublands (HMs) represent one of the least studied ecosystems in Ecuador, which in the last decade have been seriously threatened by the increase in wildfires. Our main objective was to evaluate the effects of wildfire severity on physicochemical soil properties in the HMs of southern Ecuador. For this purpose, fire severity was measured using the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and the difference between pre-fire and post-fire (NBR Pre-fire-NBR Post-fire) over three contrasted periods (years 2019, 2017, and 2015) was determined. Likewise, 72 soil samples from burned HMs and 72 soil samples from unburned HMs were collected at a depth of 0 to 10 cm, and some physical (bulk density and texture) and biochemical (pH, soil organic matter, and total nutrients) soil properties were analyzed and statistically processed by one-way ANOVA and principal component analysis (PCA). Results indicate that burned HMs showed mixed-severity burning patterns and that in the most recent wildfires that are of high severity, SOM, N, P, Cu, and Zn contents decreased drastically (PCA: component 1); in addition, there was an increase in soil compaction (PCA: component 2). However, in older wildfires, total SOM, N, P, K, and soil pH content increases with time compared even to HMs that never burned (p-value < 0.05). These results can help decision makers in the design of policies, regulations, and proposals for the environmental restoration of HMs in southern Ecuador affected by wildfires.

We present updated data on the distribution of 20 species of birds of Ecuador, 16 of them are registered for the first time within an inter-Andean valley (Hoya de Loja) galeata han sido registradas previamente en el área de estudio, sin embargo, para estas especies se presentan nuevas localidades de registro, todas asociadas a pequeñas lagunas existentes alrededor de la ciudad de Loja. Esta información permite incrementar el conocimiento sobre la distribución geográfica y altitudinal de estas aves en el sur de Ecuador.