Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

Abstract

The increase in aridity, mainly by decreases in precipitation but also by higher temperatures, is likely the main threat to the diversity and survival of Mediterranean forests. Changes in land use, including the abandonment of extensive crop activities, mainly in mountains and remote areas, and the increases in human settlements and demand for more resources with the resulting fragmentation of the landscape, hinder the establishment of appropriate management tools to protect Mediterranean forests and their provision of services and biodiversity. Experiments and observations indicate that if changes in climate, land use and other components of global change, such as pollution and overexploitation of resources, continue, the resilience of many forests will likely be exceeded, altering their structure and function and changing, mostly decreasing, their capacity to continue to provide their current services. A consistent assessment of the impacts of the changes, however, remains elusive due to the difficulty of obtaining simultaneous and complete data for all scales of the impacts in the same forests, areas and regions. We review the impacts of climate change and other components of global change and their interactions on the terrestrial forests of Mediterranean regions, with special attention to their impacts on ecosystem services. Management tools for counteracting the negative effects of global change on Mediterranean ecosystem- services are finally discussed.

Habitat and Harvesting Practices Influence Horn Growth of Male Ibex

“…For instance, a long‐term study carried out in the Ram Mountain suggested that in poor years, bighorn males reduce their investment in horn growth and increase the relative allocation of resources to summer mass gain, probably trading off long‐term reproductive success for short‐term survival (Douhard et al 2017). Even though habitat effects were demonstrated at a limited scale, our findings can be extended to the landscape scale because the forest encroachment at the expense of shrubs and grass‐rich open areas occurred at high rates throughout Mediterranean ecosystems (Peñuelas et al 2017).…”

“…The western Mediterranean basin has experienced increasing aridity since the 1970s (Kelley et al 2012). Rising temperatures together with decreasing precipitation and agricultural land abandonment have affected the landscape configuration by promoting the encroachment of grasslands by drought‐resistant woody shrubs (Peñuelas et al 2017). The loss of grass‐rich open areas caused a decrease in the resource quantity and quality for grazers and mixed‐feeders, such as the Iberian ibex (Martínez 1994, 2000).…”

Landscape Transformation under Global Environmental Change in Mediterranean Mountains: Agrarian Lands as a Guarantee for Maintaining Their Multifunctionality

“…The new shape of this landscape has direct biological and cultural consequences and also has consequences for the potential impact of natural hazards such as forest fires [19,22,47,48]. The loss of landscape heterogeneity and diversity implies the loss of ecological functionality [8,9,11].…”

Preliminary characterization of the Quercus pubescens complex in southern Italy using molecular markers

“…Molecular marker studies have not yet been published for the genus Quercus in the Apulian region. However, the evaluation of genetic variation can be of great importance for the conservation and management of forest ecosystems, especially in areas particularly vulnerable to climatic change (Peñuelas et al 2017) and in forests whose original extent has been significantly reduced. This is the case of the oak forests of the Apulia region.…”