Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Climate change and biodiversity conservation'

Conservation is plagued by the issue of prioritization - what to conserve and where to conserve it - which relies on identification and assessment of risks. In this body of work, I identify some of the risks related to climate change impacts on biodiversity, as well as potential solutions. Climate changes are underway across nearly all terrestrial areas and will continue in response to greenhouse gas emissions over centuries. Other extinction drivers, such as habitat loss due to urbanization, commonly operate over localized areas. Urbanization contributes, at most, less than 2% of the total range loss for terrestrial species at risk when averaged within an ecodistrict (Chapter 2). Documented impacts of climate change, to date, include: extinction, population loss, reduction in range area, and decreased abundance for multiple taxonomic groups. Examining species’ and populations’ physiological limits provides insight into the mechanistic basis, as well as geography, of climate change impacts (Chapter 3). Climate changes, and the ecological impacts of climate changes, are scale-dependent. Thus, the biotic implications are more accurately assessed through comparisons of local impacts for populations. Under a scenario of climate change, equatorward margins may be strongly limited by climatic conditions and not by biotic interactions. Yet, geographic responses at poleward margins do not appear directly linked to changes in breeding season temperature (Chapter 4). New ideas on how regions with attenuated climate change (climate refugia) may be used to lower species climate-related extinction risk while simultaneously improving habitat connectivity should be considered in the context of potential future consequences (i.e. range disjunction, alternative biological responses) (Chapter 5). Contemporary climate refugia are identifiable along multiple climatic dimensions, and are similar in size to current protected areas (Chapter 6). Determining how, when, and where species distributions are displaced by climate change as well as methods of reducing climatic displacement involves integrating knowledge from distribution shift rates for populations, occurrence of climate refugia, and dispersal barriers. Such assessments, in the Yellowstone to Yukon region, identify dramatically different pathways for connectivity than assessments that are not informed by considerations of species richness and mobility (Chapter 7).

Global climate change is one of the largest threats faced by biodiversity globally, with a wide range of impacts already observed and greater impacts projected to occur by the end of this century. Early identification of which species are most threatened by climate change is crucial to ensuring conservation action can be taken to prevent species losses. In this thesis I analyse the performance of a wide range of methodologies used to assess the risk to individual species from climate change, finding overall poor agreement between the different methods and validation using historic data sources demonstrated few were good predictors of climate change risk. A comprehensive trend-based climate change vulnerability assessment for European birds and butterflies was carried out, using the best performing methodology identified in this thesis. Differing patterns of climate change risk were identified for the two taxonomic groups, with a mix of risk and opportunities for birds but an overall substantially higher level of risk for butterflies. A large proportion of the species categorised as high climate risk are not of conservation concern currently and may be important targets for conservation intervention in the near future. Finally, a spatial prioritisation analysis for Europe identified where geographically the most important areas for conservation are located, and how the distribution of highest priority areas may change in the future. An examination of how the spatial scale at which conservation prioritisation is performed at can influence the effectiveness of the process found the currently used national scale approach within Europe is significantly less effective than either a full continental scale or a rescaled continental approach. Comparisons of these spatial prioritisations with the European protected area network show that under climate change existing sites are likely to become increasingly important in preventing the loss of species across the continent.

The integrated approach of combining floristic studies, IUCN conservation assessments, threat evaluation and Ecological Niche Modelling embraced in this research shows the importance and the value of the threatened Moroccan flora within the Mediterranean basin hotspot. Morocco is characterized by a high vascular plant diversity with approximately 3193 species and subspecies of which 22% are endemic. The new checklist of the endemic Moroccan flora following the new classification of APG III is elaborated in this research. It contains 879 species and subspecies in 55 families and 287 genera with comments on their geographical distribution and ecoregions. The conservation assessments and red listing of the Moroccan flora, according to IUCN criteria and categories, reveals a high extinction risk and thus the flora is of conservation concern, which is poorly recognized at present, both nationally and internationally. This research presents the initial part of the Moroccan Red Book as an important first step towards the recognition of the dangers to Moroccan biodiversity hotspots, the conservation of threatened species and the raising of public awareness at both national and international levels. The Ecological Niche Modelling approach identifies the current and future areas of high biodiversity richness, confirms that climate change is affecting the Moroccan flora and recognises the areas where species are most at risk, and refugia where the threatened species could be transferred and conserved. Current natural plant distribution ranges and their associated habitats will either reduce, or disappear in some cases, or shift to new refugia. This latter highlights the places to be prioritised in terms of optimising biodiversity conservation efforts: the Atlas Mountains (High Atlas, Anti Atlas and Middle Atlas), Rif Mountains and coastal areas (North Atlantic and the Middle Atlantic of Morocco). The approach adopted here of combining floristic studies, IUCN Red listing, Ecological Niche Modelling and threat evaluations provides powerful tools for conservation assessments, highlights species richness in specific floristic hotspots and estimates the predicted actual or potential species geographic range. This research has combined these new techniques to set the conservation priorities for the Moroccan flora and to inform stakeholders and policy makers. This is key to identifying and ameliorating the effects of the threats endangering the Moroccan plant diversity mainly habitat loss and degradation, direct and indirect human disturbance, changes in vegetation dynamics and climate change. A set of conservation action priorities are elaborated and include; species and habitat protection, ecological monitoring and research, communication and education.

In the last decades, the impacts of climate change have affected people, societies, economic sectors and ecosystems in all the continents and oceans. Climate change will make povertyalleviation harder by slowing down economic growth, eroding food security, and increasing and creating poverty traps. The poor, that are highly dependent on wildlife and natural resources for their persistence, will be affected the most. However, it seems that environmental priorities are not considered in the developmental agendas. If biodiversity and climate change are not included in policy domains other than the environmental, many negative effects will not be adequately mitigated or minimised. Addressing these multidimensional problems requires policy coherence for improving the outcomes of social and environmental policies, and for using more efficiently the limited resources that developing countries have. The overall aim of this study is to determine if there is coherence between the objectives of the National Development Plan and the sectoral programs of Mexico, with a special focus on climate change adaptation and mitigation, povertyalleviation, and biodiversity conservation. Through a discourse network analysis, it was possible to determine the policy components within each program and to systematically identify the connections between them and investigate if there was policy coherence. Since the documents analysed belong to two different levels of the government, it was possible to analyse vertical and horizontal coherence. The analysis showed that there is vertical coherence between the NDP and the sectoral programs, low coherence between the sectoral programs, as well as low coherence between the four policy components of major interest. This analysis increases the very scarce literature on Mexico's policy coherence, providing empirical evidence that allows finding windows of opportunity for improving the coherence between sectoral programs in the future.

Doutoramento em Biologia - Instituto Superior de Agronomia<br>Spatial Conservation Planning is a scientific-driven procedure to identify cost effective networks of areas capable of representing biodiversity through time. This conceptually simple task accommodates sufficient complexity to justify the existence of an active research line with more than 20 years already. But costefficiency and representation of biodiversity is only part of the whole challenge of Spatial Conservation Planning.The recognition that Nature operates dynamically has stimulated researchers to embrace the additional challenges of developing methods to make conventional (static) conservation approaches more dynamic and therefore increase the chances that biodiversity are preserved in the longer term. In this thesis, I present a set of tools to assist spatial conservation decision-making and address issues such as uncertainty and spatial dynamics of species ranges. These two topics are particularly relevant in the context of ongoing climate changes. I start by investigating two connectivity paradigms for the identification of conservation areas. In the first, a distance-based approach is applied for the identification of areas representing a set of species. In the second, I present a conceptual framework based on the analysis of environmental similarity between protected areas. The framework seeks to identify effective spatial linkages between protected areas while ensuring that these linkages are as efficient as possible. Then, I introduce a methodology to refine the matching of species distributions and protected area data in gap analysis. Forth, I present a comprehensive assessment for the expected impacts of climate change among European conservation areas. Finally, I address a framework for cost-efficient identification of the best areas that, in each time period, assist species’ range adjustments induced by severe climate changes. There exists a wealth of theoretical insight and algorithmic power available to ecologists. This thesis took advantage of it and (I hope) it offers useful guidance for genuine biodiversity protection.

Les espèces qui cooccurrent partagent plus que l'espace physique, elles partagent aussi des interactions biotiques. Les interactions trophiques sont un type particulier d'interactions antagonistes qui représentent le flux de biomasse d'une espèce proie vers son prédateur. Les réseaux trophiques, dans leur forme la plus simple, sont composés de producteurs, de consommateurs et de décomposeurs. En raison de la nature des interactions qui composent les réseaux trophiques, leur structure nous révèle les processus gouvernant l'assemblage des communautés, la distribution de la biodiversité, le fonctionnement des écosystèmes et des services qu'ils nous rendent. Bien que l'étude des réseaux trophiques à large échelle spatiale ait été, jusqu’à présent, limitée par la disponibilité des données, une nouvelle ère de recherche en biogéographie et en écologie des réseaux trophiques est en train d’émerger. Pendant mon doctorat, j'ai ainsi étudié la diversité spatiale des réseaux trophiques des espèces européennes de tétrapodes dans le but de fusionner la biogéographie, l’écologie des reseaux trophiques et la biologie de la conservation. J'ai commencé par combiner l’information sur la distribution des espèces et leurs interactions potentielles pour cartographier la diversité des réseaux trophiques européens. Cela m'a permis d’explorer comment les gradients de milieu, qu’ils soient climatiques ou d’utilisation du sol, influencent et structurante la composition et la distribution des réseaux trophiques en Europe. Ensuite, dans un effort de compréhension de la structure des réseaux, j'ai identifié les espèces jouant un rôle clé dans les réseaux via l’utilisation d’indices de centralité. En effet, la perte d'espèces dites ‘centrales’ dans un réseau trophique peut grandement perturber la structure et la dynamique des communautés, jusqu’à provoquer des extinctions secondaires. À l'aide de trois mesures de centralité (degré, betweenness et eigenvector centrality), j'ai examiné la relation entre la centralité des espèces et leurs caractéristiques fonctionnelles et leur place dans la phylogénie des espèces de tetrapods européens. J'ai découvert que la centralité était conservée au long de la phylogénie et que les espèces qui chassent activement des petites proies étaient plus susceptibles de jouer un rôle central dans un réseau trophique. Étant donné le rôle primordial des espèces centrales pour la persistance des communautés, j’ai ensuite testé l’efficacité du réseau d’aires protégées européen pour leur conservation. J'ai ainsi exploré la relation entre le risque d'extinction des espèces et leur centralité ainsi que leur niveau trophique. J'ai constaté que le lien entre le risque d'extinction et les caractéristiques trophiques des espèces était faible ou inexistant. Par une analyse des lacunes (‘gap analysis’) des espaces protégés, j’ai aussi pu montrer par une que les espèces dites centrales dans les réseaux trophiques européens étaient d’ailleurs généralement bien protégées en Europe et n’étaient donc pas forcément les plus vulnérables. Pour conclure, en combinant la biogéographie, l'écologie des réseaux trophiques et la biologie de la conservation, ma thèse offre l'une des premières études approfondies sur la distribution à grande échelle de la structure trophique des tétrapodes, ainsi que les facteurs responsable de cette distribution, sur les dépendances entre caractéristiques trophiques, fonctionnelles et phylogénétiques des espèces, et leur statut de conservation<br>Co-occurring species share more than just physical space, they share also biotic interactions. Trophic interactions depict the flow of biomass from a prey species to its predator. Food webs, in their simplest form, are composed by producers, consumers and decomposers. Because of the nature of the interactions that food webs depict, their structure can be informative about the underlying processes responsible for the assembly of communities, the organization of biodiversity, the functioning of ecosystems and the services they provide to humans. Although the study of food webs across large spatial scales has been limited by data availability, a new generation of biogeography and food web ecology research is rising. In my PhD, I investigated the spatial diversity of food webs of European tetrapod species with the objective of merging biogeography, food web ecology and conservation biology. I started by combining two different sources of information, species distributions and an expert-based database of species interactions, to map the diversity of European food webs. This allowed me to uncover the spatial interactions between food web diversity, composition, environmental and land-use gradients. I found that the spatial diversity of food webs was highly linked with climatic conditions. Then, I used centrality indices to identify trophic keystone species. Losing central species in a food web can affect a community disproportionally, by disrupting its trophic structure and potentially causing other extinctions. Using three measures of centrality (degree, betweenness and eigenvector centralities), I investigated how these centrality indices correlated with the traits and phylogeny of European tetrapod species. I found that centrality was highly conserved through phylogeny, and active hunters of small prey were more likely to be central within a food web. Because centrality was restricted to few species, assessing the efficiency of current protected areas for these central species is crucial to persistence of European communities. Thus, I investigated the correlation between species extinction risk, centrality and also trophic level. On a positive note, I found weak to no links between extinction risk and species trophic features. I also performed a gap analysis to search for any links between species centrality, trophic level and their spatial protection, which showed that key species are generally well protected in Europe. My thesis brings together the three fields of biogeography, food web ecology, and conservation biology into one of the first comprehensive studies on the large-scale patterns of trophic structure and its drivers, and the dependencies between species trophic, functional and phylogenetic characteristics, finally providing an option to bring trophic information into conservation applications

Aloe pillansii populations in the biodiversity hotspot of the Succulent Karoo in Southern Africa are thought to be under threat of extinction. This study investigated the population at the type locality; Cornell's Kop in the Richtersveld, South Africa. It has been suggested that theft, animal damage and more recently climate change have caused a decline in the population by over 50% in the last decade, however very little is known about this rare species. Repeat photography and surveys were used to analyse life history patterns and dynamics of the population and thus establish what the potential threats to this keystone species actually are. Repeat photography indicates that there have been high rates of adult mortality over the last fifty years (1.8% of the population dies annually), which results in an average predicted lifespan of 39 years for the remaining adult population on Cornell's Kop. However, a recent survey reported that over 40% of the population recorded were seedlings, which weren't found in a 1995 survey, which is indicative of a recent recruitment pulse on Cornell's Kop and that conditions on the hill are still habitable for A. pillansii. Growth analyses suggest that A. pillansii has an average annual growth rate of 20 mm.yr⁻¹, which in tum means that 8 m individuals may be up to 453 years old. This long-lived strategy would require A. pillansii to only recruit infrequently, during periods of high rainfall, in order to sustain a viable population, which is consistent with findings on other large desert succulents. Seedling ages were estimated from their heights and it was found that 50% of the seedlings appear to have germinated five to ten years ago; this is consistent with rainfall records from the area which indicate that rainfall was consistently above the annual average for this same period. The findings indicate that although the adult A. pillansii population is declining, the presence of 30 seedlings suggest that the population is entering a recruitment phase after just coming out of a lengthy senescent phase. Although A. pillansii 's extensive lifespan makes it a potentially useful indicator species of climate change, the evidence presented in this study does not suggest that climate change has affected the dynamics of this population.

Conservation strategies are mainly focused on species existing in an environment shaped by natural and anthropogenic pressures. Yet, evidence shows that climate is changing faster than ever and expected to continue to change in the near future, which can be devastating for plants with restricted ranges. Turkey harbors many endemic species that might be affected from these changes. However, available data is scarce and biased, complicating the anticipation of future changes. Aim of this study is to improve our understanding of endemic species distributions and forecasting effects of climate change via species distribution modelling (SDM). The study is based on two Anatolian (Crocus ancyrensis and Crataegus tanacetifolia) and two Ankara (Salvia aytachii and Centaurea tchihatcheffii) endemics. Independent presence and absence data (ranging between 19-68 and 38-61, respectively) for each species was collected through fieldwork in and around the Upper Sakarya Basin in 2008 and 2009. With the software Maxent, SDMs were performed by using 8 least correlated environmental features and random presence records (of which 25% were used for confusion matrix). SDMs for current distributions of C. ancyrensis, C. tchihatcheffii and C. tanacetifolia were reliable enough for future extrapolations despite errors originating from scale, non-equilibrium status and biotic interactions, respectively. The model for S. aytachii failed due to absence of limiting factor (soil type) in the model. Future projections of those three species modelled using CCCMA-CGCM2 and HADCM3 climate models indicated three possible responses to climate change: (1) Extinction, especially for habitat specialists<br>(2) Range expansion, especially for generalist species<br>and (3) Range contradiction, especially for Euro-Siberian mountainous species. Species modelling can be used to understand possible responses of plant species to climate change in Turkey. Modelling techniques should to be improved, however, especially by integrating other parameters such as biotic interactions and through a better understanding of uncertainties.

The cooperation of developing countries is commonly assumed to be essential for the establishment of effective regimes to manage global environmental interdependence. Yet their policies and perceptions have been inadequately studied. This thesis seeks to partially fill this gap in the literature with a detailed analysis of Indian policy on global environmental issues. It examines the cases of ozone depletion, climate change, and loss of biodiversity, and discusses developments up to the 1992 Earth Summit. The study addresses four broad questions about Indian policy: the process of policy making; the character of Indian interests and preferences; the nature and evolution of India's bargaining strategy; and the outcome of international negotiations for India. It reveals a complex picture of continuity and change in Indian policy. It demonstrates the enduring importance of traditions and values such as the "poverty is the greatest polluter" orthodoxy and the concepts of sovereignty, equity and Third World solidarity. It also highlights the impact of perceptions of vulnerability in relation to the North. It argues that Indian policy did not reflect purely powermaximising goals; policy makers were sometimes uncertain about where India's interests precisely lay, and felt constrained both by economic weakness and by the recognition of the mutual interest of all states in global environmental protection. This was reflected in the moderation in India's bargaining strategy. The Indian case suggests that developing countries did not regard their cooperation in the resolution of global environmental issues purely as a bargaining chip with which to extract concessions from the North. Still less did they perceive these issues as providing an opportunity to pose a macro-challenge to the North, linking agendas across issue areas. Instead, their goals reflected perceptions of constraints and mutual interests in bargaining with the North. Their bargaining strategy thus tended to be moderate and flexible, unlike the confrontational approach of the 1970s.

Nous traversons actuellement une crise de perte de la biodiversité sans précédant. La dégradation des sols et la perte d’habitat, la pollution, la surexploitation et les invasions biologiques contribuent à cette perte mondiale de biodiversité. Par ailleurs, le changement climatique et ses interactions avec les autres menaces, sont probablement l’un des défis majeurs des prochaines décennies pour la biodiversité. À l’heure actuelle, en raison de la multiplication des études et des approches employées, il est difficile d’avoir une vision synthétique des conséquences potentielles de ces changements sur la biodiversité. L’objectif principal de ce travail de thèse a été d’améliorer la caractérisation et la quantification des différents impacts des changements climatiques sur la biodiversité, à l’échelle mondiale par des approches de modélisations et de méta-analyses. Une première partie de mes travaux a ainsi porté sur les conséquences potentielles de la hausse du niveau des mers sur les hotspots insulaires, au cours de laquelle j’ai mis en évidence les conséquences majeures d’une telle hausse pour certains de ces hotspots. Je me suis ensuite intéressée à l’étude des effets conjugués des changements climatiques et des changements d’utilisation des sols sur les invasions biologiques à l’échelle mondiale. Cette partie a permis de mettre en évidence que les conséquences des changements climatiques et des changements d’utilisation des sols sur les espèces invasives dépendent de la région, du taxon et de l’espèce considérée. Ainsi, j’ai mis en évidence que certaines régions pourraient être moins favorables à la présence d’espèce invasives dans le futur. En outre, cette partie a également mis en évidence que les hotspots majoritairement composés d’îles étaient particulièrement favorables à la présence de ces espèces invasives. Finalement, dans une dernière partie, j’ai étudié les conséquences des menaces futures pour les hotspots de biodiversité dans une perspective de conservation. Cette partie a notamment permis d’établir des priorités de recherche et de conservation entre les hotspots de biodiversité en tenant compte des futures menaces qui pèsent sur la biodiversité à l’échelle des hotspots, mais également au sein même des hotspots de biodiversité. Cependant, la mise en œuvre de plans de gestion de sauvegarde d’habitats ou d’espèces ne pourra se faire qu’en intensifiant les collaborations avec l’ensemble des acteurs impliqués. Plus généralement, la mise en œuvre de stratégies d’atténuation et d’adaptation efficaces aux changements climatiques ne pourra pas avoir lieu sans un soutien du grand public<br>Global biodiversity is changing at an unprecedented rate due to loss of habitat, biological invasions, pollution, overexploitation. Furthermore, climate changes and their synergies with other threats will probably become the main drivers of biodiversity loss in the next century. Nowadays, the multiplicity of approaches and the resulting variability in projections make it difficult to get a clear picture of the future of biodiversity due to climate change. Yet, the majority of models indicate alarming consequences for biodiversity, with the worst- case scenarios leading to an increase of extinction rates. The aim of this thesis was to improve the knowledge about of the different consequences of climate change on biodiversity worldwide. To do that I mainly used modelisation and meta-analyses approaches. The first part of my work was to investigate the consequences of sea level rise for the ten insular biodiversity hotspot and their endemic species, during which I highlighted that between 6 and 19% of the islands would be entirely submerged. Then I studied the effects of climate and land use changes on biological invasions worldwide. The results showed that invasives species response to climate and land use changes depend on region, taxa and species considered. We also emphasized that some regions could lose a significant number of invasive alien species. Besides, we also found that hotspot that are mainly islands or group of islands are highly suitable for invasive species. Finally, in the last part, I quantified the exposure of biodiversity hotspots to the combined effects of climate change, land use change and biological invasions. This work highlighted the pressing need to consider different drivers of global change in conservation planning. In addition, we established some prioritization framework among the hotspot. Finally, conservation strategies to protect habitat and species under global changes, can only be achieved through closed collaboration with park managers. Overall, implementation of effective adaptation strategies to climate change can only succeed with public support

Amphibians are the most abundant terrestrial vertebrates on Earth. They are crucial in maintaining the transfer of energy and matter from freshwater to terrestrial systems and are also indicators of ecosystem health. Mexico hosts great amphibian diversity with high levels of endemism. Nevertheless, the knowledge of amphibian ecology in the country is at an early stage. This thesis aspires to contribute to the knowledge of Mexican amphibian ecology and to the understanding of the processes underlying amphibian responses to environmental changes. To do so the thesis includes: 1) analyses from fine scales (at landscape level) based on data from two consecutive rainy seasons of fieldwork (nocturnal sampling), in two protected areas in southern Mexico, La Pera and Nahá; 2) at regional scales, analyses based on spatial databases of conservation instruments (i.e. environmental services, governmental, private, and community protected areas, etc.) generated specifically for Mexico; 3) to coarse scales (the whole country), analyses based on ecological niche modelling using the most complete database for Mexican amphibian records and climate layers developed purposely for the country. Thus, the thesis involves different time-scale processes, from ecological to biogeographical. In addition this thesis contains an analysis of the media representation of amphibian biodiversity threats and issues, specifically climate change, based on literature research. I was involved in the process of generating most of the databases used in this thesis. Whilst the main theme of this thesis is amphibian conservation, it also encompasses a wide range of specific subjects. Firstly, foundational knowledge about amphibian conservation is established in Chapter I. Also, the region, Chiapas in southern Mexico, where the fieldwork was carried out for two consecutive years (2009-2010) is described within a historical context and a glossary of terms is presented. In Chapter II, based on one year of fieldwork in two fragmented protected areas (PAs) of different management category, one state and one biosphere reserve, I examine how community structure is related to key features of the environment. The possible effects of governance issues in protected areas and their relationship with the drivers of amphibian metacommunities are also explored. A total of 144 transects were sampled from 33 patches in La Pera and 140 transects from 36 patches in Nahá. In each transect environmental variables were recorded. Partial Canonical Correspondence Analyses (partial CCA) indicated that the drivers of metacommunity patterns vary between the sampled landscapes. Habitat structure explained more of the community variation than either space or weather conditions: > 50% for La Pera and 30% Nahá; but the relationship to geographical space and local climate varied greatly. The differences in relationships among the environmental variables and between them and the amphibian metacommunities finds expression also in the pattern of human exploitation of these areas, which has latterly at least also found expression through differing governance. In Chapter III, the effects of environmental variation on metacommunities structure are explored. Metacommunity theory assumes that emergent properties can be determined that characterise a set of linked communities within a landscape. It follows that change in environmental conditions should generate changes in the metacommunity structure. In La Pera a total of 30 patches were sampled, with a total of 120 transects in 2009, and 133 transects in 2010. In Nahá 31 patches were sampled, with a total of 111 transects in 2009 and 122 transects in 2010. In the analyses of this chapter only transects sampled in both years are included. The total number of individuals increased greatly from 2009 to 2010, but the most abundant species between surveyed years varied slightly, in both areas. In La Pera metacommunity the structure changed from quasi-Clementsian to quasi-Gleasonian, while in Nahá it changed from Clementsian to Gleasonian. CCA show that the variance explained between years was similar. Re-arrangements in the metacommunity structures linked to environmental changes are observed. Results show that amphibian metacommunity structure can change with short environmental changes or disturbances, mainly weather variations from one year to another. This would suggest that metacommunity structures are a dynamic property in fluctuating systems. The aim of Chapter IV is to assess patterns of beta diversity for Mexican terrestrial vertebrates, and explore their relationships with environmental heterogeneity metrics at different spatial scales, identifying the most important surrogates at each spatial scale. The analyses in this chapter are based on the most complete database of Mexican terrestrial vertebrates, comprising distribution maps of 2513 species: 883 resident birds, 344 mammals, 364 amphibians and 811 reptiles. Higher β-diversity values are found along mountain ranges for amphibians, reptiles and mammals, whereas for birds high values are also found on the Mexican Plateau. Results demonstrate that the relationships between β-diversity and the environmental heterogeneity surrogates vary in form and strength across scale and between vertebrate groups. In Chapter V, I set out to characterize at fine scale, alpha and beta diversity patterns for Mexican amphibians and analyze how these patterns might change under a moderate climate-change scenario, and to highlight the overall consequences for amphibian diversity at the country level. The analyses are performed with a climatic envelope modelling approach using MaxEnt and a set of climatic layers developed specifically for Mexico. Models of future scenarios for Mexican amphibian alpha and beta diversity for 2020, 2050, 2080, show that high levels of species extinctions follow if low dispersal capability and high presence thresholds are used, but the overall geographic pattern of beta diversity remains stable. Zones of high beta diversity are associated with topographic formations, whilst the values of beta diversity initially increase, then decline over time under a moderate climate scenario. Extinctions (complete loss of range within country boundaries) are particularly intense during the period 2020–2050. The results imply that heterogeneous zones associated with mountain ranges will remain particularly important for amphibian diversity and thus such areas should be targeted for continued conservation prioritization in the face of climate change scenario. There is an inevitable degree of uncertainty associated with future climate projections and the possible ecological and biogeographical responses. Nevertheless, the climate change projections are typically translated in the media as certain. Chapter VI illustrates the interplay of these competing communication goals, through a review of the representations of the golden toad (Incilius [Bufo] periglenes) in print media and in peer-reviewed literature. The concept of “distanciation”, which means placing a distance between two connected issues (cause and effect), is introduced in this chapter, along with the potential issues that this process may generate in the implementation of conservation strategies. Distanciation is a perception created in the members of the audience of the media, but does not imply a total separation regarding an issue. For example, the audience is interested in the news about climate change effects, but they feel distant because the effects of climate change might be evident within a large time period (i.e. 2050); and although the causes are occurring now, the audience does not see the urgent need to act. Chapter VII represents the first attempt to analyze the status of conservation of some microendemic amphibians in Latin America when some social initiatives (e.g. private and community reserves) are included in the assessment. The efficiency of the existing set of governmental protected areas (PA), and the contribution of social initiatives for land protection of amphibians are evaluated. The chapter shows how the role of land conservation, through social initiatives, is fast becoming a crucial element for the survival of a substantial number of species not protected by state-designated PA. Given the current speed of land use change, we cannot expect to save all species from extinction, and so it must be decided, rather quickly, how to focus the limited resources available to prevent the greatest number of extinctions. In Chapter VIII, a simple conservation triage method is proposed. Using this triage method, the threat status for 145 micro-endemic Mexican amphibian species is evaluated, alongside potential threat abatement responses derived from existing policy instruments and social initiatives. Both indicators are combined to provide broad-scale conservation strategies that would best suit amphibian micro-endemic buffered areas (AMBAs) in Mexico. Results show that almost 25% of the species analysed urgently need field-base verification to confirm their persistence; for the rest, a conservation strategy is developed based on existing conservation instruments. Monitoring populations is essential in order to understand temporal patterns of community change and to better comprehend the underlying processes that shape and maintain biodiversity. These aspects, along with a general discussion focused mainly on the distanciation problem are addressed in Chapter IX.

Mestrado em Biologia Molecular e Celular<br>Freshwater is a precious resource for humankind. Nevertheless, freshwater systems face not only significant anthropogenic pressure but also numerous transformations induced by climate change. Nowadays, climate change is recognized as a serious threat to freshwater ecosystems and, on a global scale, freshwater biodiversity is in rapid decline. In the last few years, epigenetics has been gaining importance in several scientific fields, such as human health and developmental biology. In fact, epigenetic mechanisms can influence phenotype determination and epigenetically acquired phenotypes are known to be inherited across several generations. Therefore, epigenetics is a promising but unexplored topic in a significant number of scientific fields. Taking into account that the global aim of this work was to explore the resilience of freshwater species to cope with the environmental transformations induced by climate change, its main specific objectives were: i) to review the impacts of climate change on freshwater ecosystems, and explore the link between epigenetic mechanisms and the adaptation of different species to the associated phenomena; ii) to assess the relevance of epigenetic mechanisms in the adaptation of Daphnia magna to an increase in water salinity. An extensive review was made leading to the conclusion that climate change is transforming the composition, biodiversity and functioning of numerous freshwater ecosystems. Additionally, this study highlighted that, in the context of climate change, the rise in water temperature and/or salinity are the major threats to freshwater biodiversity, while epigenetic mechanisms can have a decisive role in constraining both short- and long-term adaptation of different taxonomic groups to the environmental transformations induced by climate change. As the second objective was tackled, the exposure of one generation of Daphnia magna to increased salinity showed that there is a molecular adaptation to the hyperosmotic environment at the epigenetic level. For some genes, this epigenetic adaptation was transferred across three successive generations, none of which exposed to the stressor challenging the parental generation. Generally, this work supports the idea that epigenetic mechanisms are a promising topic in the fields of aquatic toxicology and evolutionary biology, as well as in research undertaken in their intersection.<br>A água doce é um dos recursos mais preciosos para a humanidade. No entanto, para além de serem alvo de significativas pressões antropogénicas, os sistemas dulçaquícolas enfrentam diversas transformações impostas pelas alterações climáticas. Em particular, as alterações climáticas são, hoje em dia, reconhecidas como uma ameaça séria para os ecossistemas dulçaquícolas, sendo que, à escala global, a biodiversidade de água doce está em rápido declínio. Nos últimos anos, a epigenética tem ganho importância em diversos campos científicos, como a saúde humana e a biologia do desenvolvimento. De facto, os mecanismos epigenéticos regulam o aparecimento de novos fenótipos, estando comprovado que os fenótipos determinados epigeneticamente podem ser transmitidos ao longo de sucessivas gerações. Assim, a epigenética é um tema promissor mas largamente inexplorado num grande número de áreas científicas. Procurando avaliar a resiliência das espécies dulçaquícolas para lidar com as transformações ambientais impostas pelas alterações climáticas, este trabalho teve como principais objetivos: i) rever os impactos das alterações climáticas nos ecossistemas dulçaquícolas, explorando a relação entre os mecanismos epigenéticos e a adaptação de diversos grupos de organismos a este fenómeno; ii) avaliar a potencial importância dos mecanismos epigenéticos na adaptação de Daphnia magna a um aumento na salinidade das águas. Uma extensa revisão da literatura foi efetuada, tendo sido concluído que as alterações climáticas estão a alterar a composição, biodiversidade e funcionamento dos ecossistemas dulçaquícolas. Adicionalmente, este trabalho evidenciou que, no contexto das alterações climáticas, o aumento da temperatura e/ou salinidade da água são as principais ameaças para a biodiversidade dulçaquícola, sendo que os mecanismos epigenéticos podem contribuir decisivamente para a adaptação de diferentes grupos taxonómicos, tanto a curto como a longo prazo, às flutuações e transformações ambientais provocadas pelas alterações climáticas. Na abordagem do segundo objetivo desta dissertação, a exposição de uma geração de Daphnia magna a um aumento de salinidade na água induziu uma adaptação molecular, ao nível epigenético, ao ambiente hipertónico. Para alguns genes, esta adaptação epigenética foi transferida ao longo de três sucessivas gerações, nenhuma das quais expostas ao agente de stress a que esteve exposta a geração parental. Globalmente, este trabalho suporta a ideia de que os mecanismos epigenéticos são um tema promissor nas áreas da ecotoxicologia aquática e biologia evolutiva, bem como na interface entre estas duas áreas de investigação.

When maintaining the biodiversity and ecological integrity of forests is a goal of management, a primary requirement is to assess the status, condition, conservation value of each forest, and change in forest conditions over time. GIS procedures were used here to compare different map-based surveys and look in detail at changes in woodlands of the Snowdonia National Park, North Wales, from 1970 to 2000. The maps from the 1970s and 1980s generated by Silsoe College did not compare well with the map from the 1990s produced by the Forestry Commission and no meaningful changes could be measured. This was attributed to difficulties with comparison of different interpretations and classification schemes used by the two organisations. A series of landscape surveys using the same minimum mapping unit, classification scheme, and methodology in general is needed. The potential changes in broadleaved and scrub woodland area were modelled based on the two most extreme climate change scenarios, termed the Low and High scenarios. Temperature and rainfall models formed the basis for logistic regressions of woodland type and distribution. A declining trend in probability of presence for both woodland types from the present sites was shown under the UKCIP98 High climate change scenario. The results emphasized the conceptual difficulties in using fragments of woodland within the realised niche rather than the fundamental niche as the basis for environmental modelling of plant community distributions. GIS based models were generated to address the key question in the biodiversity action plan process of where should new woodland be created or plantations restored. Ecological criteria were developed to identify the priority areas for native woodland expansion taking into account of the requirements for successful woodland expansion from the nature point of view and specific policy aims. The results were interesting and suggested that there is ample land potentially suitable in Snowdonia for new native woodland. The models could be used to aid decision-making for new native woodland in the National Park. A further extension of GIS-based modelling was developed for the prediction of individual NVC types and BAP priority woodland types. The environmental spaces occupied by the fragments of NVC woodland types currently present in Snowdonia were defined and used as templates to produce maps of potentially suitable sites for the occurrence of each NVC type. The results were not as clear-cut as had been hoped because of overlaps in the predicted occurrences of various woodland types. Independent verification of the predictions using non-spatial data for 24 sites revealed that the model produced was very poor. This was not, however, a fault of the modelling but a reflection of the fact that some of the environmental data were at too coarse a scale and that NVC types are not solely determined by environmental factors. In spite of some weaknesses in the data, the use of GIS for modelling these scenarios proved useful. Nowadays, forest policies in Wales, Europe and elsewhere are changing rapidly to meet modified global, national, and local objectives. GIS is, and will increasingly be so, proving to be a useful and flexible tool for translating forest policy into practical application on the ground.

Global climate change is projected to impact multiple levels of biodiversity by imposing strong selection pressures on existing populations, triggering shifts in species distributions, and reorganizing entire communities. The Lower Guineo-Congolian region in central Africa, a reservoir for amphibian diversity, is predicted to be severely affected by future climate change through rising temperatures and greater variability in rainfall. Geospatial modelling can be used to assess how environmental variation shapes patterns of biological variation – from the genomic to the community level – and use these associations to predict patterns of biological change across space and time. The overall goal of this dissertation is to examine potential impacts of climate change on amphibian diversity in central Africa. Geospatial modeling is used to: 1) map the distribution of the amphibian fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) in a biodiversity hotspot in Cameroon under current and future climate; 2) assess phenotypic and adaptive genomic variation in a widespread frog species, Phrynobatrachus auritus, in order to predict areas where populations may best adapt under climate change; 3) determine how amphibian community composition may shift with climate change and which areas may experience greatest loss of functional groups. Findings show that most Bd samples belong to a globally hypervirulent lineage. However, areas of highest predicted environmental suitability for Bd are predicted to shrink under warming temperatures. Within P. auritus, most phenotypic and genomic turnover occurred across known ecological gradients and are heavily influenced by seasonal precipitation. Current amphibian beta diversity is greatest throughout the Cameroonian highlands and forest-savanna ecotones flanking the central Congolian lowland forests. Greatest shifts in community composition under climate change are predicted to occur in coastal Cameroon and its eastern border whereas the greatest predicted loss of functional richness was in central Gabon. Overall, this dissertation shows that areas of elevated environmentally-associated phenotypic, genomic, and community turnover are associated with key ecological gradients. Regions predicted to experience high genomic mismatch, large shifts in community composition, and high loss of functional richness resulting from climate change may warrant conservation attention.

L'objectif est de comprendre comment la synergie entre la transformation du territoire et le changement climatique pourra affecter la biodiversité des Alpes-Maritimes à l'horizon 2100. Cette thèse comprend quatre chapitres. Dans le premier chapitre sont présentées les notions, les bases théoriques et conceptuelles ainsi que la problématique générale de recherche. Le deuxième chapitre est consacré à l'étude des processus d'artificialisation et de transformation territoriale. Dans cette partie sont évalués le processus de dispersion ainsi que les facteurs qui interviennent dans les phénomènes d'artificialisation du territoire et les tendances futures de changement sur les Alpes-Maritimes. Les règles de transition spatiale ont été extraites à partir de l'étude de la transformation territoriale des 40 dernières années pour comprendre les trajectoires de changement, mais aussi dans le but d'avoir une base de connaissances solide permettant de faire la simulation par automate cellulaire. A partir de ces connaissances et de l'interprétation des règles de transition sont élaborés les scénarios de transformation future du paysage aux horizons 2050 et 2100. Les résultats montrent la possible expansion de l'artificialisation selon le comportement et les tendances historiques observés sur le territoire. Les résultats de ce chapitre montrent que les surfaces artificielles pourraient doubler pour 2050, et tripler pour 2100 par rapport à leur occupation actuelle. Le troisième chapitre concerne l'évaluation de la perte de biodiversité selon les pressions anthropiques et climatiques. La première partie du chapitre trois est dédiée à la définition de la diversité écosystémique à partir des unités du paysage. Pour cette définition ont été considérés les différents facteurs écologiques qui ont une influence sur la répartition des écosystèmes tels que la géomorphologie, le sol, le climat et la végétation. Avec les informations obtenues dans la partie précédente, est étudié l'impact potentiel de la transformation territoriale sur la biodiversité. La deuxième partie de ce chapitre consiste en la réalisation d'un étalonnage bioclimatique des unités du paysage, afin de comprendre les limites écologiques de tolérance des expressions écosystémique aux conditions climatiques et géomorphologiques. Au total sont définies 236 unités du paysage sur lesquelles sont estimés les impacts synergiques de la transformation territoriale et du changement climatique afin d'évaluer les risques de perte de biodiversité vers la fin du siècle. Les résultats montrent que 68 unités du paysage (soit presque 30% de la diversité́ des Alpes-Maritimes) seront affectées par ces deux phénomènes d'ici la fin du XXIème siècle et 5 d'entre elles devraient disparaître, que ce soit en raison du changement climatique ou de la dynamique de l'artificialisation du sol. Le dernier chapitre propose une méthode permettant l'intégration des impacts du changement climatique et des impacts de la transformation territoriale dans les processus de conception et définition de politiques de conservation dynamique de la biodiversité. De plus, ce chapitre propose la possibilité d'intégrer les deux phénomènes dans la conception de réseaux écologiques de conservation, notamment dans le cadre de la Trame verte et bleue<br>The work aims at understanding how the land transformation and climatic change synergy could affect the Alpes-Maritimes biodiversity. This thesis contains four chapters. In the first chapter, the purpose is to provide the conceptual basis and the framework that support the scientific foundations of this thesis and the main conceptual definitions of the studied problematic. In the second chapter, the purpose is to study the artificialization process in the French Riviera area, its probable potential dispersion, the conditions and the factors involved in the phenomenon in order to give an intuitively understanding of the landscape transformation and their principal trend. The landscape transformation of the last 40 years has been studied with the aim of identifying the spatial transition rules that have been introduced in the cellular automata model. We present a synthesis of landscape transformation in the French Riviera up to 2050 and 2100. The resulting scenarios provide information about future urban expansion according to historic behavior and the evolutionary patterns. The results of this part show that urban surfaces could double by 2050 and triplicated by 2100 compared with 2011. In the third chapter we assess the biodiversity loss according to land use dynamic and climate change. We first defined the ecosystem diversity by the landscape units. The landscape units are composed by the different ecological factors that have had an influence on ecosystems repartition like geomorphology, soil, climate, and vegetation. Then, we studied how landscape transformation could affect the biodiversity in the future by the spatial superposition of the first and second chapter results. Next, we realized a bioclimatic calibration for the landscape units with the aim of understanding the limits of ecological tolerance to the climatic conditions and the different ecological conditions like geomorphology, soil, and aspect. The bioclimatic calibration of the landscape units has allowed the definition of climatic change impact on ecosystem biodiversity for 2050 and 2100.The synergy between climatic change impact and landscape transformation shows that almost 30% (68 ecosystem expressions) of Alpes-Maritimes biodiversity could be affected at the end of the XXIst century, and at least five ecosystems expressions could disappear for 2100 due to both forces or some of these driving forces.In the fourth chapter we propose a method that allows the integration of climatic change impacts and landscape transformation on conservation process and politic assessment. Moreover, this chapter proposes the possibility to integrate both phenomena into the ecological networks structuration, especially into “Trame verte et bleue” in France

Le rapide déclin actuel de la biodiversité est inquiétant et les activités humaines en sont la cause directe. De nombreuses aires protégées ont été mises en place pour contrer cette perte de biodiversité. Afin de maximiser leur efficacité, l’amélioration de la connectivité fonctionnelle entre elles est requise. Les changements climatiques perturbent actuellement les conditions environnementales de façon globale. C’est une menace pour la biodiversité qui n’a pas souvent été intégrée lors de la mise en place des aires protégées, jusqu’à récemment. Le mouvement des espèces, et donc la connectivité fonctionnelle du paysage, est impacté par les changements climatiques et des études ont montré qu’améliorer la connectivité fonctionnelle entre les aires protégées aiderait les espèces à faire face aux impacts des changements climatiques. Ma thèse présente une méthode pour concevoir des réseaux d’aires protégées tout en tenant compte des changements climatiques et de la connectivité fonctionnelle. Mon aire d’étude est la région de la Gaspésie au Québec (Canada). La population en voie de disparition de caribou de la Gaspésie-Atlantique (Rangifer tarandus caribou) a été utilisée comme espèce focale pour définir la connectivité fonctionnelle. Cette petite population subit un déclin continu dû à la prédation et la modification de son habitat, et les changements climatiques pourraient devenir une menace supplémentaire. J’ai d’abord construit un modèle individu-centré spatialement explicite pour expliquer et simuler le mouvement du caribou. J’ai utilisé les données VHF éparses de la population de caribou et une stratégie de modélisation patron-orienté pour paramétrer et sélectionner la meilleure hypothèse de mouvement. Mon meilleur modèle a reproduit la plupart des patrons de mouvement définis avec les données observées. Ce modèle fournit une meilleure compréhension des moteurs du mouvement du caribou de la Gaspésie-Atlantique, ainsi qu’une estimation spatiale de son utilisation du paysage dans la région. J’ai conclu que les données éparses étaient suffisantes pour ajuster un modèle individu-centré lorsqu’utilisé avec une modélisation patron-orienté. Ensuite, j’ai estimé l’impact des changements climatiques et de différentes actions de conservation sur le potentiel de mouvement du caribou. J’ai utilisé le modèle individu-centré pour simuler le mouvement du caribou dans des paysages hypothétiques représentant différents scénarios de changements climatiques et d’actions de conservation. Les actions de conservation représentaient la mise en place de nouvelles aires protégées en Gaspésie, comme définies par le scénario proposé par le gouvernement du Québec, ainsi que la restauration de routes secondaires à l’intérieur des aires protégées. Les impacts des changements climatiques sur la végétation, comme définis dans mes scénarios, ont réduit le potentiel de mouvement du caribou. La restauration des routes était capable d’atténuer ces effets négatifs, contrairement à la mise en place des nouvelles aires protégées. Enfin, j’ai présenté une méthode pour concevoir des réseaux d’aires protégées efficaces et j’ai proposé des nouvelles aires protégées à mettre en place en Gaspésie afin de protéger la biodiversité sur le long terme. J’ai créé de nombreux scénarios de réseaux d’aires protégées en étendant le réseau actuel pour protéger 12% du territoire. J’ai calculé la représentativité écologique et deux mesures de connectivité fonctionnelle sur le long terme pour chaque réseau. Les mesures de connectivité fonctionnelle représentaient l’accès général aux aires protégées pour le caribou de la Gaspésie-Atlantique ainsi que son potentiel de mouvement à l’intérieur. J’ai utilisé les estimations de potentiel de mouvement pour la période de temps actuelle ainsi que pour le futur sous différents scénarios de changements climatiques pour représenter la connectivité fonctionnelle sur le long terme. Le réseau d’aires protégées que j’ai proposé était le scénario qui maximisait le compromis entre les trois caractéristiques de réseau calculées. Dans cette thèse, j’ai expliqué et prédit le mouvement du caribou de la Gaspésie-Atlantique sous différentes conditions environnementales, notamment des paysages impactés par les changements climatiques. Ces résultats m’ont aidée à définir un réseau d’aires protégées à mettre en place en Gaspésie pour protéger le caribou au cours du temps. Je crois que cette thèse apporte de nouvelles connaissances sur le comportement de mouvement du caribou de la Gaspésie-Atlantique, ainsi que sur les actions de conservation qui peuvent être prises en Gaspésie afin d’améliorer la protection du caribou et de celle d’autres espèces. Je crois que la méthode présentée peut être applicable à d’autres écosystèmes aux caractéristiques et besoins similaires.<br>The world is facing worrisome declines in biodiversity. Species extinction rates have increased as a direct consequence of human activities. Protected areas have been implemented around the world in an effort to counter biodiversity loss. Although protected areas are part of the solution, they should be designed systematically in a way to maximize their effectiveness. Enhancing functional connectivity between protected areas is one way to increase their effectiveness. Climate change is disrupting environmental conditions globally. It is a threat to biodiversity that until recently was not often integrated into protected area design. Climate change has been shown to impact species movements, and therefore landscape functional connectivity. Some studies have suggested that enhancing functional connectivity between protected areas can also help species cope with climate change impacts. My thesis presents a methodology to design protected area networks while accounting for climate change and functional connectivity. My study area is located in the natural region of Gaspésie in Québec (Canada). The endangered Atlantic-Gaspésie population of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) was used as the focal species to define functional connectivity. This small population is in long-term decline due to predation and habitat change, but climate change may become an additional threat. First, I built a spatially explicit individual-based model to explain and simulate caribou movement. I used sparse VHF data available at the time of the study to select and parameterize a movement model using a pattern-oriented modeling strategy. My best model reproduced most of the movement patterns defined from the observed data. This model improved the understanding of the movement drivers for the Atlantic-Gaspésie caribou. It also provided spatial estimates of caribou landscape use in the Gaspésie region. I concluded that sparse data were sufficient to fit individual-based models when coupled with a pattern-oriented modeling strategy. Second, I estimated how climate change and conservation activities may impact caribou movement potential. I used the individual-based model to simulate caribou movements in hypothetical landscapes representing the impacts of various climate change scenarios and conservation activities. Conservation activities represented the implementation of new protected areas in Gaspésie, according to the scenario developed by the government of Québec, and the restoration of secondary roads inside protected areas. Climate change impacts on vegetation, as defined in my scenarios, reduced caribou movement potential. Road restoration was able to mitigate these negative effects whereas the implementation of the new protected areas did not improve caribou movement potential. Third, I presented a methodology to design effective protected area networks and proposed new protected areas to implement in Gaspésie to conserve biodiversity in the presence of climate change. I created a large sample of protected area networks expanding the existing network to reach an areal target of 12%. I then calculated an ecological representativeness index and two measures of functional connectivity over time for each network. Functional connectivity measures represented the overall access to the protected areas and the movement potential in them for the Atlantic-Gaspésie caribou. I used movement potential estimates for the current time period and for the future under different climate change scenarios to represent functional connectivity. The protected area network I proposed maximized the trade-off between the three network features I calculated. In this thesis I examined Atlantic-Gaspésie caribou movements under different environmental conditions, including climate change impacted landscapes. These results helped define new protected areas for the Gaspésie region that will protect the caribou population over time. I believe this thesis gives new insights on the Atlantic-Gaspésie caribou movement behavior, as well as on the management actions that could be taken in Gaspésie to improve conservation of caribou and of other species. I believe this methodology could be applied to other ecosystems with similar characteristics and needs.

En 1992 en Europe, grâce à la Directive Habitats-Faune-Flore, les habitats naturels sont devenus des objets à conserver au même titre que les espèces, élargissant ainsi le domaine d’actions des politiques publiques à un autre niveau d’organisation de la biodiversité. Mais la reconnaissance tardive de leur valeur de conservation, ainsi que des lacunes dans leurs définitions sont en partie responsables de l’absence de séries temporelles de données sur les habitats à l’échelle nationale. Cela limite notre capacité à surveiller et évaluer leur état de conservation, et à adapter les actions de conservation aux niveaux national et local. Les objectifs de cette thèse sont d’abord d’explorer des approches rapides et formalisées de reconnaissance des habitats forestiers afin de pouvoir ensuite étudier leur dynamique récente au regard de deux grands changements survenus au cours des dernières décennies : le réchauffement climatique et la création du réseau Natura 2000.Nous avons d’abord étudié les incertitudes liées à la reconnaissance des habitats forestiers lors du rattachement d’un relevé floristique à un type d’habitat en comparant cinq experts et trois programmes automatiques de classement. Nous avons mis en évidence la forte variabilité de classement entre experts, et l’efficacité des programmes automatiques qui est comparable à celle des experts. Nous avons également montré que pour la reconnaissance des habitats forestiers, un nombre limité d’espèces est suffisant, et qu’il est possible d’utiliser des relevés réalisés en hiver. Ainsi, nous avons pu créer des séries temporelles de données standardisées sur les habitats forestiers à partir de différentes sources d’inventaires floristiques, rattachés ou non à un type d’habitat.Dans un second temps, la création de 5701 couples de relevés floristiques historiques (avant 1987) et récents (après 1997) a permis de mettre en évidence, en montagne, un changement de 11% des couples vers des habitats forestiers caractéristiques de conditions climatiques plus chaudes. L’augmentation de la dominance de ces habitats nous permet de conclure à une thermophilisation des habitats forestiers en montagne. Cependant, aucun changement significatif n’a été observé en plaine, ce qui conduit à un décalage important entre les exigences thermiques des communautés végétales et les températures actuelles : une dette climatique se développe. Face à des impacts différenciés, nous concluons que les politiques publiques pourraient être mises en place et priorisées de façon différente en montagne et en plaine pour être plus efficaces.Enfin, en étudiant 155 sites Natura 2000 français répartis sur tout le territoire métropolitain tempéré et montagnard, nous avons montré que, depuis la mise en place du réseau, l’augmentation de la quantité des très gros bois sur les zones où ils sont présents est significativement plus forte à l’intérieur du réseau Natura 2000 qu’à l’extérieur. Ainsi, nous avons mis en évidence que les actions de conservation mises en place dans les forêts au sein du réseau Natura 2000, qui sont gérées et exploitées, ont déjà eu des effets positifs sur les très gros bois, considérés comme une caractéristique de vieilles forêts, et utilisés aussi comme indicateur de biodiversité et du bon état de conservation des habitats forestiers.Ce travail de thèse était nécessaire pour compléter les nombreuses études déjà disponibles à l’échelle des espèces et des communautés végétales, car pour être efficace il est indispensable de travailler à la conservation de tous les niveaux d’organisation de la biodiversité simultanément. Connaitre les domaines de validité des moyens de reconnaissance des habitats forestiers, mais aussi comprendre leur dynamique récente et les facteurs qui l’influencent permettent de fournir des éléments pour mettre en place un suivi des habitats forestiers et adapter les politiques publiques et les actions de gestion afin d’en améliorer l’efficacité<br>In 1992, European natural habitats became items to be conserved in the same way as species were, thanks to the Habitats Directive. This enlarged the scope of action of nature protection public policies to a new level of biodiversity organisation. But the late recognition of the conservation value of habitats and the gaps in their definitions partly explain the absence of time series data at the national scale. This limits our capacity to monitor and assess their conservation status and to adapt conservation measures at the national and local levels. The present thesis work first investigates rapid, formalised approaches for identifying forest habitats. Then, these approaches are used to study the recent dynamics of forest habitats in relation to two substantial changes that occurred in the past decades, i.e., climate warming and the creation of the Natura 2000 network.We first studied the uncertainties linked to the identification of forest habitats when assigning floristic surveys to habitat types by comparing five expert’s judgements with three automatic classification programs. We highlighted high variability among expert judgements, and comparable efficiency between automatic classification programs and expert judgements. We also demonstrated that a limited number of species was sufficient to identify forest habitats, and that surveys carried out in winter could be used too. We thus created time series of standardised data on forest habitats based on different floristic survey sources, whether assigned to a habitat type or not.Secondly, we created 5,701 pairs of historical (before 1987) and recent (after 1997) floristic surveys, and highlighted that 11% of the pairs located in highlands had shifted towards forest habitats characteristic of warmer climate conditions. The increased dominance of these habitats led us to conclude that thermophilisation was underway in highlands. However, no significant shift was observed in lowlands, hence a substantial difference between the thermal requirements of plant communities and current temperatures: a climatic debt is developing. In the face of these different impacts, we proposed that nature protection public policies could be more efficient if they were implemented and prioritised differently in highlands vs. lowlands.Finally, we studied 155 Natura 2000 sites distributed across mainland temperate and mountainous France, and showed that the number of very large trees in the plots where they were observed had increased significantly more inside the network than outside it since its implementation. We thus evidenced that the conservation measures implemented in Natura 2000 forests, which are managed and exploited, have already had positive effects on very large trees – considered as a characteristic of old-growth forests and also used as biodiversity and conservation status indicators of forest habitats.This thesis work was necessary to complement the numerous studies already available at the species and plant community scales, for it is indispensable to aim for the simultaneous conservation of all the levels of organisation of biodiversity to be efficient. Knowing the scope of validity of the tools used to identify forest habitats, but also understanding the recent dynamics of forest habitats and its influencing factors provide useful data to implement surveillance and adapt public policies and management actions, and thereby reach greater efficiency

Climate change, along with other anthropogenic pressures (e.g. water pollution, overfishing and habitat degradation), is severely impacting oceans around the world, producing important changes in its physical and biological structure, and causing marine biodiversity to decline. In this context, the enhancement of conservation and management strategies that mitigate such stressors (e.g. Marine Protected Areas, MPAs) is urgent. In this thesis, we studied the population genetics and ecological responses to warming of the Mediterranean red gorgonian Paramuricea clavata (Risso 1826), in order to contribute to the design of more effective conservation and management measures for this and other similar species. P. clavata is a long-lived, slow-growing, low dispersal and highly vulnerable habitat-forming organism from the coralligenous assemblages. During the last decades, it has been severely impacted by mass mortality events (MME) caused by climate change-related thermal anomalies. P. clavata is essential to maintain biodiversity as it forms habitat for other organisms and it greatly contributes to habitat's biomass and complexity. Although the inclusion of habitat formers in the design of MPAs is fundamental to improve the effectiveness of biodiversity protection, these organisms have been generally neglected in the planning of MPAs, which, instead, have been historically designed for the protection of commercially important species. In this thesis, we developed an interdisciplinary approach focused on (i) population genetics, emphasizing on evolutionary processes acting over contemporary timescales, and (ii) on demographic responses to warming. First, we compared the functioning of continuous and isolated metapopulations of P. clavata, in terms of spatial genetic structure and underlying evolutionary processes. A group of genetically differentiated populations was detected in a geographically continuous area, indicating that in addition to geographic isolation, genetic isolation should also be considered in the design of MPAs. Genetically isolated metapopulations exhibited significantly lower genetic diversity and higher genetic differentiation compared to continuous metapopulations. Moreover, the influence of drift was higher in isolated metapopulations. These results suggest that isolated metapopulations may be at higher extinction risk than their continuous counterparts. Second, we used an eco-evolutionary approach combining demographic and genetic data to establish conservation priorities in an isolated metapopulation. We demonstrated a relation between partial mortality (caused by MME), effective population size (Ne) and number of alleles that indicated that the less diverse and most isolated demes, which were undergoing the largest effect of drift, were the most affected by MME. These populations should therefore be of high conservation priority. We detected a newly established population, which was also prioritized for conservation, as it was mainly composed by juvenile colonies. Surprisingly, no founder effect was observed, as its genetic diversity was high and colonies came from different populations Third, we experimentally tested the role of reproductive maturity and sex on the vulnerability of the red gorgonian to warming. The highest vulnerability of adults versus juveniles and of females versus males results in a decline of fertilization rates, larval production and recruitment success, suggesting that red gorgonian populations may collapse in a warmer future. The relevance of our results is discussed in the light of climate change, and several conservation and management strategies that should be implemented to enhance the conservation of P. clavata and its associated communities are proposed. Moreover, this thesis provides valuable information to improve the effectiveness of MPAs within the context of climate change and it strengthen the previous foundations of knowledge that are essential to pursue further research. Given the key role of P. clavata as a habitat former, the results obtained in this work may also serve as guidelines to enhance the protection of other habitat-forming species with similar life history traits.<br>El cambio climático y otras amenazas antrópicas están afectando gravemente la biodiversidad marina. El diseño de medidas de conservación que mitiguen la acción de dichos impactos (e.g. Áreas Marinas Protegidas, AMPs) es, entonces, urgente. Usando un enfoque interdisciplinar, en esta tesis nos enfocamos en la gorgonia mediterránea Paramuricea clavata, con el fin de mejorar las estrategias de gestión y conservación de ésta y otras especies similares. P. clavata es una especie formadora de hábitat del coralígeno, que por presentar una lenta dinámica poblacional y tener una baja capacidad de dispersión, es muy vulnerable a las perturbaciones. Por ejemplo, en las últimas décadas, ha sufrido severas mortalidades masivas causadas por anomalías térmicas relacionadas con el cambio climático. En esta tesis, inicialmente comparamos el funcionamiento de metapoblaciones aisladas o continuas en términos de genética de poblaciones. Se encontró un grupo de poblaciones genéticamente aisladas dentro de una metapoblación geográficamente continua, indicando que el aislamiento genético debe ser clave en el diseño de AMPs. Las metapoblaciones aisladas presentaron una variabilidad y una diferenciación genética significativamente menor y mayor, respectivamente, que las metapoblaciones continuas, así como una influencia significativa de la deriva genética, indicando que las metapoblaciones aisladas pueden ser menos resilientes que las continuas. Luego, utilizamos un enfoque eco-evolutivo para priorizar poblaciones para la conservación en una metapoblación aislada. Las poblaciones menos diversas y más aisladas fueron priorizadas, debido a su mayor mortalidad parcial y al fuerte efecto de la deriva genética. Una población recientemente fundada, compuesta principalmente por juveniles y donde no se detectó un efecto fundador, también se identificó como prioritaria. Por último, evaluamos experimentalmente el efecto de la madurez reproductiva y el sexo en la vulnerabilidad de P. clavata al calentamiento del mar. La mayor vulnerabilidad de los adultos versus los juveniles y de las hembras versus los machos tiene graves consecuencias para la persistencia de esta especie en un futuro con mayor calentamiento, ya que el esfuerzo reproductivo es drásticamente afectado por las altas temperaturas. Esta tesis aporta información valiosa para mejorar la conservación de P. clavata y sus comunidades asociadas, así como para incrementar la efectividad de AMPs.

The impacts of tropical deforestation and forest degradation are felt at multiple levels, bringing about local ecosystem degradation, regional biome fragmentation and global contributions of 12-15% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In response to this, markets and payments for ecosystem services have emerged to financially value the services forests provide, most notably in the form of mechanisms to reduce deforestation and enhance forest conservation (REDD+). REDD+ has received much attention at the international level, but the pressing contemporary challenge is its engagement at the local scale. This thesis examines the potential local-level engagement of REDD+ on the Amazon frontier as an approach to altering patterns of anthropogenic encroachment on the world's greatest expanse of tropical forest. Case studies are taken from the buffer zones of protected areas along Peru's Amazonian frontier, Yanachaga-Chemillen National Park (YChNP) in central Peru and Manu National Park (MNP) in the SE of the country. A political ecology approach is taken to examine the influences and implications of existing land use governance structures, local livelihoods and preferences, and smallholder production and land economy, in the context of REDD+. Adopting mixed methods comprising semi-structured interviewing and land user surveys, data were collected between July 2008 and September 2009. I show that the two sites' histories and geographies have shaped distinct challenges for REDD+. The proximity of YChNP to Lima has fuelled agricultural expansion and higher land use incomes, yet institutions – particularly those belonging to the state – are exceedingly weak. The pace of land use change here obliges certain urgency for REDD+ interventions to provide livelihood alternatives, divert the current development path and restore the landscape. MNP’s rurality has protected it to date from expansive deforestation, yet weak institutions, poverty and increasing threats from national development processes highlight the importance of REDD+ interventions. In an analysis of land economy, an innovative conceptual framework is presented, the '3Rs' (rewarding, regulating and reshaping) to tackle local heterogeneity in REDD+ engagement. This thesis contributes knowledge to the practical and theoretical advancement of REDD+, and proposes the mechanism as an important new arena for academic investigation.

Tropical forests have existed for up to one hundred million years, and today provide many ecosystem services vital for human well-being. They also harbour great biodiversity, which, in addition to its intrinsic value, plays a key role in the functioning of these ecosystems. Despite their local to global significance, there are still many knowledge gaps concerning the dynamic processes that govern the functioning of tropical forests. Rapid rates of deforestation and landscape conversion, predominantly for logging and industrial agriculture, are limiting the time and opportunity available to collect the information needed to fill these gaps. This research aims to shed light on the long-term ecological functioning of tropical forests, specifically investigating the history of disturbance in these ecosystems and the response of forest vegetation to past perturbations. The carbon-rich tropical peat swamp forests found along the coast of Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, are a central focus of this study. For these forests in particular, a large deficit of knowledge surrounding their history and unique ecological functioning is coupled with some of the highest conversion rates of all tropical forest ecosystems across the world. In this thesis, palaeoecological data has been used to reconstruct temporal variability in forest vegetation coincident with external perturbations in order to identify changes in the resilience of these ecosystems through time, via indicators such as slowing rates of recovery and reduced regeneration of forest vegetation. Results suggest that tropical forest ecosystems have, for the most part, shown resilience to natural disturbances in the past, ranging from instantaneous localised tree-fall to longer-term regional climatic change; but that recent anthropogenic disturbances, of novel forms and greater intensities, are jeopardizing the potential for forest recovery and thus compromising ecosystem resilience. These findings enhance our understanding of the ecology of tropical peat swamp forests, and tropical forests more broadly. They also provide a context for contemporary tropical forest management, allowing for predictions on future responses to disturbance and enabling more ecologically sustainable landscape planning.

In rural areas of least developed countries, the preparation of meals remains the predominant energy consuming activity. Cooking is mostly performed with firewood – using the ancient “technology” of the 3-stone fire. This practice results in numerous challenges that hinder the transformation envisioned by the Millennium Development Goals and it therefore contributes towards slowing the development of rural areas. Activities focussing on amending this status-quo can be termed insufficient in scope- and sustainability. The main deficiencies of most projects are that the prime focus of the mainstream of these endeavours has been on demand side management, mainly performed by disseminating cookstoves, and that there has been little innovation in respect to raising stove adoption rates. As the strict efficiency focus obviously only captures one side of the problem – merely focussing on treating symptoms rather than providing an effective solution, this thesis stresses the need for a paradigm shift towards more holistic interventions. This work very much focuses on the topic of stove adoption. This is a complex topic - very much linked to attaining behavioural change. Deliberations concluded that the identification of enabling factors for adoption, which can be termed a prerequisite for developing sustainable methods for stove projects, requires a mix of instruments. To suffice the required data demand the initial literature review was complemented by a thorough assessment of the kitchen environment and the cooking behaviour of stove owners. The fieldwork concentrated on 210 beneficiaries of an efficient cookstove project. The applied methods included interviews, observations and pictorial documentation. As a remedy to the challenges and current shortcomings identified during field work and literature review, the author herein develops a novel and more holistic implementation strategy for stove projects – the so- called 3-Step approach. This is based on the simultaneous implementation of availing cookstoves, building capacity in respect to kitchen management, as well as performing small-scale household level tree planting. The research, which further encompassed the piloting of the 3-Step approach, led to the overall conclusion that the proposed increase in project scope holds a multitude of opportunities for improving the livelihoods of the rural target groups. The main impact of this innovative strategy lies in a decrease of average transaction costs as well as in a considerable increase in project sustainability. As will be extensively elaborated, the former is achieved by a more effective utilisation of the extensive infrastructure of trained artisans. The latter refers to the expected income increase on household level, as well as to improvements in environmental- and human health. In combination these enable rural communities to better adapt to climate change.

Increasingly unpredictable, extreme and erratic rainfall with higher temperatures threatens to undermine the adaptive capacity of food systems and ecological resilience of smallholder landscapes. Despite growing concern, land managers still lack quantitative techniques to collect empirical data about the potential impact of climatic variability and change. This thesis aims to assess how ecosystem services and function and how this links with biodiversity and human wellbeing in smallholder agro-ecosystems in a changing climate. To this end, rather than relying on scenarios or probabilistic modelling, space was used as a proxy for time to compare states in disparate climatic conditions. Furthermore, an integrated methodological framework to assess ecosystem services at the field and landscape level was developed and operationalised, the results of which can be modelled with measures of wellbeing. Various multidisciplinary analytical tools were utilised, including ecological and socio-economic surveys, biological assessments, participatory open enquiry, and documenting ethnobotanical knowledge. The study was located within monsoon rice farms in the Terai Plains of Nepal, and dry season vegetable farms in Northern Ghana. Sites were selected that are climatically and culturally diverse to enable comparative analysis, with application to broad areas of adaptive planning. The linkages that bring about biophysical and human changes are complex and operate through social, political, economic and demographic drivers, making attribution extremely challenging. Nevertheless, it was demonstrated that within hotter and drier conditions in Ghana long-tongued pollinators and granivores, important for decomposition processes and pollination services, are more abundant in farms. Results further indicated that in cooler and drier conditions in Nepal, the taxonomic diversity of indigenous and close relative plant species growing in and around farms, important for the provisioning of ecosystem services, decreases. All other things equal, in both Nepal and Ghana findings indicate that overall human wellbeing may be adversely effected in hotter conditions, with a potentially significantly lower yields, fewer months of the year in which food is available, higher exposure to natural hazards and crop loss, unemployment, and psychological anxiety. Yet, surveys indicate smallholders continue to maintain a fair diversity of species in and around farms, which may allow them to secure basic necessities from provisioning ecosystem services. Moreover, farmers may employ adaptive strategies such as pooling labour and food sharing more frequently, and may have greater access to communication, technology, and infrastructure. Novel methodological and empirical contributions of this research offer predictive insights that could inform innovations in climate-smart agricultural practice and planning.

Forests in developing countries have the potential to contribute to global efforts to mitigate climate change, promote biodiversity and support the livelihoods of rural, local people. Approximately one-fourth of such forests are under the control of local communities, which primarily manage forests for subsistence and to meet their livelihood needs. The trend of bottom-up community control is increasing through the adoption of decentralization reforms over the last 40 years. In contrast, the United Nations has introduced the top-down program, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) for the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon and the sustainable management of forest in developing countries. REDD+ incentivizes forest-managing communities to sequester carbon and reduce emissions. REDD+ has created hope for managing forests to mitigate climate change and has created fear that the new initiative may not be effective and may not ensure continuing forest-managing community benefits. However, little research has been conducted to answer these concerns. By taking nationally representative data from Nepalese community-managed forests (“forest commons"), I bring insights into whether and how these forests can contribute to REDD+ initiatives, particularly as they relate to carbon sequestration, biodiversity, equity in benefit sharing and collective action. My results indicated the highly variable carbon and biodiversity in the forest plots across the country, depicting the availability of space for additional growth in carbon storage and biodiversity conservation. My results also reflect the complex and varied relationships of carbon with different indices of biodiversity at the national level, across geographic and topographic regions, and in forests with varying canopy covers. Weak positive relationships between carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation indicate the possibility of synergies between carbon-forestry and biodiversity conservation. I also found that the formal community forestry program (CFP) has clearly positive impacts on biodiversity conservation and household-level equity in benefit sharing and a negative impact on carbon sequestration at the national level. However, disaggregated results of impacts of CFP on biodiversity, carbon and equity across geography, topography, forest quality and social groups display mixed results i.e., either positive or negative or neutral. I also identified that different drivers of collective action have different (i.e., positive, neutral, and negative) associations with carbon sequestration, which either supports or challenges established knowledge. In aggregate, my research indicates the potential of contribution by forest commons, and specially the CFP, to global environmental initiatives such as REDD+. It suggests that targeted, dedicated policies and programs to increase carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation and foster equity and collective actions are critical. In addition, my results also contribute to the growing literature on socio-ecological implications of forest commons that demonstrated the need of interdisciplinary research to understand human-nature relationships in the changing context.

Les activités humaines menacent gravement la biodiversité. Sous le terme de changements globaux, la sur-exploitation des populations et la destruction/dégradation des habitats arrivent en tête de liste des facteurs responsables de l’érosion de la biodiversité. Le changement climatique gagne en magnitude et ajoute une pression supplémentaire sur les espèces. En réponse à l’augmentation des températures du globe, les communautés se réorganisent suite au déplacement de la distribution géographique des espèces vers les pôles. Mais l’accumulation des pressions anthropiques est susceptible de produire des effets d’interaction limitant l’ajustement des communautés au réchauffement climatique. Dans ce contexte critique, la biologie de la conservation a pour but de concilier les activités humaines avec la conservation de la biodiversité. Dans cette thèse j’ai cherché à comprendre comment l’accumulation des pressions anthropiques peut limiter l’ajustement des communautés au réchauffement climatique et à identifier les solutions qui pourraient être mises en place pour faciliter leur adaptation à ce réchauffement. J’ai pris pour modèle d’étude les espèces d’oiseaux d’eau hivernants dans les pays du bassin méditerranéen. Ces espèces emblématiques bénéficient d’un dénombrement international destiné à suivre leurs populations en réponse aux prélèvements par la chasse et à la dégradation des zones humides dont elles dépendent. La Méditerranée est une région fortement anthropisée où l’utilisation des ressources naturelles exerce d’importantes pressions sur les zones humides et leur biodiversité. En réponse, les pays ont différentes stratégies pour protéger ces écosystèmes, ce qui fait de cette région un plan expérimental intéressant pour mesurer l’impact dans changements globaux sur l’assemblage des espèces en fonction des mesures de conservation mises en oeuvre. En étudiant la réponse des communautés au réchauffement climatique sous un gradient de perte/dégradation d’habitat, je montre que l’ajustement des communautés est réduit, voire empêché, par la dégradation des zones humides. La Convention Ramsar vise justement à protéger les zones humides et leur biodiversité en maintenant une exploitation raisonnée des ressources naturelles. En évaluant l’effet de cette convention, je montre que son efficacité à conserver les populations d’oiseaux est dépendante de l’implémentation d’autres outils de protection, mais que son rôle est crucial dans les pays où la législation environnementale est faible. Enfin, j’évalue la capacité des conventions internationales à faciliter l’ajustement des communautés au réchauffement climatique grâce à la réduction des pressions qui s’exercent sur les populations. J’ai comparé la réponse des communautés entre les pays ayant ratifié la Convention de Berne, ceux ayant engagé son application strictement réglementaire sous la Directive Oiseaux (Union Européenne) et ceux n’ayant pas ratifié ces conventions. Le résultat est clair, plus la réglementation est précise et strictement réglementaire, plus les communautés et les espèces strictement protégées s’ajustent à l’augmentation des températures.En conclusion, les activités humaines sont une menace pour la biodiversité, mais les mesures de conservation, en réduisant les pressions sur les populations facilitent leur adaptation au changement climatique. La conservation des oiseaux d’eau nécessite une collaboration internationale et l’établissement de lois strictement réglementaires protégeant les zones humides et les espèces, tout en assurant une utilisation durable des ressources<br>Human activities seriously threaten biodiversity. In terms of global changes, overexploitation of populations and habitat destruction/degradation are at the top of the list of factors responsible for biodiversity loss. Climate change is increasing in magnitude and adding additional pressure on species. In response to the increase in global temperatures, communities are changing as a result of the shift in the geographical distribution of species towards the poles. But the accumulation of anthropogenic pressures is likely to produce interaction effects that limit community adjustment to global warming. In this critical context, conservation biology aims to reconcile human activities with biodiversity conservation. In this thesis I have investigate how the accumulation of anthropogenic pressures can limit the adjustment of communities to global warming and to identify solutions that could be put in place to facilitate their adaptation to this warming. I have used the wintering waterbird species in the countries of the Mediterranean basin as a model for my study. These iconic species benefit from an international census to monitor their populations in response to hunting and the degradation of the wetlands on which they depend. The Mediterranean is a highly anthropized region where the use of natural resources exerts significant pressures on wetlands and their biodiversity. In response, countries have different strategies to protect these ecosystems, making this region an interesting experimental plan to measure the impact in global changes on species assemblage based on conservation measures implemented. By studying the response of communities to global warming under a gradient of habitat loss/degradation, I show that community adjustment is reduced or even prevented by wetland degradation. The Ramsar Convention aims to protect wetlands and their biodiversity by maintaining a rational use of natural resources. In assessing the effect of this convention, I show that its effectiveness in conserving bird populations depends on the implementation of other protection tools, but that its role is crucial in countries where environmental legislation is weak. Finally, I assess the capacity of international conventions to facilitate community adjustment to global warming by reducing population pressures. I compared the communities' response between countries that have ratified the Bern Convention, those that have started its strictly regulatory application under the Birds Directive (European Union) and those that have not ratified these conventions. The result is clear, the more precise and strictly regulatory the regulations, the more communities and strictly protected species adjust to the increase in temperatures.In conclusion, human activities are a threat to biodiversity, but conservation measures, by reducing pressures on populations, facilitate their adaptation to climate change. Waterbird conservation requires international collaboration and the establishment of strictly regulatory laws to protect wetlands and species, while ensuring sustainable use of resources

Grassland species assemblages are vulnerable to changes in rainfall patterns, with consequences of change including less species-rich communities, and changes in carbon, nitrogen and hydrological cycles. Research has indicated that increasing species diversity can lead to better resource and water use efficiency, and experiments are now targeted at identifying species characteristics that can modify ecosystem responses to climate change. This thesis aimed to evaluate the extent plant functional diversity can modify the effect of climate change in a field experiment on acid grassland in South-East England. Other climate scenarios, namely spring and summer drought, and highly variable rainfall were tested concurrently, and a modelling technique was developed to predict ecosystem functions from abiotic and plant trait-based variables. Climate change treatments generally decreased rates of ecosystem processes such as mineralisation and ecosystem respiration. Plots dominated by perennial plant species exhibited lower rates of processes such as net ecosystem CO2 exchange and soil respiration under climate stress. Results suggest annual plants are adapted to take advantage of very small rainfall input, and are less affected by climate change, thus generally maintaining overall ecosystem function through times of drought. A spring and summer drought regime was associated with slowing of ecosystem processes. This treatment was more deleterious to ecosystem function than increasing rainfall variability, where process rates did not differ discernibly from ambient, although plants suffered a higher level of dieback in general. While climate change could have detrimental effects on all aspects of ecosystem function, using information regarding species traits which are more resistant to climate change may aid grassland management in order to preserve more vulnerable species. Experiments such as these are vital to further understanding of the links between plant community composition and ecosystem function in order to target management schemes and policy to reduce the effects of climate change.

Biodiversity in Mexico is threatened by Land Use/Cover Change (LUCC) and Climate Change (CC). Identifying what sites will be most vulnerable to these threats can help to prioritise conservation, mitigation and adaptation strategies and target limited resources. Therefore, the aims of this study are 1) to identify the most vulnerable sites to LUCCs under different socio-economic and CC scenarios, and 2) to assess the vulnerability of endemic and threatened vertebrate species to establish prioritization strategies for biodiversity conservation. Spatially explicit socio-economic scenarios were created at national and subnational level (Chapter 3). National LUCC models were then developed using the DINAMICA EGO software (Chapter 4). These models were run for three future time slices (2020s, 2050s and 2080s) and two contrasting future climate and socio-economic scenarios to determine biodiversity vulnerability (Chapter 5). Vulnerability was estimated by quantifying the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to LUCC and CC. This framework integrates national information about the priority sites of biodiversity conservation and their future extent of natural covers under future socio-economic and climate conditions. Finally, the vulnerability framework was also applied in a regional case-study in three municipalities of southern Mexico (Chapter 6). Results reveal that temperate forest is the most vulnerable ecosystem type in Mexico, followed by natural grasslands and tropical evergreen forests. Agriculture is the driver of this threat, which is projected to expand to feed an increasing population under dryer climatic conditions. More than 40% of endemic and endangered mammals are in places ranking from medium to extremely high vulnerability, followed by the 28% of the amphibians, 25% and 23% for reptiles and birds, respectively. These vertebrates are principally distributed on temperate forests and tropical dry forests. In the regional scale, rain-fed agriculture (RfA) and anthropogenic grasslands are the principal LUCC drivers, threatening 31 species of endangered vertebrates. A local strategy for creating corridors between patches close to rivers from the south to the north of one municipality is supported as conservation priority for the regional biodiversity. This research presents a novel approach for prioritising conservation strategies in highly biodiverse countries using readily available data sources, demonstrated at different spatial and temporal scales.

Les grandes algues brunes sont des espèces clés dans les écosystèmes marins des latitudes tempérées où elles forment les forêts marines, parmi les écosystèmes les plus productifs et diversifiés au monde. En Méditerranée, elles sont représentées par les espèces du genre Cystoseira sensu lato, pour la plupart endémiques et caractérisées par leur longue durée de vie et faible dispersion. Cependant, les impacts anthropogéniques causent leur régression, entrainant des changements abruptes vers des communautés moins complexes (communautés gazonnantes et déserts marins), rendant l'écosystème potentiellement plus vulnérable aux phénomènes émergents, tels que les efflorescences de microalgues benthiques nuisibles. Les efflorescences de dinoflagellés benthiques du genre Ostreopsis, se développant sur les communautés macroalgales ont augmenté au cours des dernières décennies dans les régions tempérées, y compris la Méditerranée. Elles sont connues pour leurs effets néfastes sur la santé publique, les écosystèmes et l'économie qui en dépend.Les objectifs de cette thèse sont d'évaluer (i) les causes abiotiques (température et acidification) et biotiques (herbivorie, facilitation écologique) potentiellement à l'origine de la régression des forêts marines Méditerranéennes, et (ii) les éventuelles conséquences de cette régression dans la facilitation des efflorescences d'Ostreopsis spp. Les deux premiers chapitres de cette thèse sont focalisés sur les causes de la régression de Cystoseira s.l. Dans le Chapitre 1, les effets du changement climatique et de la facilitation écologique sur le recrutement de Cystoseira compressa ont été étudiées par des expériences en laboratoire. Un effet interactif du réchauffement et de l'acidification de l'océan, qui affecte négativement les recrues de C. compressa, a été observé, ainsi qu'un effet négatif de la présence d'algues corallines incrustantes. Dans le Chapitre 2, la pression herbivore de différents invertébrés sur les recrues de C. compressa a été étudiée par des expériences sur le terrain et en laboratoire. Les résultats montrent une forte pression herbivore de plusieurs espèces d'invertébrés (mollusques, décapodes et isopodes) sur les recrues de C. compressa, qui pourraient représenter une menace pour les populations à long terme et une cause d'insuccès des actions de restauration.Les chapitres 3 et 4 se focalisent sur le lien entre la perte de forêts marines et les efflorescences d'Ostreopsis spp. Dans le Chapitre 3, une revue bibliographique s'intéresse au rôle de l'habitat dans la facilitation/régulation des efflorescences. Malgré un évident manque d'informations à l'échelle globale sur les méso- et macro-habitat plus propices aux efflorescences, les connaissances actuelles démontrent que les substrats les plus échantillonnés pour étudier ces espèces sont des macroalgues formant des communautés peu complexes, suggérant que ces communautés hébergent les efflorescences les plus importantes. Dans le Chapitre 4, la relation entre les efflorescences d'Ostreopsis et les communautés macroalgales a été étudiée par des expériences sur le terrain en Italie et en France. Des différences significatives ont été observées sur un des deux sites d'étude tandis que dans le deuxième on estime que la forte variabilité puisse avoir caché les éventuelles préférences d'Ostreopsis spp. Mais, des études à plus grande échelle seraient nécessaires pour conforter ces résultats.Les résultats de cette thèse représentent d'importantes avancées sur les causes et les effets de la régression des forêts de Cystoseira s.l., confortant l'importance de leur conservation et (où nécessaire) restauration, en contribuant à la conception de stratégies de gestion, non seulement pour préserver un des écosystèmes les plus productifs en Méditerranée, mais aussi dans le but de limiter d'éventuelles conséquences inattendues, telles que les efflorescences d'Ostreopsis spp<br>Large brown forest-forming macroalgae are dominant foundation species, ecosystem engineers of marine macroalgal forests. In the Mediterranean Sea, they are mainly represented by Cystoseira sensu lato spp. most of wich are endemic. They are also characterized for being long-lived species with short dispersal of the zygotes. Marine forests are one of the most productive and diverse ecosystems on earth. However, anthropogenic impacts are pushing them to the edge, causing regime shifts towards less complex communities such as shrubs, turfs, or even barren grounds. Marine forest loss affects the whole ecosystem, eventually making it more vulnerable to emergent phenomena such as benthic harmful algal blooms (BHAB). BHAB of the genus Ostreopsis spp. have been expanding in recent decades through temperate regions such as the Mediterranean Sea, where they have important public health, ecological and economic consequences. Major blooms are generally observed on macroalgal turfs and shrubs, suggesting that less structurally complex macroalgal communities could have an active role in promoting the proliferation of blooms.The main objectives of this thesis are (i) to assess some abiotic (climate change) and biotic (herbivory) causes of marine forests loss in the Mediterranean Sea and (ii) the potential consequences this loss can have in the context of BHABs proliferation. In the first two chapters, the causes of Cystoseira s.l. spp. loss were assessed. In Chapter 1, the effects of climate change and species facilitation on the recruitment of Cystoseira compressa were studied in controlled laboratory experiments. The major results from this chapter show that the interactive effects of ocean warming and acidification negatively affect C. compressa recruits, which are also negatively affected by the presence of crustose coralline algae. In Chapter 2 the grazing pressure and the effects of different invertebrates on recruits of C. compressa were assessed through field surveys and both field and laboratory-based experiments. The results obtained show a high grazing rate of several common invertebrate species (molluscs, decapods et isopods) on recruits of C. compressa, representing a threat to natural populations in the long term, but also affecting the success of restoration actions. In chapters 3 and 4 the consequences of forest loss and in particular, the facilitation of Ostreopsis spp. blooms was approached by a literature review and field experiments. The review, reported in Chapter 3, focussed on the role of habitat in the facilitation of Ostreopsis spp. blooms. Despite an evident lack of information at the global scale on the meso- and macro-habitat fostering Ostreopsis spp. blooms, the present knowledge suggests a relationship between the abundance of Ostreopsis spp. and the complexity of the macroalgal communities. In Chapter 4 Ostreopsis spp. blooms have been studied in relation to macroalgal communities in field experiments in Italy and in France. A high variability on Ostreopsis spp. abundances was observed in the different macroalgal species and communities sampled, in some cases likely hiding other potential patterns of Ostreopsis spp. preferences. Larger scale studies would be needed to confirm these results.These findings provide important insights into the causes and effects of Cystoseira s.l. spp. loss and are of major interest for the conservation of Mediterranean marine forests, contributing to the development of effective management measures. The results presented support the importance of marine forests restoration in the Mediterranean Sea, as recommended by the 2030 European Biodiversity Strategy, the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development objectives. Such restoration actions will not only increase the productivity and biodiversity of coastal ecosystems but could potentially mitigate the public health, ecological and economic consequences of Ostreopsis spp. blooms

There is little doubt that anthropogenic climate change will have long lasting, unavoidable, large scale and cross sector effects. Having a clear understanding of the scale and rate of projected future changes, and the potential impacts of those changes at multiple spatial and temporal scales, will be important to allow environmental managers the best chance of adapting to changing conditions. There are particular concerns about impacts on freshwater systems due to the coupling of direct impacts to both hydrology and ecology. Expected changes can be grouped into three functional categories: those affecting physico-chemical (broadly water quality), hydromorphological (physical structure and habitat) and biological elements of the lake system. The Lake-Landscape Context framework provides a way of approaching the sensitivity or resilience of an individual lake to change by exploring the complex and multi-layered relations between water, land and human activity. However, the exact combination of strategies and actions available to environmental managers is yet to be comprehensively documented beyond broad principles. To reach this goal, to manage our ecosystems in the most comprehensive and responsible way, we need to have a clear understanding of what and where that resource is, what the conservation priorities currently are and where threats to these priorities are likely to emerge. Therefore, the overall aim of this thesis was to develop adaptation strategies to minimise climate change impacts on the conservation interests of Scotland’s standing freshwater. This was approached through the adoption of the ESVRA conceptual framework, intended to assist policymakers and practitioners in adaptation planning. Practical actions can be guided by working through the framework’s four key stages: understanding exposure to the pressure (external drivers); considering the sensitivity and resilience of the system at multiple scales (internal functions); exploring areas of vulnerability (a measure of sensitivity plus exposure); and consideration of multiple possible responses across spatial and temporal scales. Chapter 2 explores the lake resource making use of the latest geospatial data and GIS techniques to investigate Scottish standing freshwaters in depth. 5,165 Scottish lakes exhibit an outstanding myriad of forms and sizes ranging across the country. This variety of form, density and distribution contribute to habitats of international importance for numerous species. Perhaps because of this diversity, no natural grouping of lakes were found based on simple hydromorphological categorisations. The use of landscape and wildness ‘scoring’ is a novel geographic approach, which may be an important factor in how landscapes are valued in the future. Chapter 3 investigates the direct exposure to global climate change facing Scotland. Projected changes to global climate were downscaled to illustrate impact on the UK and Scotland using both the UKCP09 and HadGEM2-ES climate models. Climate change by the 2050s will impact the UK in the range 1.1°C to 2.7°C with a clear South-East/North-West gradient. Precipitation too is projected to change in the UK in this time, with annual precipitation varying from -65 to +116 mm/yr. By incorporating the climate model data into a GIS it was possible to further interrogate the results for specific locations, with a detailed water balance model created for all 5165 lakes. This model suggests that during the summer months there will be sustained periods of water scarcity and deficit. Finally, in this chapter, a climate change spatial risk assessment was undertaken, identifying 200 lakes in the area of greatest projected change. Leading on from these findings, Chapter 4 explores the vulnerability of Scotland’s standing freshwaters. A vulnerability framework attempts to place resilience as a key part of the model, which has to date been missing from similar assessments. The expert weighted scoring mechanism highlights 851 of Scotland’s standing freshwaters, geographically spread across the country, as being highly vulnerable to projected climate changes. The results were mapped to show the vulnerability across Scotland and a display system for individual lakes proposed that allows a transparent and coherent structure that can shed light on distinct components of vulnerability, so that each can be evaluated individually, and in combination. Finally, in Chapter 5, a multipart online survey with key stakeholder experts actively involved in freshwater environmental management was produced to approach adaptation strategies and actions themselves. Over 80 adaptation actions specifically applicable to Scotland’s standing freshwaters were collated and grouped into 12 adaptation strategies. All 12 strategies were considered desirable with six strategies considered ‘Definitely feasible’, a further four considered ‘Likely feasible’. This provides a framework of potential actions that could help to reduce system sensitivity by increasing adaptive capacity or system resilience. In conclusion, while there are undoubtedly challenges ahead for Scotland’s standing freshwaters and for those who manage them, there is clear opportunity to make proactive and engaged decisions to minimise the impact of climate changes on the conservation interest of these important habitats.

<p> Stream temperature (ST) is a primary determinant of individual stream species distributions and community composition. Moreover, thermal modifications associated with urbanization, agriculture, reservoirs, and climate change can significantly alter stream ecosystem structure and function. Despite its importance, we lack ST measurements for the vast majority of USA streams. To effectively manage these important systems, we need to understand how STs vary geographically, what the natural (reference) thermal condition of altered streams was, and how STs will respond to climate change. Empirical ST models, if calibrated with physically meaningful predictors, could provide this information. My dissertation objectives were to: (1) develop empirical models that predict reference- and nonreference-condition STs for the conterminous USA, (2) assess how well modeled STs represent measured STs for predicting stream biotic communities, and (3) predict potential climate-related alterations to STs. For objective 1, I used random forest modeling with environmental data from several thousand US Geological Survey sites to model geographic variation in nonreference mean summer, mean winter, and mean annual STs. I used these models to identify thresholds of watershed alteration below which there were negligible effects on ST. With these reference-condition sites, I then built ST models to predict summer, winter, and annual STs that should occur in the absence of human-related alteration (r² = 0.87, 0.89, 0.95, respectively). To meet objective 2, I compared how well modeled and measured ST predicted stream benthic invertebrate composition across 92 streams. I also compared predicted and measured STs for estimating taxon-specific thermal optima. Modeled and measured STs performed equally well in both predicting invertebrate composition and estimating taxon-specific thermal optima (r² between observation and model-derived optima = 0.97). For objective 3, I first showed that predicted and measured ST responded similarly to historical variation in air temperatures. I then used downscaled climate projections to predict that summer, winter, and annual STs will warm by 1.6 &deg;C - 1.7 &deg;C on average by 2099. Finally, I used additional modeling to identify initial stream and watershed conditions (i.e., low heat loss rates and small base-flow index) most strongly associated with ST vulnerability to climate change.</p>

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth at all scales of observation. Its persistence underlies ecological and evolutionary processes and is pivotal for the sustenance and future development of human societies through the provision of ecosystem services. Especially since the industrial revolution, anthropogenic land-cover change has placed ever-increasing strain on natural systems through the destruction and degradation of habitat. The Cape Floristic Region (CFR) is a global biodiversity hot spot which contains some of the highest levels of floristic diversity and endemism on the planet. Since European settlement large swathes of this region have been transformed to facilitate socio-economic development, placing tremendous pressure on indigenous biodiversity. Due to the intimate relationship that exists between land cover and biodiversity it is possible to draw inferences on the current state of the biodiversity of an area, assess the pressures that will likely face it in the future and plan accordingly based on an analysis of land-cover change. As a means of assessing the state of biodiversity in the CFR, this thesis has developed a series of three land-cover maps for the Berg River catchment in the Western Cape province for 1986/1987, 1999/2000 and 2007 using Landsat TM and ETM+ data. Areas of natural vegetation were delineated on the land-cover maps using an object-orientated nearest neighbour supervised classification. Remnants of natural vegetation were classified according to potential vegetation boundaries described by Mucina and Rutherford’s map of the vegetation of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. Contrary to initial expectations, the area occupied by natural vegetation had increased by 14%. However, considerable variation was recorded between vegetation types with certain types exhibiting marked increases in extent while others had been encroached by expanding cultivated and urban areas. An assessment of the accuracy of the 2007 land-cover map showed that significant swathes of natural vegetation were infested with alien invasive species or dominated by particularly resilient species which are not as severely affected by anthropogenic activities as other species. It is concluded that the methodology employed in this study provides a scoping mechanism by which more intensive research may be directed toward areas exhibiting significant land-cover change.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Biodiversiteit verwys na die verskeidenheid lewe op aarde op alle waarnemingsvlakke. Die volhouding daarvan onderlê ekologiese en ewolusionêre prosesse en die verskaffing van ekosisteemdienste is deurslaggewend vir die onderhoud en toekomstige ontwikkeling van menslike samelewings deur. Veral sedert die industriële rewolusie het veranderinge in antropologiese gronddekking toenemende druk op natuurlike sisteme geplaas, grootliks deur die vernietiging en ontaarding van habitatte. Die Kaapse Floristiese Streek (KFS) met van die hoogste vlakke van floristiese diversiteit en endemisiteit op aarde, is ‘n brandpunt van wêreldwye biodiversiteit. Sedert die vestiging van Europese setlaars is uitgebreide dele van hierdie streek omskep om sosio-ekonomiese ontwikkeling te bevorder, wat geweldige druk op inheemse biodiversiteit geplaas het. Te wyte aan die intieme verhouding wat tussen gronddekking en biodiversiteit bestaan, is dit moontlik om deur middel van ‘n ontleding van gronddekkingsveranderinge afleidings te maak rakende die huidige stand van biodiversiteit in ‘n streek. Sodoende kan bepaal word watter druk ʼn streek moontlik in die toekoms sal moet weerstaan. Vooruitbeplanning kan dienooreenkomstig gedoen word. Ten einde die stand van biodiversiteit in die KFS te beraam, het hierdie tesis ‘n reeks van drie gronddekkingskaarte (1986/1987, 1999/2000 en 2007) vir die Bergrivier-opvangsgebied in die Wes-Kaapprovinsie met behulp van Landsat TM en ETM+ data ontwikkel. Areas met natuurlike plantegroei is met behulp van ‘n voorwerp-georiënteerde naaste-buurman klassifikasie afgebaken. Oorblyfsels van natuurlike plantegroei is volgens potensiële plantegroeigrense, soos beskryf deur Mucina en Rutherford se kaart van die plantegroei van Suid-Afrika, Lesotho en Swaziland, geklassifiseer. In teenstelling met aanvanklike verwagtinge, het die area wat deur natuurlike plantegroei bedek word met 14% toegeneem. Tog is aansienlike variasie tussen plantegroeitipes opgemerk, met sekere soorte wat opvallende omvangstoename toon, terwyl ander plantegroeitipes deur landbou en stedelike groei vervang is. ‘n Beraming van die akkuraatheid van die 2007-gronddekkingkaart toon dat noemenswaardige stroke natuurlike plantegroei deur uitheemse indringerspesies besmet word of deur uiters weerstandige spesies, wat nie so ernstig as ander spesies deur antropologiese aktiwiteite beïnvloed word nie, gedomineer word. Die gevolgtrekking is dat die metodologie wat in hierdie studie gebruik is ‘n meganisme verskaf waardeur meer intensiewe navorsing op areas wat aansienlike verandering in gronddekking ten toon stel, gerig kan word.

There is currently widespread concern about the impact of continuing climate change on the distribution, and ultimately persistence of species across all the major taxa. While much previous work has focussed on using climate envelope models to make projections of the location of potential future suitable climate space for a variety of species, these can at best give an indication of the likely direction and potential magnitude of distributional change. They lack information on spatial population dynamics, dispersal, habitat suitability, local adaptation and inter-specific interactions. The aim of this thesis was to explore how some of these other factors might alter projections regarding species’ distributional change in response to climate change, using both theoretical models, and garden warbler (Sylvia borin) as a model system. A key aspect which has been largely over-looked until very recently is the complex range dynamics which can result from spatial variation in population dynamics, and the impacts of inter-annual variability rather than simply mean climate, both of which can impact extinction risk. Much insight into future impacts of climate change can also be gained through studies of past distributional changes, such as that observed in the British breeding population of garden warbler in the last three decades. In many cases, studies at smaller-scales are necessary to elucidate the mechanisms of climate change impacts and further explore potential synergies with other drivers of ecosystem change such as habitat loss and species invasions. The particular combination of factors which should be included to make projections of distributional change will be species-specific and scale-dependent, therefore modelling exercises should be carefully designed depending on the intended outcome for conservation.

Climate change has created potential major threats to global biodiversity. The multiple components of climate change are projected to affect all pillars of biodiversity, from genes over species to biome level. Of particular concerns are "tipping points" where the exceedance of ecosystem thresholds will possibly lead to irreversible shifts of ecosystems and their functioning. As biodiversity underlies all goods and services provided by ecosystems that are crucial for human survival and wellbeing, this paper presents potential effects of climate change on biodiversity, its plausible impacts on human society as well as the setting in addressing a global crisis. Species affected by climate change may respond in three ways: change, move or die. Local species extinctions or a rapidly affected ecosystem as a whole respectively might move toward its particular "tipping point", thereby probably depriving its services to human society and ending up in a global crisis. Urgent and appropriate actions within various scenarios of climate change impacts on biodiversity, especially in tropical regions, are needed to be considered. Foremost a multisectoral approach on biodiversity issues with broader policies, stringent strategies and programs at international, national and local levels is essential to meet the challenges of climate change impacts on biodiversity.

Mangrove forests provide a significant contribution to human well-being; particularly through climate change mitigation and adaptation (CCMA) due to disproportionately high carbon sequestration and coastal protection from tropical storms. However, mangrove community structure drivers of these ecosystem services (ES), rehabilitation potential for high CCMA ES delivery, and their resilience to climate change impacts remain poorly understood and monitored. This thesis uses field- and satellite remote sensing-based methods and a dual focus at a Philippines-specific and West Africa to South Asian-scale to quantitatively assess mangrove CCMA ES delivery. The first three chapters provide a background, and literature review on ES delivery, ecological restoration and resilience to perturbations, mangrove ES, their anthropogenic and climate change threats, and current management. Chapters 4 and 5 detail the case study selection and methodologies employed. Chapter 6 focuses on the flora community structure drivers of mangrove ES delivery, and shows that divergent controls can drive trade-offs in the delivery of key CCMA benefits. Chapter 7 focuses on the potential of mangrove rehabilitation for high CCMA ES delivery, and shows that mangrove rehabilitation in abandoned aquaculture ponds can provide high relative CCMA benefits, revealing large areas of abandoned aquaculture with favourable tenure status for greenbelt rehabilitation. Chapter 8 focuses on remote monitoring of mangrove resilience to sea level rise, and the potential anthropogenic and abiotic factors influencing these, establishing a methodology for continued remote monitoring and revealing variability in resilience and resistance across forests. Overall, it is demonstrated that current mangrove management in the Philippines and globally may be insufficient to secure high CCMA ES delivery, due to (1) non- consideration of flora community structure, site-specific and areal requirements, (2) complexity in governance systems for reclamation of mangrove lands, and (3) a lack of spatial planning and zoning to accommodate mangrove resilience to climate-induced perturbations.

Marine species are highly susceptible to climate change as demonstrated by several studies. However, most of these studies focus on few species or on restricted geographical areas. Within this context, the main goal of my dissertation is to characterize global patterns and forecast the effects of climate change on marine biodiversity. This work is the first macroecological approach to investigate the effects of climate change in the marine realm on key commercial marine groups, namely coastal lobsters (125 species), cephalopods (161 species) and small pelagic fish (103 species). Here I aimed to improve our understanding of how projected changes in species distribution might affect key marine species diversity, body size, assemblage composition, variations in catch, and finally infer on the potential impacts for fisheries worldwide. Using Ecological Niche Models (ENMs) the projected global diversity patterns of the analyzed species generally showed higher values in tropical areas and lower values in higher latitudes. Nonetheless, these patterns were projected to change significantly by the end of the century, with a general tendency of species tracking adequate habitat suitability to higher latitudes. The results obtained provide critical information to anticipate negative impacts of climate change on marine biodiversity and should be considered in future studies, as they highlight climate hot-spot areas or with highly vulnerable species. Ultimately, it is crucial to evaluate species adaptation potential and develop hybrid models that better can guide future political decisions on conservation and management measures; RESUMO: Padrões globais da biodiversidade marinha e o potencial impacto das alterações climáticas As espécies marinhas são altamente suscetíveis às alterações climáticas, como demonstrado em numerosos estudos. Porém muitos desses estudos focam-se num número reduzido de espécies ou numa determinada área geográfica (local ou regional). Neste contexto, a presente dissertação tem como objetivo investigar os padrões globais de biodiversidade marinha e projetar como estes poderão estar modificados no final do século. Este trabalho constitui a primeira abordagem macroecológica que investiga, numa escala global, os impactos das alterações climáticas em taxa marinhos com alto interesse económico, como lagostas (125 espécies), cefalópodes (161 espécies) e pequenos peixes pelágicos (103 espécies). Os padrões globais de biodiversidade marinha para todos os taxa analisados mostram maior riqueza na zona dos trópicos e menor número de espécies nas maiores latitudes. No entanto, estes padrões podem sofrer modificações significativas até ao final do século verificando-se uma tendência generalizada das espécies migrarem para latitudes maiores de forma a encontrarem refúgio em áreas com boa adequação ambiental. Os modelos usados nesta tese (modelos de nicho ecológico) projetam alterações significativas na distribuição das espécies analisadas, com impactos profundos na riqueza e abundância em áreas vitais para a saúde dos oceanos e para as pescas, a longo prazo. Esta dissertação representa um contributo importante para o conhecimento dos padrões globais da biodiversidade nos oceanos futuros. Servindo os seus resultados para orientar estudos pormenorizados em áreas de risco elevado ou com espécies mais vulneráveis e informar a tomada de decisões com vista a proteção de espécies marinhas com elevado valor económico e ambiental. Contudo, atendendo aos efeitos das alterações climáticas já sentidos nos oceanos, é crucial avaliar a capacidade de adaptação destas espécies e encontrar modelos híbridos que melhor nos permitam orientar medidas de gestão e conservação futuras.

Species’ ranges are configured according to their tolerance of environmental conditions, especially climate, and their history of dispersal since speciation. Previous studies of the potential impact of climate change on biodiversity have been biased towards species of high latitudes. This situation results from a lack of detailed knowledge about the distribution of tropical biodiversity, and from the smaller degree of warming expected at low latitudes. However, various General Circulation Models (GCMs) simulate regional drying and increasing seasonality for parts of the tropics, including Amazonia. This may have a greater impact on tropical forest flora than temperature change alone. The Amazon region holds a high proportion of global biodiversity, yet conservation plans rarely consider possible climate change impacts. This thesis presents a methodology for projecting a set of Amazonian plant species’ ranges from limited data, and estimating their response to climate change scenarios. Species are classified into plant functional types (PFTs), which share traits such as growth form and reproductive strategy. Species' current distributions are modelled over a coarse scale (a 1º latitude-longitude grid), using a suitability index based on bioclimate variables. Distributions are additionally limited by species’ absolute tolerances to extreme values, and by dispersal barriers. A sizestructured population is simulated for each cell, to enable modelling of lags in response to climate change. In the standard impact scenario (SIS), future population processes are simulated over 100 years, with changes in the variables governing cell suitability being applied annually according to anomalies from a selected GCM. The run is repeated for each species using anomalies of half that magnitude, as a reduced-impact scenario (RIS). The range of potential outcomes for each species and PFT is evaluated. Widespread impacts are seen under both scenarios. An alternative impact scenario (AIS) is devised to examine the effects of allowing some "c-species" to thrive under heightened AET. The most vulnerable taxonomic groups, PFTs and geographical regions are identified as targets for monitoring and conservation action. In particular, there is a dramatic loss of species' viability in much of northeastern Amazonia at 2095 under all scenarios. The far western part of Amazonia is identified as important for persistence of the greatest number of species. Areas falling between the major rivers of the region have very limited distribution data, so are highlighted for future biodiversity survey work.

Global climate change is an important threat to biodiversity and is predicted to be a major driver of wildlife population extinctions throughout the current century. Across a wide range of taxa, a well-documented response to climate change has been changes in species distributions, often towards higher latitudes and altitudes. Species distribution models (SDMs) have been widely used to predict further range changes in future but their use has often focused on discrete geographical areas. Moreover, SDMs have typically been correlative, ignoring biological traits. Here, I use SDMs to project future ranges for the world’s terrestrial birds under climate change. To improve the realism of projected range changes, I incorporate biological traits, including species’ age at first breeding and natal dispersal range. I use these projections to predict large-scale patterns in the responses of terrestrial birds to climate change, and to explore the implications of these models for avian conservation. There is little consensus on the most useful predictors for SDMs, so I begin by exploring how this varies geographically. With this knowledge, I develop SDMs for the world’s terrestrial birds and project future species ranges using three different global climate models (CCSM4, GFDL-CM3, HadGEM2-ES) under a low (rcp26), a medium (rcp45) and a high (rcp85) representative concentration pathway. The projected ranges are used to identify species most at risk from climate change and to highlight global hotspots where species are projected to experience the highest range losses. I explore how the projected range changes affect global species communities and I identify areas where species communities are projected to change or novel communities will emerge. I assess how projected changes will affect the ability of the global Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) network to confer protection on the world’s terrestrial bird species. Additionally, I highlight - based on projected range loss and suitable habitat and climate space beyond the dispersal range - species that will be unable to track climate change and that could be candidates for Assisted Colonization (AC). Finally, I explore the divergence between global species richness (SR) patterns and phylogenetic diversity (PD) for the world’s terrestrial birds, to assess if measuring biodiversity and setting conservation targets based on SR can be expected to cover their PD as well. Identifying the global consequences of projected range changes can inform future conservation efforts and research priorities. Changes in range extent and overlap were projected for the vast majority of the world’s terrestrial birds, with one-fifth projected to experience major range losses (>75% decline in range extent projected). This has far reaching consequences for the IBA network, with an overall trend of species moving out of the IBA coverage. Furthermore 13% of the world’s terrestrial birds are projected to have severe range losses that, combined with an inability to follow suitable habitat and climate space, mean they could benefit from AC as a conservation tool. Overall, PD was found to be highly correlated to SR on a global scale; however, there are localized differences where PD is higher or lower than could be expected from SR alone. These differences suggest that considering PD could enhance conservation planning. The results demonstrate the major threat that climate change poses for the world’s terrestrial bird species across all areas of the globe, and highlight the importance of considering climate change impacts to enhance their protection.

Species have responded to recent increases in global temperatures by shifting their geographical ranges poleward and to higher altitudes. As the climate changes in the future, species ranges are predicted to shift out of existing nature reserves. One suggestion to mitigate this effect is to conserve areas which contain a range of microclimates in the hope that species will find refuge in some suitable locations even though the global climate changes. However, such potential conservation strategies require evaluation oftheir likely success before they can be implemented. This thesis addresses this issue through the application of ecological and microclimatic surveying and modelling techniques to investigate the role ofmicroclimatic heterogeneity in shaping plant distributions within mountain nature reserves in Scotland, UK. The main aim is to quantify the variation in microclimate across the reserves and determine whether this will be sufficient to conserve species under climate change. Mountain plants are often identified as being particularly sensitive to climate change, however this has mostly been investigated at a single, often large, spatial scale. In this study, plant-climate relationships are investigated at a range of scales, from continental to local. It is argued that a thorough understanding of climate change impacts can only be achieved through such a multi-scale approach. At the local scale, microclimate measurements across the study site are related to local long-term climate records and future climate projections, revealing that the topographically-driven heterogeneity in surface temperature is smaller than the projected future temperature changes at the site. The long-term climate records also indicate that snow cover may decline at high altitudes, leading to a reduction in suitable climate space for snow bed plants. In summary, the study develops methods to estimate climate change impacts within mountain environments and informs current discussions over how conservation policy and management should be adapted in response.

<p> Climate change is a global process that will impact local places in heterogeneous and unpredictable manners. This dissertation considers whose knowledge and observations could contribute to conservation and climate adaptation planning, how perceptions influence social-ecological feedbacks, and how science could be more relevant to decision-makers and local residents. In Chapter 2, I report on interviews (n=36) conducted with ranchers and recreation-based business owners in Colorado to understand their self-perceptions of resilience and vulnerability. I find that ranchers perceive more exposure and sensitivity to climate change and they also demonstrate more adaptive capacity than recreation businesses. In Chapter 3, I convey results from interviews (n=83) completed with various long-term residents of the region surrounding Denali National Park and Preserve. I find that people who have more direct and ongoing experience with natural resources (subsistence users, bus drivers, business owners) have a greater number and more diverse observations of change than Park employees or scientists. In Chapter 4, I describe results from interviews (n=26) with community-defined Gunnison Sage-grouse experts. I find that formal and observational experts had very different explanations of the decline of Gunnison Sage-grouse and disagreed about potential conservation strategies. In Chapter 5, I describe multi-method surveys (41) conducted with ranchers in the Gunnison Basin to understand their perceptions of the potential listing of the Gunnison Sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act, and their planned responses. I find that ranchers tend to have negative perceptions of the listing and that they plan to take actions, including sales of land and water and decreased participation in conservation efforts, which may result in harm to the Gunnison Sage-grouse. In Chapter 6, I review stakeholder-generated climate change needs assessments (63) to assess the suggestions made to make science more relevant to decision-making. Their suggestions include: interdisciplinary approaches, place-based focus, increased data-sharing and collaboration, and user-driven research. This dissertation demonstrates the importance of understanding perceptions for effective conservation and adaptation, identifies the existence of proactive adaptation strategies, highlights the value of local knowledge in specific situations, and reveals how failure to engage local people may lead to inequitable outcomes.</p>

A central concept in evolutionary biology is to understand how new species arise and are maintained. Studying the temporal and spatial distribution of genealogical lineages provides insight into evolutionary processes which govern diversification while the study of disease vectors has additional implications for human health. Within Africa, medically important Aedes mosquitoes provide an interesting case in which to study evolutionary processes because they are behaviourally and morphologically diverse. These mosquitoes are also inherently dependent of forests and so provide an ideal study organism in which to test the refuge hypothesis of historical climate change, which has been suggested as a pivotal force in species evolution. Before their evolutionary history can be determined, reliable identification of target species is required. In Chapter 3, we have developed a PCR mediated method to distinguish between isomorphic species of the Simpsoni Complex and use this method to provide inferences on ecology and species distributions; findings reveal an east-west difference in the distribution of the yellow fever vector Ae. bromeliae and non-vector Ae. lilii across the African continent, while these species meet in Uganda where they use the same larval habitats. In Chapters 4 and 5 we use a standard phylogeographic approach coupled with Approximate Bayesian Computation to uncover the evolutionary history of Aedes mosquitoes. Analysis reveals common phylogeographic signals within Aedes species which show populations have been subject to historical lineage diversification, admixture and recent demographic structure, in accordance with the refuge hypothesis of climate induced vicariance and secondary contact. Findings suggest that recent climate change throughout the late Pleistocene and early Holocene was important in generating African biodiversity. We find additional differences in the population structure of species between East and West Africa which could reflect more general biodiversity patterns within Africa. As the region connecting East and West African populations, Central Africa could be an important area regarding the diversification of species, including diseases and their vectors. We have identified a putative role for ecological speciation; for example in Chapter 4 we have provided additional evidence that worldwide populations of Ae. aegypti stem from a particularly successful source, indicating these mosquitoes possessed a trait integral for range expansion. In Chapters 4 and 5 we find that historical admixture within Africa characterises populations of Aedes mosquitoes and so may have played a key role in their evolutionary success. Since admixture can combine novel combinations of genetic material and raise adaptive potential, admixture may have been selectively advantageous for Aedes mosquitoes. Similarly, climate related secondary contact is likely to have been an important force for the evolution of other forest dependent species within Africa.

The restoration of degraded tropical lands can lead to carbon sequestration, which can mitigate climate change, alongside safeguarding biodiversity and providing other co-benefits. Recently tropical countries have pledged to restore millions of hectares of degraded lands to forest. However, important gaps in policy-facing knowledge remain. To address these I firstly assessed the rate that naturally regenerating forests sequester carbon, by systematically reviewing studies measuring forest recovery following the abandonment of agricultural lands. I found a mean above-ground carbon sequestration rate of 2.5 Mg C ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ (± 0.6, 95% CI) over 100 years, which was not dependent on prior land use (n=71 studies). Next, I measured the results of active restoration of tropical forest, via fire exclusion and planting native seedlings, on abandoned agricultural land in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Above-ground carbon sequestration was 1.9 Mg C ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ (± 0.4; n=50 x 0.05 ha permanent sample plots) and tree species richness (≥10 cm diameter at breast height) increased from 0 to 5 species per plot in the first 18 years after restoration (1995-2013). I then measured the results of active restoration of tropical forest via planting native seedlings and climber cutting, in selectively logged forest in Sabah, Borneo. Restored forest sequestered aboveground carbon twice as fast as selectively logged control forest (3.3±0.9 and 1.6±0.8 Mg C ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹, respectively; 24 x 0.2 ha plots, half restored, half controls) over eight years (2007-2015), and had higher tree species richness (48 and 35 species ≥10 cm DBH per plot, respectively). Lastly, I estimate the impact of fulfilling the global aspiration of restoring 350 million ha of tropical lands to forest by combining restoration pledges (including the proportion of land committed to native forest and forms of tree-based agriculture), with sequestration rates. Implementation would remove 0.4 Pg C yr⁻¹ from the atmophere over the next 100 years. Restoration is therefore shown to offer climate-relevant sequestration potential, and if active restoration is used then these future forests can be designed to optimise multiple benefits to humanity.

This thesis explores the impact of biochar on the sustainability of English agriculture. It takes an integrated approach by looking at a range of agronomic, economic, biodiversity and climate change conditions that affect the total sustainability of biochar. Central to biochar use is its impact on yield. Laboratory and field trials were established to investigate the agronomic properties of biochar in both arable and grassland situations. Biochar strongly increased arable yields when associated with higher nitrogen fertiliser levels, showing an increase in Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE). Biochar had no apparent impact on grass yield. Central to biochar sustainability is the sustainability of its feedstocks. Four feedstocks were identified whose use could potentially increase local biodiversity, and whose use is potentially sustainable - coppiced hedgerows, undermanaged small farm woodlands, short rotation coppice willow and straw. The impacts of harvesting these on biodiversity were assessed through a combination of experiments and desk based review. The management of small farm woodlands is likely to increase sustainability. The sustainability of hedgerow coppicing depending on species groups - beetle numbers increased, but small mammal numbers were not affected. There is little evidence about the impact of removing straw on soil biodiversity, but if biochar replaces straw, straw can be harvested sustainably. The yield results from the arable trials were fed into three spreadsheet models. The first explored the net greenhouse gas (GHG) balance of biochar use. To better understand the impact of emission timing on biochar use a novel accounting method - Net Present Carbon -was developed. Biochar use can mitigate or exacerbate climate change, depending on the feedstock used and the boundaries of the model. The second model looked at the net economic balance of biochar use. Depending on feedstocks, biochar can be economical to produce without carbon payments through yield gains. Including a C price makes the economic return highly dependent on the C balance. A final model was then developed to investigate the trade-offs of biochar use between five different sustainability objectives: fixed carbon (C), all GHG emissions, economic return, local biodiversity and global biodiversity. Overall sustainability of biochar use depends greatly on what measure is used to assess sustainability-there is no scenario where it is possible to optimise all sustainability indices, instead trade-offs always occur.

An increase in global temperature accompanied by rapid fragmentation of habitats will lead to greater pressure on biodiversity, with more dramatic impacts expected on high mountain ranges. A new wave of extinction is likely to occur as the ability of species to migrate toward new cooler suitable areas will be hampered by altered landscapes, also the magnitude of species loss will in part depend on species traits, or phenotypic plasticity of individuals which will have to adapt to the changed environmental conditions. In this PhD thesis, I included different models employing altitudinal gradient as a surrogate, to understand how effects determined by climatic variation might or might not exacerbate the negative impact of landscape changes on carabid communities (eastern Italian Alps). Chapter I contains a brief overview of the current body of scientific literature on the main ecological impacts of habitat fragmentation and climate change, and the emerging research related to the response of organisms to the synergistic impacts of these two threats. The aim of Chapter II is to determine whether the effects of rising temperature might enhance the impact of habitat fragmentation on beetle diversity and community structure. Chapter III describes an attempt to assess the existence of simultaneous effects generated by habitat fragmentation and climate change on variation of morphological traits (fluctuating asymmetry and body length) in natural populations of forest-dwelling species Haptoderus unctulatus. Finally, Chapter IV explores if species’ sensitivity to landscape modification and altitude might be maximized or not by a combination of life history traits of ground beetles. In summary, data of carabid assemblages suggest that the impact of rising temperature acting in synergy with land use pressure will move up along the mountainside, inflicting more serious negative impact on species composition, and causing changes in morphological traits of beetle populations particularly accentuated at lowlands. Also, interaction between these two drivers of change will exert a selective pressure on species with certain functional traits, which will result in a greater impact on the beetle assemblages of Alpine ecosystems than either driver acting individually.

Abstract in English (and in spanish below) Through the Man and Biosphere Program (MAB), the United Nation’s Agency UNESCO included this geographical area into the biosphere reserve network (1989), declaring the Yasuní National Park (YNP) and the land-titled of Waorani territory (known as Waorani Ethnic Reserve, WER) as Yasuní Biosphere Reserve (YBR), in order to prioritize and to conciliate biodiversity conservation with sustainable development in the territory planning. However, due to huge non-renewable energy reserves and to the crucial role they play in the national economy, the Ecuadorean State zoned specific geographical areas in the Amazon Region for hydrocarbon industrial activities – the so called “oil blocks” –, so that roughly the 79% of the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve was overlapped by concessions for oil extraction and production. Oil development in the EAR already caused major environmental and social impacts on the Amazon territories of Ecuador. Direct effects include deforestation for drilling platforms, pipelines, access roads, seismic prospecting activities, and chemical contamination on water bodies from wastewater discharges, oil spills and gas emissions. Indirect impacts are related to the opening of roads for oil exploration and transportation which turns terrestrial communications infrastructures into the main vector for colonization of primary forest, represented by the Moist Tropical Forest (MTF). Colonization of MTF is causing increased deforestation, logging and hunting from human settlement. As it is figured out by the satellite image of the Via Auca Road – the most important oil terrestrial infrastructure at the western sector of the YBR - colonization processes of MTF are usually driven by the main road axis. They represent the main driver of extensive deforestation activity traced out by orthogonal and parallel processes, resulting by land cover/land use change dynamics in the typical deforestation spatial pattern called fish-bone. Land use and land cover change dynamics result in agricultural activities both at intensive cultivation level (i.e. African Palm, Elaeis guineensis bot. sp.) and non-traditional farming. Therefore, hydrocarbon reserves exploitation, by its direct and indirect impacts on MTF ecosystems, played a pivotal role in turning the Napo ecoregion in one of the 14 mayor deforestation front in the world. The issues of the Yasuní have got an international visibility due to the called “Yasuní-ITT initiative” undertaken by the Ecuador Government (2007); an international initiative related to the Kyoto Protocol framework, which is oriented to protect biodiversity, recognize indigenous peoples’ territory, and contrast climate change. The “Yasuní-ITT Initiative” proposal aims to keep locked underground, in perpetuity, at least 850 million barrels of heavy crude oil, so that it will prevent the emission associated with burning fossil fuels keeping about 410 million metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere, in exchange of financial compensation from the developed countries concerned about tropical deforestation and climate change [69,70] This research aims on one hand to re-construct a geographical perspective about the expansion of the oil frontier by spatial and temporal analyses of the terrestrial infrastructure, on the other and to investigate the environmental conflict dimension in the Ecuadorian Amazon Region, analyzing the dynamics that set up the different territory. The first chapter deals with the different theoretical approaches regarding biodiversity conservation and sustainable development projects. Through a comparative analysis of different conceptual tools it presents the ecosystem approach and the critical cartography as reading keys to analyze the different projects in and around the territory of the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve. The second chapter examines the issue of geo-spatial information and official sources regarding the geographical research methodology: from “remote analyses” on the desk to the ground truth. It also illustrates the Participatory GIS approach and the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to carry out systemic analyses of the territory. The third chapter frames the Yasuní as an icon of the Amazon Basin. Through a trans-scale framing, it analyzes the issue of non renewable energy exploitation and infrastructural transformations from the Amazon Basin level, through the Western Region to the Ecuadorian Amazon Region. Therefore the aim is to de-construct the distorted and simplified visions of the territory produced by the official narrative and media, in order to resume the role of the geography discipline in the description of the complexities and multiplicities of the territorial project cohabiting in the same Amazon space. The fourth chapter presents the results derived from the fieldwork research in Ecuador by GIS spatial analysis: the expansion of road infrastructures; the Yasuní Park boundaries and the conflicts between the indigenous and colonos actors; the impossible geography of the Tagaeri Taromenane Intangible Zone (the clash between the national geometry and the geography of nomadism); and the "T" case (as Tiputini) of the “Yasuní-ITT” Initiative in artificial debate that locate the oil well outside the Yasuní National Park, an issue that the geographical research by its conceptual and technical toolset is able to solve. The fifth chapter proposes the discussions of the results debating the issue of the different cartographic representations and their impact on the territories of Yasuní. Furthermore, it deepens the issue of Yasuní between inclusive and exclusive boundaries, proposing a different perspective by the use of critical cartography and synthesis mapping. It concludes that by raising the possibility of building a critical cartography to help in understanding the territorial complexity of an icon Amazon, which can not be simplified and amputee on pure enumeration of biological diversity. Espanol Mediante el Programa Hombre y Naturaleza (MAB), la Agencia de las Naciones Unidas UNESCO ha integrado, con el fin de priorizar y conciliar la conservación de la naturaleza con el desarrollo sostenible, el Parque Nacional Yasuní y la Reserva Indígena Waorani con la Red mundial de las Reservas de Biosfera. La Reserva de Biosfera Yasuní se localiza en la Ecoregión Húmeda de Napo en la Amazonía Occidental, resulta una de las áreas biológicamente y culturalmente más diversa a nivel planetario, en la cual hay una excepcional diversidad por numerosos grupos taxonómicos y varias etnias indígenas, inclusive algunos no contactados. Sin embargo, debido a las ingentes reservas de energía fósil y el papel crucial que el petróleo tiene en la economía nacional, el Estado ecuatoriano ha zonificado específicas áreas geográficas de la Región Amazónica para garantizar las actividades industriales de la producción petrolera. La Reserva de la Biosfera Yasuní presenta, en la actualidad, una superposición geográfica del 80% con concesiones para la extracción y producción hidrocarburíferas. Anteriormente, el desarrollo industrial hidrocarburífero ya ha causado importantes impactos ambientales y sociales sobre los territorios amazónicos: efectos directos que incluyen deforestación por instalaciones y plataformas, oleoductos y poliductos, prospección sísmica, derrames de hidrocarburos, quema de gases, y contaminación química por descargas en el ambiente; los efectos indirectos están principalmente relacionados con la realización de un sistema de infraestructuras terrestres para la comunicación y el transporte de crudo, que a menudo se transforman en importantes vectores de colonización de las áreas de bosque primario, representado por el Bosque Húmedo Tropical. De hecho, la colonización de la Amazonía ecuatoriana se convierte en la causa principal de procesos de deforestación, extracción legal e ilegal de recursos forestales maderables y de actividades no sostenibles de cacería debido a los nuevos asentamientos de las comunidades locales; así mismo, por la principal amenaza para la supervivencia de los pueblos indígenas en aislamiento voluntario (Tagaeri Taromenane) La producción hidrocarburíferas y sus impactos directos e indirectos sobre los ecosistemas tropicales han jugado un papel crucial a la hora de transformar la Ecoregión del Napo en uno del 14 mayores frentes de deforestación en el mundo. Entre todas las infraestructuras terrestres la Vía Auca representa la espina dorsal de la industria petrolera en el sector occidental de la Reserva de Biosfera Yasuní que, alimentando de forma rápida e intensa en función del tiempo y del espacio los procesos de colonización hidrocarburíferas y agrícola en el área, configura distintos territorios superpuestos, mutuamente en conflicto. Las problemáticas del Yasuní han asumido en la actualidad una elevada visibilidad a nivel internacional debido a la llamada “Iniciativa Yasuní-ITT”, llevada acabo por el Gobierno ecuatoriano encabezado por el Presidente Rafael Correa a partir de 2007. Se trata de una iniciativa internacional que se inserta adentro el Protocolo de Kyoto y del mercado de los servicios ecosistémicos que, con la finalidad de proteger la biodiversidad y los territorios indígenas y contrastar los efectos del cambio climático, propone de dejar bajo tierra al menos 850 millones de barriles de petróleo. De esta manera se evitaría la emisión de 410 millones de toneladas de CO2 en la atmósfera, a cambio de una compensación económica por parte de los “países desarrollados” sensibles a las problemáticas de la deforestación tropical y a los efectos del cambio climático. Esta investigación quiere re-construir una visión geográfica de la expansión de la frontera petrolera mediante análisis espaciales y multi-temporales de las infraestructuras terrestres, así como profundizar la dimensión del conflicto ambiental en el contexto de la Región Amazónica Ecuatoriana analizando las dinámicas que configuran los diferentes territorios. El primer capítulo trata los diferentes enfoques teóricos con respecto a la conservación de la biodiversidad y los proyectos para el desarrollo sostenible. Mediante un análisis comparativo de diferentes herramientas conceptuales se presentan el enfoque ecosistémico y el de la cartografía crítica como claves de lectura para analizar los diferentes proyectos de territorio adentro y afuera de la Reserva de Biosfera Yasuní. El segundo capítulo profundiza en el tema de las informaciones geo-espaciales y de las problemáticas relacionadas con las fuentes oficiales respecto a la metodología de la investigación geográfica: desde los análisis “desde remoto” en los escritorios hasta la verificación al suelo de los datos. Además ilustra las metodologías del Participatory Geographical Information System (PGIS) y la combinación de los enfoques cuantitativos y cualitativos para llevar acabo análisis de tipo sistémico del territorio. El tercer capítulo enmarca el Yasuní como icono de la Amazonía: mediante un recorrido trans-escalar, se enfrenta la problemática del extractivismo energético y de las trasformaciones infraestructurales desde el nivel de Cuenca Amazónica, pasando por la Región Occidental hasta la Región Amazónica Ecuatoriana. De esta manera se quieren deconstruir las visiones distorsionadas y simplificadas del territorio, producidas por la narración oficial y de los media; con el objetivo de retomar el papel de la geografía en la descripción de las complejidades y multiplicidades de las propuestas territoriales que cohabitan el mismo espacio topográfico del Oriente Amazónico. El cuarto capitulo muestra los resultados obtenidos a la vuelta de la investigación y la elaboración de los datos de campo mediante análisis espaciales: la expansión de las Vías de tierra, los límites del Parque Yasuní y los conflictos surgidos entre los diferentes actores colonos e indígenas, la geografía imposible de la Zona Intangible Tagaeri Taromenane (el choque entre geometría nacional y geografía del nomadismo), y el caso “T” (Tiputini) de la Iniciativa ITT con el artificial debate en los media que sitúa el pozo Tiputini afuera del Parque Yasuní, cuestión que la investigación geográfica con sus herramientas técnicas y conceptuales está en disposición y obligación de resolver. El quinto capítulo articula las discusiones de los resultados desarrollados enfrentando el tema de las diferentes representaciones cartográficas y de sus impactos sobre los territorios del Yasuní. Además, profundiza el tema del Yasuní entre límites incluyentes y excluyentes, proponiendo una perspectiva diversa en la elaboración de cartografía crítica y de síntesis, pero ante todo, plantea la posibilidad de construir una cartografía que ayude a la comprensión de la complejidad territorial de un icono de la Amazonía, que no puede ser simplificado y amputado en la pura enumeración de las diversidades biológicas.<br>Tramite il Programma Man and Biosphere (MAB) l’UNESCO ha incluso il Parco Nazionale Yasuni e la Riserva Indigena Waorani all’interno della rete mondiale delle Riserve di Biofera. La Riserva di Biosfera Yasuni si individua all’interno della Napo Ecoregion nell’Amazzonia Occidentale che costituisce una tra le aree con maggior diversità sia biologica che culturale. In tale area, infatti, ci sono elevati indici di biodiversità per numerosi gruppi tassonomici e, al tempo stesso, è dimora di numerose etnie indigene, tra cui gli ultimi popoli non contattati. Tuttavia, a causa delle ingenti riserve di energia fossile e il ruolo cruciale che gioca il petrolio nell’economia nazionale, lo Stato ecuadoriano ha zonizzato aree specifiche della Regione Amazzonica adibite allo sfruttamento delle riserve energetiche ed alla produzione idrocarburifera. La Riserva di Biosfera Yasuni attualmente presenta una sovrapposizione geografica dell’80% con le concessioni per la produzione petrolifera. In passato lo sviluppo industriale nell’Amazzonia ecuadoriana ha causato importanti impatti ambientali e sociali sui territori amazzonici. Alcuni degli effetti diretti sono deforestazione per le infrastrutture (pozzi, piattaforme, oleodotti), prospezione sismica, sversamenti di idrocarburi, rilascio di gas di scarto e inquinamento chimico dovuto a smaltimento diretto dei reflui industriali nell’ambiente. Gli effetti indiretti si presentano invece principalmente associati alla realizzazione di un sistema di infrastrutture di comunicazione terrestre per la comunicazione ed il trasporto degli idrocarburi che spesso evolvono in vettori dei processi di colonizzazione del bosco primario, rappresentato dal Bosco Umido Tropicale. La colonizzazione dell’Amazzonia, infatti, diventa la principale causa dei processi di deforestazione, estrazione legale ed illegale di legname, attività non sostenibili di caccia dovuti ai nuovi insediamenti delle comunità locali. Al tempo stesso tali cambiamenti costituiscono una minaccia alla stessa sopravvivenza dei popoli indigeni in isolamento volontario (Tagaeri Taromenane). La produzione idrocarburifera ed i suoi impatti diretti ed indiretti sugli ecosistemi tropicali ha fatto diventare l’Ecoregione del Napo uno dei 14 maggiori fronti di deforestazione a livello mondiale. Tra le infrastrutture terrestri la Via Auca rappresenta la spina dorsale dell’industria petrolifera nel settore occidentale della Riserva della Biosfera Yasuní che, alimentando in modo rapido ed intenso i processi di colonizzazione idrocarburifera e agricola, configura differenti territori sovrapposti e tra loro in conflitto. Le problematiche socio-ambientali dell’Yasuní hanno assunto oggi un’elevata visibilità internazionale a causa dell’Iniziativa “Yasuni-ITT” lanciata dal Governo ecuadoriano nel 2007. Tale iniziativa internazionale si inserisce all’interno dei Protocolli di Kyoto e del mercato dei servizi ambientali e si prefigge, con la finalità di proteggere la biodiversità e i territori indigeni da un lato e di contrastare gli effetti dei cambiamenti climatici dall’altro, di lasciare nel sottosuolo amazzonico circa 850 milioni di barili di petrolio greggio. In tale modo si eviterebbe l’emissione in atmosfera di 410 milioni di tonnellate di CO2 in cambio di una compensazione economica da parte dei “paesi sviluppati” sensibili alle problematiche della deforestazione tropicale ed agli impatti dei cambiamenti climatici. In tale ricerca si intende ri-costruire una visione geografica dell’espansione della frontiera petrolifera attraverso analisi spaziali e multi temporali delle infrastrutture terrestri; allo stesso tempo approfondire la dimensione del conflitto ambientale nel contesto dell’Amazzonia ecuadoriana analizzando le dinamiche che configurano i differenti territori. Il primo capitolo affronta i diversi approcci teorici inerenti la conservazione della biodiversità ed i progetti per lo sviluppo sostenibile. Tramite un’analisi comparativa dei diversi strumenti concettuali presenta l’approccio ecosistemico e quello della cartografia critica come chiavi di lettura per analizzare i diversi progetti di territorio nell’area di influenza della Riserva di Biosfera Yasuni. Il secondo capitolo approfondisce la tematica delle informazioni geo-spaziali mettendo in relazione quelle collegate alle fonti ufficiali, con quelle ottenute tramite ricerca geografica: dalle analisi “da remoto” alla verifica al suolo (ground truth) dei dati spaziali. Si illustra inoltre la metodologia del GIS partecipativo e la combinazione degli approcci qualitativi e quantitativi per mettere campo un’analisi di tipo sistemico del territorio. Il terzo capitolo inquadra lo Yasuní come icona dell’Amazzonia. Tramite un percorso di analisi trans-scalare si affrontano le problematiche inerenti all’estrattivismo energetico e alle grandi trasformazioni infrastrutturali dalla scala del bacino del Rio delle Amazzoni, passando per la Regione Amazzonica Occidentale fino ad arrivare alla Ragion Amazzonica Ecuadoriana. In tale maniera si intende decostruire le visioni distorte e semplificate prodotte dalle narrazioni ufficiali e mediatiche, con l’obiettivo di riprendere il ruolo della geografia nella descrizione e nell’analisi delle complessità e molteplicità dei progetti territoriali che coesistono nel medesimo spazio topografico dell’Oriente amazzonico. Il quarto capitolo illustra i risultati restituiti dalla ricerca e dall’elaborazione dei dati spaziali ottenuti sul campo: l’espansione delle vie terrestri; i confini del Parco Yasuní e i conflitti tra i diversi attori, la geografia impossibile della Zona Intangible Tagaeri Taromenane (e lo scontro fra la geometria nazionale e la geografia del nomadismo), il caso “T” (Tiputini) dell’Iniziativa Yasuni-ITT e il suo dibattito artificiale sul pozzo estrattivo che è all’esterno dell’area protetta. Il quinto capitolo presenta la discussione dei risultati affrontando la problematica delle diverse rappresentazioni cartografiche e dei suoi impatti sui territori dello Yasuní. Si approfondisce inoltre la tematica dello Yasuní tra confini includenti ed escludenti, proponendo una prospettiva diversa nell’elaborazione della cartografia critica e di sintesi, con la possibilità di costruire una cartografia che aiuti la comprensione della complessità territoriale di un’icona dell’Amazzonia che non può essere semplificata e amputata da una pura enumerazione della diversità biologica.