Changes in biodiversity and trade-offs among ecosystem services, stakeholders, and components of well-being: the contribution of the International Long-Term Ecological Research network (ILTER) to Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS)

The International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network comprises > 600 scientific groups conducting site-based research within 40 countries. Its mission includes improving the understanding of global ecosystems and informs solutions to current and future environmental problems at the global scales. The ILTER network covers a wide range of social-ecological conditions and is aligned with the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) goals and approach. Our aim is to examine and develop the conceptual basis for proposed collaboration between ILTER and PECS. We describe how a coordinated effort of several contrasting LTER site-based research groups contributes to the understanding of how policies and technologies drive either toward or away from the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services. This effort is based on three tenets: transdisciplinary research; cross-scale interactions and subsequent dynamics; and an ecological stewardship orientation. The overarching goal is to design management practices taking into account trade-offs between using and conserving ecosystems toward more sustainable solutions. To that end, we propose a conceptual approach linking ecosystem integrity, ecosystem services, and stakeholder well-being, and as a way to analyze trade-offs among ecosystem services inherent in diverse management options. We also outline our methodological approach that includes: (i) monitoring and synthesis activities following spatial and temporal trends and changes on each site and by documenting cross-scale interactions; (ii) developing analytical tools for integration; (iii) promoting trans-site comparison; and (iv) developing conceptual tools to design adequate policies and management interventions to deal with trade-offs. Finally, we highlight the heterogeneity in the social-ecological setting encountered in a subset of 15 ILTER sites. These study cases are diverse enough to provide a broad cross-section of contrasting ecosystems with different policy and management drivers of ecosystem conversion; distinct trends of biodiversity change; different stakeholders’ preferences for ecosystem services; and diverse components of well-being issues

Harnessing the biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland

A large proportion of European biodiversity today depends on habitat provided by low-intensity farming practices, yet this resource is declining as European agriculture intensifies. Within the European Union, particularly the central and eastern new member states have retained relatively large areas of species-rich farmland, but despite increased investment in nature conservation here in recent years, farmland biodiversity trends appear to be worsening. Although the high biodiversity value of Central and Eastern European farmland has long been reported, the amount of research in the international literature focused on farmland biodiversity in this region remains comparatively tiny, and measures within the EU Common Agricultural Policy are relatively poorly adapted to support it. In this opinion study, we argue that, 10years after the accession of the first eastern EU new member states, the continued under-representation of the low-intensity farmland in Central and Eastern Europe in the international literature and EU policy is impeding the development of sound, evidence-based conservation interventions. The biodiversity benefits for Europe of existing low-intensity farmland, particularly in the central and eastern states, should be harnessed before they are lost. Instead of waiting for species-rich farmland to further decline, targeted research and monitoring to create locally appropriate conservation strategies for these habitats is needed now.Peer reviewe

Meta-analysis of multidecadal biodiversity trends in Europe

Local biodiversity trends over time are likely to be decoupled from global trends, as local processes may compensate or counteract global change. We analyze 161 long-term biological time series (15-91 years) collected across Europe, using a comprehensive dataset comprising similar to 6,200 marine, freshwater and terrestrial taxa. We test whether (i) local long-term biodiversity trends are consistent among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, and (ii) changes in biodiversity correlate with regional climate and local conditions. Our results reveal that local trends of abundance, richness and diversity differ among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, demonstrating that biodiversity changes at local scale are often complex and cannot be easily generalized. However, we find increases in richness and abundance with increasing temperature and naturalness as well as a clear spatial pattern in changes in community composition (i.e. temporal taxonomic turnover) in most biogeoregions of Northern and Eastern Europe. The global biodiversity decline might conceal complex local and group-specific trends. Here the authors report a quantitative synthesis of longterm biodiversity trends across Europe, showing how, despite overall increase in biodiversity metric and stability in abundance, trends differ between regions, ecosystem types, and taxa.peerReviewe

Bab forest phenological assessment by using GCC based on RGB bands of Phenocams imagery

Forest phenology is the crucial indicator of changing climatic conditions. In recent times, phenology cameras are widely being used to observe the growth patterns and seasonal behaviours of vegetation in response to different climatic factors. This study was conducted in the forested LTER site Bab, Slovakia (https://deims.org/79e10639-dd60-4f30-9c43-7b2bae0f359a). The study used the GCC (Green Chromatic coordinate)index based on RGB bands of PhenoCamera imagery from the year 2017 to 2020. Forest vegetation was divided into herb layer and woody layer (trees and shrubs). The main focus of this study was to analyse the differences between growth periods in individual years in context of climatic factors (the Relative humidity (RH), RG (Rain Gain), ground temperature (TG20), soil moisture (SM20), Air temperature (TA), Global radiation (GL) and Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR)). We employed two different methods: a standard GCC index (-1 to 1 values) for the woody layer, and a classification method based on GCC index thresholds for the herbaceous layer (-1 to 0.4 for non-vegetated pixels; 0.4 to 1 for vegetated pixels). The GCC index was susceptible to noise from shadows (especially affecting herbs) and brightness (especially affecting trees and shrubs), necessitating different analytical approaches for the two vegetation layers: a standard GCC index for trees/shrubs and a threshold-based classification method for herbs.We observed two types of herb vegetation a)spring ephemerals and b)”summer” herbs growing after previous group. The growth time of spring ephemerals was observed from the mid of March in all 3 years of 2017, 2019 and 2020 but it was delayed by 2 weeks in the year 2018 (Fig. 1), when the effect of prolonged period with low temperatures was observed by the mid of March. The end of season of spring ephemerals was observed in the mid of May every year, which shown that it was not significantly affected by the climatic factors. In herb layer during summer, start of the season of “summer” herbs was observed from early June in the years of 2017 and 2018, but it started two weeks earlier in 2019. In the year 2020, we observed that the herb layer was badly affected by the forest cutting event, which shown a changed behaviour of herbs layer with the growth of late summer herbs, which caused a delay in the end of the season.The growth of trees and shrubs started in second half of April, but got delayed by two weeks in 2019. The fluctuations shown decrease of GCC index in summer that could be effect of leaves drying in dry and warm period. During the summer season in high temperature days the low soil moisture influenced the growth patterns by fading the vegetation colour during peak of the summer and in the late summer RG factor along with the high SM20 influence the vegetation growth for both layers. In some years is difficult to detect end of season especially if the summer was dry and warm – leaves are not regenerating after end of dry period. High relative humidity was observed to influence the delayed in start of the seasons, while high temperature factors especially the TG20, TA, PAR and GL influenced the delayed in end of the seasons. In the year 2020, there was a main event of forest cutting observed by the end of June, which badly affected the growth patterns even for the next years.As compared to the trees and shrub layer, climatic factors are less affecting the growth patterns of herbs layer and there was not a significant delay observed in the start of the seasons, but the end of the seasons showing significant differences with the increase of temperature factors and low soil moisture. GCC performance was negatively affected by shadows and brightness, with shadows impacting the herbaceous layer more significantly and brightness affecting the woody layer. This introduced considerable noise into the data. In conclusion, the research demonstrates the usefulness of PhenoCamera and GCC analysis in observing forest phenology and its response to climatic drivers, while also emphasizing the importance of considering data limitations and employing appropriate analytical methods for different vegetation layers

Effects of Nutrient Enrichment on Vegetation Biomass, Soil Properties and Lysimetric Water Chemistry in Temperate Alpine Grassland Ecosystem

Alpine grasslands belong among highly sensitive ecosystems where nutrient deposition can affect significantly soil chemistry, water quality, and vegetation dynamics and structure. To study responsiveness of alpine grassland ecosystems to increased inputs of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) experimental plots were established in 2002 on an eLTER site Jalovecká dolina, Slovakia (https://deims.org/e13f1146-b97a-4bc5-9bc5-65322379a567). Since then, experimental plots have been fertilized by solution of 2, 6 and 15 g N.m2.year-1 in a form of NH4NO3 and by solution of 5 g P. m2.year-1 in a form of KH2PO4. A control has been sprayed by water of the same amount. Experimental solutions are applied three times per year during summer months. All treatments were established in five replicates. In 2009, all plots were dievided on halves, ones are still fertilized and second ones were left for recovery.Soils at the site are humic ferruginous podzols, derived from biotite granodiorite parent material with very low pH/H2O around 3.5. Vegetation at the site belongs to the Juncion trifidi Krajina 1933 alliance and it is dominated by graminoid species, including Oreochloa disticha, Festuca supin a, Agrostris rupestris, Carex bigelowii, Juncus trifidus , and Avenella flexuosa, with lower cover of forb and dwarf shrub species, but significant layer of lichens dominated by Cetraria islandica. After 6 years of experiment we showed (Bowman et al. 2008) that increases in nitrogen deposition in the region result in a depletion of both base cations and soluble aluminium, and an increase in extractable iron concentrations. In conjunction with this, we observe a nitrogen deposition-induced reduction in the biomass of vascular plants, associated with a decrease in shoot calcium and magnesium concentrations. We suggest that this site, and potentially others in central Europe, have reached a new and potentially more toxic level of soil acidification in which aluminium release is superseded by iron release into soil water.After 20 years of experimental N and P enrichments and 13 years of recovery were done chemical analyses of soil and soil water. Chemical analyses of plant biomass will be done in near future. Soils at the site are humic ferruginous podzols, derived from biotite granodiorite parent material with very low pH/H2O around 3.5. Comparing fertilized to recovery plots revealed that the soil and soil water pH increased only very little. The pools of NO3- and NH4+ in soil water decreased in N recovery plots, but remained higher than in P and C plots. Soil exchangeable metals Al3+ and Fe2+ decreased slightly in N recovery plots, but Mn2+ elevated. Content of soil base cations Ca2+, Mg2+ and K+, except Na+, elevated in all treatment and control. The effect of increased N and P treatments on vegetation pointed out that herbs and mosses biomass significantly decrease under N15 and P (Kruskal-Wallis p < 0.001), while total biomass was notably enhanced under the P treatment (p < 0.001). Grass, bushes, mosses and lichens displayed limited responses, reflecting their slower growth rates and nutrient uptake capacities.In summary, the results demonstrate that N and P nutrient enrichment in acid alpine grasslands enhance plant productivity for fast-growing species like herbs, halt the sensitive species like lichens, and affect soil and water nutrient cycling and quality with potential for long-lasting impacts on ecosystem structure and function

The service for delivering data from official statistics as support to socio-ecological research

Statistical analysis plays a key role in the field of economics, enabling scientists to extract meaningful information from large and complex data sets for understanding the quantitative aspects of social and economic phenomena. However, similarly important role they could play also in socio-ecological research for better understanding the socio-economic context influencing LTER sites and processes taking place on LTSER platforms. For site- or platform managers could be important to receive answers to questions related to socioeconomic conditions, type and intensity of human activities influencing their site/platform. It could be important to know how heterogeneous is the LTSER platform from socio-economic aspects, where hotspots of human activities are located or how are developing demographic parameters across the platform. Statistical data could contribute also to cross-site comparisons or upscaling and eLTER network-level analyses. The eLTER Whole System Approach for In-situ Research on Life Supporting Systems (WAILS) recognises sociosphere as one of five spheres that are subject of LTER research. The eLTER Standard Observation process is crucial for harmonising and streamlining research effort and it led to identification of 13 Standard Observations in the Sociosphere domain that are obligatory for eLTER sites and platforms. It was also decided that the Sociosphere Standard Observations on the level of Basic method will be provided by the central service.The eLTER PLUS task 4.2 “Harvesting of official statistics” represents the first step to such service. Its aim was to “develop and test a workflow to retrieve variables available of relevance for the eLTER Standard Observations from European and national statistics which are relevant at LTSER platforms and associated eLTER sites.” We systematically screened almost 30 main European and global data platforms for availability of statistical data related to 179 variables suggested in process of Standard Variables selection. Not surprisingly, Eurostat is the most important source of statistical data for EU Member States and for some other European countries. Other important data portals are operated by the JRC, EEA, DG Agri, and at the global level by the OECD and FAO. We identified 116 datasets that are related to 42 standard observation variables and prepared metadata for them. We found that most data are related to larger administrative units, usually to NUTS2 or NUTS3 regions. Only limited set of variables (mostly demographic ones) are available at local level (LAU – Local Administrative Units). We next developed and tested the workflow of data retrieval with a subset of the variables: population density, employment by sectors, deaths due to COVID-19, and land cover, used DataLabs (Halada et al. 2022).The eLTER PLUS Task 4.2 has prepared a good foundation for developing an eLTER service for providing data from official statistics. In meantime, a set of eLTER Measurement protocols was developed and we decided to develop first part of service for standard variables related to three protocols: SOSOC_042 Economic; SOSOC_043 Demography; and SOSOC_044 Status of Employment.To enhance access and usability of these datasets and variables, we developed an R Shiny application for downloading, processing, and analysing socio-economic datasets from main European and global data platforms via APIs (Fig. 1). The app enables users to combine specific variables from these datasets into a single dataset based on the user-specified administrative unit level (from countries to LAU). Users can filter data by time and dataset-specific variables, allowing for tailored data retrieval. Additionally, users can select areas of interest based on official LTER sites and platforms, administrative units, or custom polygons layer. The application features interactive maps and plots to visualize results and supports multiple download options. Users can export data in long or wide formats, with or without labels, and in various file types, including CSV, GeoPackage, PNG, and HTML.We will continue in the service development by adding further datasets relevant to eLTER Standard Observations. We expect that the service described in this paper will provide data needed for managers of the LTER sites and LTSER platforms to comply with criteria for sites and platforms and for their research. When using them, the researcher plays a significant role in defining questions, selecting relevant data, using them, subsequent processing, and correct interpretation

The Interactive Effects of Experimental Warming and Nitrogen Deposition on Plant Community Structure, Biomass, and Soil Chemistry in an Alpine Grassland Ecosystem

The study of global changes impact on natural ecosystems is one of the current priorities of ecological research due to their recent scale and speed. Alpine grasslands are sensitive ecosystems well-suited for investigating how ecosystem is responding to rapid environmental change. With aim to investigate the impact of increased temperature and nitrogen input on the structure and processes in an alpine ecosystem we established in 2009 a field experiment on Mt. Kráľova hoľa in Central Slovakia (https://deims.org/61c12307-2669-46c1-bf0b-94d40cc6b111). Four treatments were used: increased temperature (T), increased nitrogen input (N), combined increased temperature and nitrogen input (NT), and control (C). Each treatment included six replicates (24 plots total) arranged in a blocked design. Nitrogen addition (10 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) was applied as NH₄NO₃ solution in five applications during the growing season, while temperature was raised using open-top chambers (OTCs) designed following ITEX standards. The research plots were established in typical, species-poor, two-layer vegetation of the subalpine zone on silicate bedrock within the Juncion trifidi alliance.Experimental manipulation of temperature and nitrogen input in permanent plots in Mt. Kráľova hoľa showed a differentiated effect of individual treatments on the biomass and structure of the plant community of alpine grasslands. The results show that both nitrogen and temperature increase significantly boosted aboveground biomass. Nitrogen addition (N) has been found to benefit mainly graminoids like Avenella flexuosa and Festuca supina, while dwarf shrubs and mosses experienced moderate biomass increases. The NT treatment resulted in further amplification of graminoid biomass, where Luzula alpinopilosa and Juncus trifidus became dominant, leading to suppression of other functional groups: it may inhibit the growth of dwarf scrub and mosses and results in lichens elimination. In contrast, warming alone (T) yielded the highest overall biomass, driven by the growth of dwarf shrubs, mosses, and lichens, even though graminoids responded modestly. These findings align with global patterns, where dominant species and functional groups play a major role in stabilizing ecosystems under changing conditions. The control treatment shows lower overall biomass than any other treatment, indicating that the experimentally increased temperature and/or nitrogen input improves environmental conditions for plant growth.The Redundancy analysis (RDA) of vegetation records shows that the control treatment (C) is closely correlated with the increased temperature treatment (T). The remaining two treatments, i.e. N- and NT treatments are negatively correlated with two former treatments. Species Avenella flexuosa, Festuca supina, Carex bigelowii and Polytrichum alpinum are positively correlated with added nitrogen treatment (N). The positive correlation with combined NT treatment exhibit Luzula alpinopilosa, Juncus trifidus, and Senecio carpaticus, while other species are negativelly correlated: Homogyne alpina, Hieracium alpinum, Cladonia spp. Species Cetraria islandica, Hypnum sp., Soldanella hungarica, Campanula alpina, Oreogeum montanum, Potentilla aurea, and Nardus stricta, are correlated with C- and T-treatments and these species are most affected by N addition.The ecosystem likely did not utilize all of the added nitrogen, with some leaching into the soil solution, as evidenced by increases in both nitrate and ammonium nitrogen in the lysimeter water. The addition of nitrogen decreased soil pH, with acidic soils becoming even more acidic, and decreased the exchange capacity of ions. There was an increase in the conductivity of lysimeter waters, indicating the leaching of ions from soil particles into the soil solution. We confirmed the leaching of basic cations calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium into the soil solution, as well as increased concentrations of aluminium, manganese, and zinc. The increase in dissolved organic carbon in the treatments with increased temperature suggests higher decomposition.The study highlights how nitrogen addition can alter community structure, including through shading effects caused by fast-growing graminoids. Understanding these interactions is key for the effective management of alpine grasslands, which face growing risks from climate change and human-driven nitrogen deposition