Designing connected landscapes is among the most widespread strategies for achieving biodiversity conservation targets. The challenge lies in simultaneously satisfying the connectivity needs of multiple species at multiple spatial scales under uncertain climate and land-use change. To evaluate the contribution of remnant habitat fragments to the connectivity of regional habitat networks, we developed a method to integrate uncertainty in climate and land-use change projections with the latest developments in network-connectivity research and spatial, multipurpose conservation prioritization. We used land-use change simulations to explore robustness of species' habitat networks to alternative development scenarios. We applied our method to 14 vertebrate focal species of periurban Montreal, Canada. Accounting for connectivity in spatial prioritization strongly modified conservation priorities and the modified priorities were robust to uncertain climate change. Setting conservation priorities based on habitat quality and connectivity maintained a large proportion of the region's connectivity, despite anticipated habitat loss due to climate and land-use change. The application of connectivity criteria alongside habitat-quality criteria for protected-area design was efficient with respect to the amount of area that needs protection and did not necessarily amplify trade-offs among conservation criteria. Our approach and results are being applied in and around Montreal and are well suited to the design of ecological networks and green infrastructure for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in other regions, in particular regions around large cities, where connectivity is critically low.

Summary Biodiversity conservation in landscapes undergoing climate and land‐use changes requires designing multipurpose habitat networks that connect the movements of organisms at multiple spatial scales. Short‐range connectivity within habitat networks provides organisms access to spatially distributed resources, reduces local extinctions and increases recolonization of habitat fragments. Long‐range connectivity across habitat networks facilitates annual migrations and climate‐driven range shifts. We present a method for identifying a multipurpose network of forest patches that promotes both short‐ and long‐range connectivity. Our method uses both graph‐theoretic analyses that quantify network connectedness and circuit‐based analyses that quantify network traversability as the basis for identifying spatial conservation priorities on the landscape. We illustrate our approach in the agroecosystem, bordered by the Laurentian and Appalachian mountain ranges, that surrounds the metropolis of Montreal, Canada. We established forest conservation priorities for the ovenbird, a Neotropical migrant, sensitive to habitat fragmentation that breeds in our study area. All connectivity analyses were based on the same empirically informed resistance surface for ovenbird, but habitat pixels that facilitated short‐ and long‐range connectivity requirements had low spatial correlation. The trade‐off between connectivity requirements in the final ranking of conservation priorities showed a pattern of diminishing returns such that beyond a threshold, additional conservation of long‐range connectivity had decreased effectiveness on the conservation of short‐range connectivity. Highest conservation priority was assigned to a series of stepping stone forest patches across the study area that promote traversability between the bordering mountain ranges and to a collection of small forest fragments scattered throughout the study area that provide connectivity within the agroecosystem. Landscape connectivity is important for the ecology and genetics of populations threatened by climate change and habitat fragmentation. Our method has been illustrated as a means to conserve two critical dimensions of connectivity for a single species, but it is designed to incorporate a variety of connectivity requirements for many species. Our approach can be tailored to local, regional and continental conservation initiatives to protect essential species movements that will allow biodiversity to persist in a changing climate.

ABSTRACT. To maximize specific ecosystem services (ES) such as food production, people alter landscape structure, i.e., the types of ecosystems present, their relative proportions, and their spatial arrangement across landscapes. This can have significant, and sometimes unexpected, effects on biodiversity and ES. Communities need information about how land-use activities and changes to landscape structure are likely to affect biodiversity and ES, but current scientific understanding of these effects is incomplete. The Montérégie Connection (MC) project has used the rapidly suburbanizing agricultural Montérégien landscape just east of Montreal, Québec, Canada, to investigate how current and historic landscape structure influences ES provision. Our results highlight the importance of forest connectivity and functional diversity on ES provision, and show that ES provision can vary significantly even within single landuse types in response to changes in landscape structure. Our historical analysis reveals that levels of ES provision, as well as relationships among individual ES, can change dramatically through time. We are using these results to build quantitative ES-landscape structure models to assess four future landscape scenarios for the region: Periurban Development, Demand for Energy, Whole-System Crisis, and Green Development. These scenarios integrate empirical and historical data on ES provision with local stakeholder input about global and local social and ecological drivers to explore how land-use decisions could affect ES provision and human well-being across the region to the year 2045. By integrating empirical data, quantitative models, and scenarios we have achieved the central goals of the MC project: (1) increasing understanding of the effects of landscape structure on biodiversity and ES provision, (2) effectively linking this knowledge to decision making to better manage for biodiversity and ES, and (3) creating a vision for a more sustainable socialecological system in the region.

The 2013 annual monitoring programme for the pinewood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, analysed a total of 267 wood samples collected from declining or symptomatic coniferous trees distributed among national forests, gardens, public parks, distribution centres, wood-processing industries, as well as 104 samples collected from wood packing material originated from several other countries. From a total of eight species found, five have been previously reported from Romania, while three other species (Bursaphelenchus abietinus, Bursaphelenchus fraudulentus and Bursaphelenchus fuchsi) represent new findings for Romania. In addition, B. mucronatus was found in packing wood originated from Russia. Herein, we provide a morphological, morphometric and molecular characterization for the new species found for Romania. Bursaphelenchus xylophilus was not detected.

Abstract:The assessment study of the global ecological impact tries to highlight the main factors and negative ecological determinants, due to a lack or excess, and it also focuses on highlighting the main negative ecological effects with the aim to rehabilitate and restore the ecological balance within degraded ecosystems. The methodology used in the assessment process was based on graphs, tables in the shape of Leopold matrix, considerably improved by authors. In order to assess qualitatively the negative ecological effects, a reliability scale with 3 indicators and 3 graduations was used, designed to underline the importance of the impact (minor, medium, and major), the quality of the impact (neutral, negative, and positive) and the certainty of the appearance of a negative impact (improbable, probable, and certain). Our research was accomplished in the pasture ecosystem degraded by pluvial erosion from the Tutova Hills, located in the Eastern part of Romania. This ecosystem is characterized through active geo-morphological processes in the depth and on the surface and it drew attention to the presence of 8 negative ecological factors grouped in 3 main categories: geo-climatic, pedological, and anthropogenic. 8 main negative effects were identified and quantified by means of 3 qualitative indicators with 3 graduation scales. The analysis of the current state of the effects of the complex ecological impact upon the degraded ecosystem ask for a series of urgent measures elaborated by scientists, researchers, and representatives of the local administration system. The aim of these measures is to improve the ecological balance and to eliminate the negative anthropogenic impact that augments and aggravates the action of the negative geo-climatic and pedological factors, in of with the protection of soil quality.