Protection of natural areas by restricting human activities aims to preserve plant and animal populations and whole communities, ensuring the conservation of biological diversity and enhancement of ecosystem services. Therefore, it is expected that the longer the protection, the stronger the desired effects. We evaluated the responses of small mammals at the population and community levels under protection in the southern Carpathian Mountains. We surveyed small mammals for five years in sites with long- and short-term protection and non-protected. Besides protection status, we included elevation, habitat heterogeneity, and the month of survey as predictors in our models. As response variables, we considered abundance, presence, species composition and species richness. Community abundance responded to all four predictors and species composition was influenced by protection status and month of study. The shrews Sorex araneus and S. minutus had positive responses to protection, both in terms of abundance and relative abundance (their ratio within the community). Our results suggest that overall, montane small mammal communities respond positively to long-term protection, especially S. araneus and S. minutus. These shrew species are considered habitat generalists, but they appear to be in fact sensitive to the habitat quality enhanced through protection.

Invasive plant species may cause not only several health problems, but also economic and environmental negative impacts – a gradual decrease of biodiversity and decline of soil fertility, issues that have recently come into the attention of several organizations including the research ones, in order to limit the spread of such species. The control methods of invasive species are often effective on the short term and include the probability of ecosystem imbalance over time, so that an efficient and sustainable management method that could add value to products or improve some industrial processes are strongly required. This study describes the potential of alien plants to maintain the quality of human life through different types of valorization, such as pharmaceutical, agriculture or food industry applications, energy production, paper technology and natural dyeing of various materials. Invasive plant species represent a global problem, accelerated by the current level of pollution and the rapidly-evolving society. Knowledge of chemical composition of different plant parts of invasive species, their potential for developing new products and their health effects will contribute to an efficient control, mechanical, chemical or biological, and an integrated management.