Location-specific forms of agroforestry management can reduce problems in the forest–water–people nexus, by balancing upstream and downstream interests, but social and ecological finetuning is needed. New ways of achieving shared understanding of the underlying ecological and social-ecological relations is needed to adapt and contextualize generic solutions. Addressing these challenges between thirteen cases of tropical agroforestry scenario development across three continents requires exploration of generic aspects of issues, knowledge and participative approaches. Participative projects with local stakeholders increasingly use ‘serious gaming’. Although helpful, serious games so far (1) appear to be ad hoc, case dependent, with poorly defined extrapolation domains, (2) require heavy research investment, (3) have untested cultural limitations and (4) lack clarity on where and how they can be used in policy making. We classify the main forest–water–people nexus issues and the types of land-use solutions that shape local discourses and that are to be brought to life in the games. Four ‘prototype’ games will be further used to test hypotheses about the four problems identified constraining game use. The resulting generic forest–water–people games will be the outcome of the project “Scenario evaluation for sustainable agroforestry management through forest-water-people games” (SESAM), for which this article provides a preview.

The unique marine and terrestrial ecosystems of the Galapagos Islands are highly vulnerable to human-based drivers of change, including the introduction of invasive species, unsustainable tourism, illegal fishing, overexploitation of ecosystem services, and climate change. These drivers can interact with climate-based drivers such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) at multiple temporal and spatial scales, exacerbating their negative impacts on already fragile ecosystems and the socioeconomic system of the Archipelago. In this review, we performed a literature review based on published literature from 1945 to 2020 and local and global climate databases to analyze drivers of change in the Galapagos. We developed and applied a spatial impact assessment model to identify high-ecological value areas with high sensitivity and exposure scores to environmental change drivers. We identified 13 priority HEVA that encompass ca. 23% (14,715 km2) of the Galapagos Archipelago, distributed in nearly 3% of the Galapagos Marine Reserve and 20% Galapagos National Park. Current and future impacts are likely to concentrate on the inhabited islands’ highlands, whereas marine impacts concentrate along most of the Galapagos Islands’ shorelines. These results are important for guiding the design and implementation of adaptation measures aimed at increasing ecosystem resilience and human adaptive capacity in the face of global environmental change. Overall, these results will be valuable in their application for preserving Galapagos biota, securing the provision of vital ecosystem services for resident human populations, and sustaining the nature-based tourism industry.

The Galapagos Islands are a global hotspot of environmental change. However, despite their potentially major repercussions, little is known about current and expected changes in regional terrestrial climate variables and sea surface temperatures (SST). Here, by analysing existing meteorological observations and secondary datasets, we find that the Islands have warmed by about 0.6 °C since the early 1980s, while at the same time becoming drier. In fact, the onset of the wet season is currently delayed 20 days. This drying trend may reverse, however, given that future climate projections for the region suggest mean annual precipitation may increase between 20 and 70%. This would also be accompanied by more extreme wet and hot conditions. Further, we find that regional SST has increased by 1.2 °C over the last two decades. These changes will, in turn, translate into deterioration of marine ecosystems and coral, proliferation of invasive species, and damages to human water, food, and infrastructure systems. Future projections, however, may be overestimated due to the poor capacity of climatic models to capture Eastern-Pacific ENSO dynamics. Our findings emphasize the need to design resilient climate adaptation policies that will remain robust in the face of a wide range of uncertain and changing climatic futures.

AimClimate change is transforming mountain summit plant communities worldwide, but we know little about such changes in the High Andes. Understanding large‐scale patterns of vegetation changes across the Andes, and the factors driving these changes, is fundamental to predicting the effects of global warming. We assessed trends in vegetation cover, species richness (SR) and community‐level thermal niches (CTN) and tested whether they are explained by summits' climatic conditions and soil temperature trends.LocationHigh Andes.Time periodBetween 2011/2012 and 2017/2019.Major taxa studiedVascular plants.MethodsUsing permanent vegetation plots placed on 45 mountain summits and soil temperature loggers situated along a ~6800 km N‐S gradient, we measured species and their relative percentage cover and estimated CTN in two surveys (intervals between 5 and 8 years). We then estimated the annual rate of changes for the three variables and used generalized linear models to assess their relationship with annual precipitation, the minimum air temperatures of each summit and rates of change in the locally recorded soil temperatures.ResultsOver time, there was an average loss of vegetation cover (mean = −0.26%/yr), and a gain in SR across summits (mean = 0.38 species m2/yr), but most summits had significant increases in SR and vegetation cover. Changes in SR were positively related to minimum air temperature and soil temperature rate of change. Most plant communities experienced shifts in their composition by including greater abundances of species with broader thermal niches and higher optima. However, the measured changes in soil temperature did not explain the observed changes in CTN.Main conclusionsHigh Andean vegetation is changing in cover and SR and is shifting towards species with wider thermal niche breadths. The weak relationship with soil temperature trends could have resulted from the short study period that only marginally captures changes in vegetation through time.