CREAF

Tropical forests host the highest levels of biodiversity and maintain some of the largest carbon stocks of all terrestrial ecosystems. Policies resulting from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) for forest-based climate change mitigation (e.g., Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD. +)) have been considered win-win solutions for both C storage and biodiversity conservation. Win-win solutions are indeed apparent when there is geographical overlap of high carbon density forests with high biodiversity, as suggested by many global studies. However, strong congruence between high carbon storage and biodiversity at the national and subnational levels is less obvious. To improve national policies and expectations of REDD. + outcomes, it is necessary to account for the potential risks of relocating deforestation activities from high-carbon areas to low-carbon areas, as such relocation may negatively affect high-biodiversity habitats. Using a combined dataset of global and national biodiversity and C storage, we examined whether the optimization of carbon and biodiversity is, as suggested, a win-win situation. We identified hotspots of C storage and of biodiversity within Colombia and the demographic and land use factors that affect the spatial distribution of the current patterns of biodiversity and C. We also identified and mapped two additional forest carbon and biodiversity relationships (areas with high carbon and low biodiversity and areas with low carbon and high biodiversity) that represented relevant conservation trade-offs at national and subnational levels. Our results suggest that, although C storage and biodiversity hotspots still overlap nationally and subnationally, the relationship between these two types of hotspots is weaker than that at the global level. Additionally, areas where high carbon and high biodiversity do not overlap are more extensive than potential win-win areas. Simultaneous carbon and biodiversity conservation is not as straightforward as it appears to be at the global level. Countries must swiftly identify areas where unintentional negative biodiversity consequences may result from national REDD. + strategies, and future research should identify the factors that affect C storage and biodiversity both at the national and subnational levels. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.

Changes in species richness along the ecological succession gradient may be strongly determined by coexisting extinction debts of species from the original habitats and colonization credits of those from the replacing habitats. The magnitude of these processes and their causes remain largely unknown. We explored the extinction debt and colonization credit for grassland and forest specialist plants, respectively, and the local and landscape factors associated to the richness of these species groups in a 50-year process of forest encroachment into semi-natural Mediterranean grasslands. A set of sampling plots of persistent grasslands and forests and their transitional habitat (wooded grasslands) was selected within fixed-area sites distributed across the landscape. Our results confirm the extinction debt and suggest colonization credit (according to observed trends and model predictions) in wooded grasslands when compared to persistent forests, despite wooded grasslands and persistent forests having similar tree cover. Grassland connectivity and solar radiation had opposing effects on the richness of both grassland and forest specialists, and it is possible that the availability of seed sources from old forests may have accelerate the payment of colonization credit in the wooded grasslands. These results suggest that extinction debt and colonization credit have driven species turnover during the 50 years of forest encroachment, but at different rates, and that local and landscape factors have opposing effects on these two phenomena. They also highlight the importance of documenting biodiversity time lags following habitat change when they are still in progress in order to timely and adequately manage habitats of high conservation value such as the grasslands studied here. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Ecosystems can be linked by the movement of matter and nutrients across habitat boundaries via aquatic insect emergence. Aquatic organisms tend to have higher concentrations of certain toxic contaminants such as methylmercury (MeHg) compared to their terrestrial counterparts. If aquatic organisms come to land, terrestrial organisms that consume them are expected to have elevated MeHg concentrations. But emergent aquatic insects could have other impacts as well, such as altering consumer trophic position or increasing ecosystem productivity as a result of nutrient inputs from insect carcasses. We measure MeHg in terrestrial arthropods at two lakes in northeastern Iceland and use carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes to quantify aquatic reliance and trophic position. Across all terrestrial focal arthropod taxa (Lycosidae, Linyphiidae, Acari, Opiliones), aquatic reliance had significant direct and indirect (via changes in trophic position) effects on terrestrial consumer MeHg. However, contrary to our expectations, terrestrial consumers that consumed aquatic prey had lower MeHg concentrations than consumers that ate mostly terrestrial prey. We hypothesize that this is due to the lower trophic position of consumers feeding directly on midges relative to those that fed mostly on terrestrial prey and that had, on average, higher trophic positions. Thus, direct consumption of aquatic inputs results in a trophic bypass that creates a shorter terrestrial food web and reduced biomagnification of MeHg across the food web. Our finding that MeHg was lower at terrestrial sites with aquatic inputs runs counter to the conventional wisdom that aquatic systems are a source of MeHg contamination to surrounding terrestrial ecosystems. � 2015 by the Ecological Society of America

This paper aims to disentangle the effects of both current landscape structure and recent land use-change on alien plant invasion in urban Mediterranean coastal habitats. Patches of four habitat types (rock outcrops, sand dunes, scrublands and forests) of different sizes and surrounding landscape compositions were selected along the coast of the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona (NE Spain). Attributes of habitat patches, historical (1956) and current landscape composition around them, land-cover changes (1956-2005) and other environmental and geographic factors within these patches were obtained. The association of these attributes with alien plant richness, abundance and composition was investigated using GLM and CCA. Alien species richness was mostly explained by patch size and shape and built-up area proportion from 1956 and 2005 in a 50. m buffer around patches. Alien species abundance was mostly related to patch shape, temperature, rainfall, land-cover changes within patches and cropland cover of 1956 in a 50. m buffer around patches. Alien species composition was primary related to habitat type, temperature, land-cover changes within patches and the composition of the surrounding landscape. Results suggest that landscape factors affect alien species richness and abundance differently, which are indicative of species colonization and spread, respectively. Landscape history positively affects both colonization and spread, with evidence for a colonization credit related with past urban cover, and the association between recent patch dynamics and present aliens spread. Results highlight the importance of including landscape structure and dynamics in the management of plant invasions in coastal Mediterranean habitats, especially in metropolitan regions. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.