Mediterranean climate regions (hereafter ‘Med-regions’) cover small areas globally but harbour a wide diversity of ecosystems that are under serious threat due to current global climate change. Despite intensive research and conservation efforts in freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems to prevent the consequences of habitat fragmentation, overfishing and changes in fire regimes and heatwaves, there is still no global consensus on how to conserve and manage Med-region ecosystems. We define integrative research as an interdisciplinary approach with common concepts and metrics enabling a better understanding of the general mechanisms underlying ecosystems. Building upon existing literature that promotes integrative research in Med-region ecosystems, we advocate for a more integrative approach that takes into consideration cross-ecosystem generalities and common resilience mechanisms. We propose examples of potential studies for implementing such integrative research, including: (1) integrative research across ecosystems; (2) integrative research across Med-regions; and (3) integrative research across political boundaries. We then offer recommendations for promoting integrative studies, including leveraging biodiversity data, establishing working groups in research syntheses and testing theoretical frameworks. Promoting integrative research in Med-regions would enable and facilitate the roadmap towards a better understanding of Med-region ecosystems’ responses to natural and anthropogenic disturbances and the identification of ecological baselines. We seek to foster future research synergies to identify tipping points across ecosystems and aid in determining desired future conditions in Med-regions globally.

Water conservation is of particular importance for arid regions, including many Muslim-majority countries. With the added pressures of human population growth and expansion and global climate change, water conservation efforts are imperative to extending the life of current water supplies as well as to sourcing water treatment methods that are religiously congruent. We review Qur’anic verses that address water usage and conservation. We searched the English translations of the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur’an and the King Saud University Electronic Moshaf Project for Qur’anic scripture related to water and water conservation. A total of 25 verses were found that related to creation, water usage for agriculture and food provision/production and as a common resource for humanity. Qur’anic scripture encourages gratitude for water and wise stewardship of this resource. Specific prohibitions against the reuse of water (e.g., treated water) were not found, and recent Islamic literature supports the use of cleansed greywater. Treated greywater may thus be an additional source for agricultural needs, thus reducing the stress placed on already limited water supplies. Water conservation falls within Qur’anic scripture.

Guidelines for managers of protected areas are an important component of conservation policies, on a par with large-scale frameworks and vehicles for conservation funding. In line with the recent literature proposing evaluations of conservation actions or political strategies to improve them, here we use an innovative, hybrid methodology, based both on an interpretative approach anchored in social sciences and a quantitative literature review, to identify available frameworks for evaluating conservation guidelines. The main result of this analysis is that the relevant literature in conservation is sparse and heterogeneous, but a relevant encompassing framework is provided by the literature in decision sciences based on the policy analytics framework. This evaluation framework consists of three criteria: scientific credibility, operationality and legitimacy. We then implement a pilot application by evaluating guidelines currently used in France to support all of the actors involved in protected areas management. The study concludes that these guidelines are plagued by significant weaknesses that could be overcome by implementing relevant participatory processes.

Tropical insectivorous birds comprise a diverse group that has a distinct response to habitat degradation. However, knowledge on birds’ ecological functions and their large-scale functional responses to human impacts across various habitats is scarce. We sampled 22 1-km-radius buffer landscapes within the Cantareira-Mantiqueira region (south-east Brazil), including native forests, pastures and marshes, to assess how landscape and habitat characteristics might affect insectivorous birds within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We studied whether bird species and functional diversity might respond to habitat turnover and nestedness and to native forest cover using generalized linear mixed models. We found negative effects of increased native forest cover on functional diversity indices. Bird communities in pastures show more nestedness, whereas marsh areas exhibit higher turnover. Forest areas receive a balanced contribution from both nestedness and turnover. These results are attributable to the predominantly secondary growth and early successional stages of the native forest fragments in the region, emphasizing the connection between landscape characteristics, habitat types and bird functional diversity in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

Medium- and large-sized mammals play important roles in maintaining forest ecosystem functions, and these functions often diminish when mammal species are depleted by human activities. Understanding the sensitivity or tolerance of mammal species to human pressure and detecting species changes through monitoring programmes can inform appropriate management decisions. The objective of our study was to identify medium- and large-sized mammal species that can be included in a monitoring programme in the Southern Yungas of Argentina. We used occupancy modelling to estimate the probability of habitat use (ψ) of 13 of 25 mammal species detected by 165 camera traps placed in forests across a range of human footprint index (HFI) values. As defined by the HFI, 54% of the study area is wilderness. The probabilities of habitat use of two mammal species were significantly associated with the HFI: the lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris; ψ = 0.33, range = 0.22–0.50) was inversely associated with HFI values, whereas the grey brocket deer (Mazama gouazoubira; ψ = 0.79, range = 0.67–0.87) was positively associated with the HFI. Monitoring the probability of habitat use of the sensitive species (lowland tapir) could help us to detect changes in areas experiencing anthropogenic impacts before they cause extirpation, whereas the high probability of the habitat use values of the tolerant species (grey brocket deer) might indicate that anthropogenic impacts are strongly influencing habitat, signalling that mitigation strategies might be warranted. The Southern Yungas retains an intact mammal fauna, and we showed that the HFI is useful for monitoring anthropogenic impacts on these mammals. There are still opportunities to develop conservation strategies to minimize threats to mammal species in the region by implementing a monitoring programme with the proposed species.

Understanding how selective logging affects biodiversity is crucial to planning cost-effective conservation strategies in tropical forests, yet there is limited understanding of its impacts on fauna functional diversity in the tropical Americas. We assessed how selective logging intensification and time since logging influence multiple metrics of fauna functional integrity in the Brazilian Amazon by collecting bird and dung beetle data within 48 logging management units that had experienced varying exploitation intensities between 1.5–2.0 and 5.0–6.0 years before the faunal surveys. We investigated assemblage responses and used functional attributes to assess changes in functional diversity, specialization, originality and species rarity. Using point counts and pitfall traps, we collected 5081 records of 182 bird species and 7892 dung beetles from 45 species. Logging intensification led to significant declines in most dung beetle responses and bird body mass, whereas time since logging was a key driver of dung beetle and bird functional and taxonomic diversity. Our study presents novel empirical evidence of how logging intensification effects vary across taxa, ecological metrics and time since logging, which is key to informing forest conservation and further investigating environmental degradation impacts on tropical biodiversity.

Biodiversity systematic monitoring programmes have been expanding across the globe, especially in protected areas (PAs). Amongst sustainable-use PAs, medium- to large-sized mammals and birds comprise crucial groups to monitor, given their importance to forest functionality and subsistence for local residents. Here, we used 6 years of community-based monitoring data from a sustainable-use PA in the Brazilian Amazonia (Tapajós–Arapiuns Extractive Reserve) to examine the influence of anthropogenic stressors and time on the density and biomass of forest mammal and bird game species. We further assessed trends in population density of target groups over the period. A total of 1915 km of line-transect surveys were completed by trained local monitors along eight established transects, providing data from 12 medium-sized and five large-sized game genera. Generalized linear mixed models of all medium-sized species, all large species and four individual taxa (Tinamidae, Dasyproctidae, primates and Cervidae) showed that some species (e.g., Dasyprocta croconota) exhibited great density, whereas others (e.g., Tapirus terrestris and Tayassu pecari) were rarely detected. Anthropogenic variables did not affect the density and biomass of the overall medium-sized and large vertebrates. Dasyproctidae, Tinamidae and primates were the only taxa influenced by anthropogenic stressors, with negative influence occurring only for Tinamidae. Moreover, density of groups and taxa remained stable throughout the period in the Reserve, although the frequency of some species may indicate past population losses. Continuation of this monitoring programme is required to improve understanding of population fluctuations, but over the 6 years studied, game population density and biomass were not linked to anthropogenic stressors.

Although wildlife management models across the world have since the early 1980s shifted from top-down fortress conservation to different labels of people-friendly community-based conservation, their outcomes remain contested. This paper explores how, and in whose interests, approaches to wildlife conservation in Malawi have been reconfigured from fortress conservation to market–community collaborative management. Based on qualitative field data, we demonstrate how varying levels of community participation in the processes of wildlife conservation transformed the identities and interests of powerful groups of people regarding wildlife conservation in the Majete Wildlife Reserve. We highlight how commodification and monetarization of wildlife conservation served the interests of the emergent powerful groups whilst marginalizing those of the weak. The work indicates how new community identities with regard to wildlife conservation mask the power hegemonies that dictate mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion regarding natural resource use.

Programmes focused on buffer zones (BZs) and park revenue-sharing (PRS) are aimed at sharing protected area (PA) benefits with local communities to meet their development needs and, in turn, improve the PA–people relationship. However, whether and how these programmes improve public attitudes towards PAs is little understood. We assessed how residents perceive the benefit and burdens of Nepal’s BZ programme, which shares up to 50% of PA revenue with communities, and how this process relates to their perceptions of change in the PA–people relationship since the BZ programme was implemented. Survey results from 2122 households in the BZs of six PAs showed that residents’ perceptions of PA–people relationships had improved since the BZ programme’s implementation. Furthermore, the perceived trend in the PA–people relationship was positively related to the perception of benefits and satisfaction with coordination between the PA and local government; it was negatively related to perceived burdens of BZ-related laws in rural development, history of damage/loss from wildlife and misunderstandings of the purpose behind BZ funds being given to local communities. These findings provide valuable insights for PA managers in Nepal and worldwide in designing new or improving existing mechanisms of benefit-sharing with local people and to improve PA–people relationships.