Photo: A. Chaudron, AIFM
Publications
Stakeholder consensus on conservation priorities across scientific, NGO, and governmental sectors
Juan A. Hernández-Agüero, Peter H. Verburg, Camille Magneville, Manuel Cartereau, Elysa Silva, Agathe Leriche, Jens-Christian Svenning, Olga Tzortzakaki, Gianluigi Bacchetta & Federico Riva
Understanding stakeholder perception is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies. Nevertheless, it is usually unclear which aspects are favored by different actors involved in environmental management.
Here, we surveyed 354 stakeholders from 22 countries across the Mediterranean Basin to identify areas of agreement in their preferences. Despite broad variation in individual choices, we found a general consensus emerging across stakeholder groups (Scientists, Non-Governmental and Governmental Organizations) on preferred ecosystem services, biodiversity facets, protected areas characteristics, and their relative importance. Specifically, our model identifies regulating ecosystem services, taxonomic diversity, and intrinsic value of nature as priorities for stakeholders. Conversely, the preferred characteristics of protected areas (e.g., size, accessibility) vary mostly based on individual preferences.
We suggest that considering areas of stakeholder agreement when discussing management actions in the Mediterranean Basin will facilitate the adoption of area-based conservation actions expected by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In the Mediterranean Basin, therefore, policy makers should strive to protect areas with high regulating ecosystem services, use taxonomic diversity to engage stakeholders, prioritize ecological targets to different characteristics of protected areas, and maintain the focus of area-based conservation on nature itself.
Implementing these action points should enhance support for conservation action in the region.
WOODIV v2, more occurrences, functional traits, and a time-calibrated phylogeny for Euro-Mediterranean trees
Manuel Cartereau, Geordie Biffoni, Alex Baumel, Gianluigi Bacchetta, Lenka Brousset, Giacomo Calvia, Gabriele Casazza, Angelo Costanzo, Maria Guerrina, Antonino Modaffari, Virgile Noble, Lorenzo Peruzzi, Daniel Pavon, Marco Porceddu, Vedran Šegota, Elysa Silva, Francesco Todaro, Nina Vuković, & Agathe Leriche.
The WOODIV v1 data base provided occurrences at 10 km spatial resolution, traits and phylogenetic data for all 210 species (and 35 subspecies, totalling 245 taxa) in the Euro-Mediterranean Basin. While this reliable and readily accessible data base has been of crucial help to investigate macro-ecological and biodiversity conservation questions, important knowledge gaps remained. To fill these gaps, we present an updated and extended version of the WOODIV database. (i) Occurrence data were updated from sources already considered in v1, three additional sources and an intensive field work campaign in Italy where occurrence data were scarce in v1, allowing to highly increase spatial coverage and data completeness. (ii) Besides increasing taxonomic coverage of traits already considered in v1, the traits data set has been extended to 15 new functional traits encompassing morpho-anatomy, reproduction and phenology, using new traits measurements from the field and data compilation from botanical literature not available in other data bases. (iii) Finally, a new time-calibrated phylogeny for all 210 tree species was built and made available.
Echoes of the Past: Long‐Term Climate Stability Shapes Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity in Euro‐Mediterranean Forests
Camille Magneville, Manuel Cartereau, Juan Antonio Hernández‐Agüero, Elysa Silva, Emma‐Liina Marjakangas, Eva Moracho Martinez, Geordie Biffoni, Gabriele Casazza, Vassiliki I Kati, Ioannis P Kokkoris, Yoann Le Bagousse‐Pinguet, Frédéric Médail, Alexandre Millon, Gabriel Nève, Federico Riva, Santiago Soliveres, Konstantina Zografou, Kent Olsen, Jens‐Christian Svenning, Leriche Agathe & Alejandro Ordonez
Aim: Understanding the relative influence of past and present environmental and anthropogenic drivers on biodiversity is crucial for predicting future biodiversity trends. We assessed how past climate stability, present climate, habitat characteristics, disturbances (fire and herbivory), and past and present land use shape current functional and phylogenetic diversity across multiple taxa. Location: Euro-Mediterranean forests. Time Period: From Last Glacial Maximum to Present Day. Major Taxa Studied: Trees, birds, butterflies, reptiles, and mammals. Methods: We quantified standardised functional and phylogenetic diversity across three dimensions: richness, dispersion, and originality for five taxonomic groups. Focusing on 54 individual drivers, we applied random forests to evaluate the importance of broad categories of drivers and understand how individual drivers impact each diversity dimension. Results: Past temperature stability since the Last Glacial Maximum emerged as a dominant driver of functional and phylogenetic diversity across taxa. Stability was associated with higher functional and phylogenetic richness and dispersion, whereas unstable past climates were linked to lower diversity. Herbivory also played a significant role, though it was less influential than the past climate, particularly for trees and reptiles, whereas the present climate influenced birds' functional diversity. Fire intensity and surface, and land use in the present and past had limited importance, likely because of the study grain resolution. Main Conclusions: Our findings underscore that long-term climate conditions continue to influence biodiversity patterns across various taxa. This highlights the importance of considering both past legacies and present conditions when assessing biodiversity responses to future climate change. Lastly, we revealed dimension and taxon-specific responses to drivers, reinforcing the need for integrative biodiversity frameworks that incorporate multiple facets and dimensions of biodiversity across different taxa to get a more nuanced understanding of how biodiversity is structured and maintained.
Conferences
8th Mediterranean Forest Week (November 2024)
Juan-Antonio Hernández-Agüero went to the 8th Mediterranean Forest Week in Barcelona, where he has presented results on the stakeholder's survey: concensus exceeds disagreement when ranking priorities for conservation across the Mediterranean forest. He was also part of a panel discussion with nine other speakers, on how to adapt the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to preserve and restore Mediterranean forests biodiversity.
British Ecological Society (BES) (December 2024)
Elysa Silva and Camille Magneville went to the BES conference in Liverpool to present their advances. Elysa presented a poster explaining the "Skewness-Kurtosis" framework she is using in the WP2, to study the evenness of the distribution of body mass within the studied taxon. Camille presented her results in the WP3, on the past and present drivers of diversity facets and dimensions across the five taxa studied. They participated to the Macroecology SIG social events, and attended diverse lunch workshops.
.png)
ConserBio (July 2025)
Elysa Silva went to the III SIBECOL & XVII AEET meeting in Pontevedra (Spain) to present their advances:
Elysa Silva: "Body sizes biogeographical patterns in forests: what drives the distribution structure in different taxa in the Medierranean Basin?"
ConserBio (September 2025)
Elysa Silva and Juan Antonio Hernández-Agüero went to the VII International Congress on Biodiversity and Nature Conservation in Seville (Spain) to present their advances and to participate in the Association Fair.
Elysa Silva: "In the forest of the blind, the one-eyed tree is king: identifying key species driving functional diversity in mediterranean forests"
Juan Antonio Hernández-Agüero: "Multi-faceted stakeholder-led conservation prioritization for resilient and biodiverse Euro-Mediterranean forests"
12th Congress of the Hellenic Ecological Society (October 2025)
Konstantina (Dina) Zografou went to the 12th Congress of the Hellenic Ecological Society in Athens (Greece) to present her advances.
Konstantina Zografou: Covering the knowledge gaps in the forest biodiversity of Epirus: Butterflies (INTEGRADIV project)
British Ecological Society (BES) (December 2025)
Camille Magneville (Aarhus University) made the oral presentation: Are protected areas safeguarding taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity under future change in Mediterranean forests?
Manuel Cartereau (Aix-Marseille University) presented Protected areas fail at covering multidimensional biodiversity hotspots in Euro-Mediterranean woodlands
Elysa Silva (Alicante University) gave the talk Identifying key tree species driving functional diversity in Mediterranean woodlands
12th Biennial Conference of The International Biogeography Society Aarhus 2026
Manuel Cartereau (Aix-Marseille University) and Camille Magnevielle (Aarhus University) presented a poster with last updates of the project and future plans.
