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Human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) are complex conservation challenges that impair both wildlife populations and human livelihood. Research on HWC, however, has traditionally approached ecological and human components separately, hampering a broader understanding of connections between ecological drivers and human dimensions of conflicts. We developed a model that integrates ecological and human components of HWC to investigate how the amount of remaining native forest (forest cover, a key ecological variable known to influence species occurrence and abundance) affects human experiences with wildlife (contact with species and attacks on livestock) and how such experiences influence tolerance via beliefs, emotions, and attitudes. We tested the model with piecewise structural equation modeling and data on human interactions with 3 mammals with different rarity and body size: opossum (Didelphis aurita), crab-eating fox (Cerdocyon thous), and puma (Puma concolor). Data were obtained by interviewing 114 landowners across 13 Atlantic Forest landscapes (10-50% forest cover). Forest cover was associated with high chance of attacks on livestock, and thus with low tolerance, only in the case of the puma. Effects of distinct experiences with wildlife on beliefs and emotions varied across species. Beliefs and emotions toward wildlife influenced tolerance toward all species, but negative emotions affected tolerance toward only with the puma. Conflicts with large carnivores, such as pumas, can then be understood as disservices provided by forests, indicating the relevance of framing HWC more broadly to consider trade-offs with ecosystems services. For some species, positive experiences with wildlife may counteract the negative effects of attacks on livestock in shaping tolerance. Models such as ours-that link ecological and human dimensions-can help identify more effective leverage points to improve HWC mitigation.Vinculación de componentes humanos y ecológicos para entender los conflictos humano-fauna a nivel paisaje y especies Resumen Los conflictos humano-fauna (CHF) son retos complejos para la conservación pues perjudican tanto a las poblaciones de fauna como al sustento humano. Sin embargo, las investigaciones sobre los CHF por tradición han manejado a los componentes humanos y ecológicos de manera separada, dificultando un entendimiento más amplio de las conexiones entre los conductores ecológicos y las dimensiones humanas de estos conflictos. Desarrollamos un modelo que integra a los componentes ecológicos y humanos de los CHF para investigar cómo la cantidad de bosque nativo remanente (la cobertura de bosque, una variable ecológica importante que se sabe influye sobre la presencia y abundancia de las especies) afecta a las experiencias que las personas tienen con la fauna (contacto con especies y ataques al ganado) y cómo dichas experiencias influyen en la tolerancia por medio de creencias, emociones y actitudes. Probamos el modelo con un modelado de ecuación estructural por partes y datos sobre las interacciones humanas con tres mamíferos de diferente tamaño y rareza: la zarigüeya (Didelphis aurita), el zorro cangrejero (Cerdocyon thous) y el puma (Puma concolor). Los datos se obtuvieron por medio de entrevistas realizadas a 114 terratenientes distribuidos en 13 paisajes de bosque atlántico (10-50% de cobertura de bosque). La cobertura de bosque estuvo asociada con una alta probabilidad de ataques al ganado, y por lo tanto con una baja tolerancia, sólo para el caso del puma. Los efectos de las distintas experiencias con la fauna sobre las creencias y las emociones variaron con cada especie. Las creencias y las emociones hacia la fauna influyeron en la tolerancia hacia todas las especies, aunque las emociones negativas afectaron la tolerancia solamente hacia el puma. Los conflictos con los grandes carnívoros, como el puma, pueden entenderse como servicios negativos proporcionados por los bosques, lo que indica la relevancia de enmarcar a los CHF de manera más amplia para considerar las compensaciones con los servicios ambientales. Para algunas especies, las experiencias positivas con la fauna pueden contrarrestar los efectos negativos de los ataques al ganado en cuanto a la formación de la tolerancia. Los modelos como el nuestro - que conectan las dimensiones ecológicas y humanas - pueden ayudar a identificar puntos de ventaja más efectivos para mejorar la mitigación de los CHF.人兽冲突威胁着野生动物种群, 同时也损害了人类生计, 是一项复杂的保护挑战。然而, 对人兽冲突的研究习惯于把生态和人类组分分别考虑, 而这有碍于更广泛地理解冲突的生态驱动因素与人类维度之间的联系。本研究开发了一个模型, 整合了人兽冲突中的生态和人类组分, 以调查残余原始林的数量 (即森林覆盖度, 为已知会影响物种出现和丰度的关键生态变量) 如何影响人类与野生动物相关的经历 (人与野生动物接触及野生动物袭击家畜), 以及这些经验如何通过信念、情感和态度影响对野生动物的容忍度。我们利用分段结构方程模型和人类与三种稀有程度和体型各不相同的哺乳动物 (负鼠 Didelphis aurita、食蟹狐 Cerdocyon thous 和美洲狮 Puma concolor) 相互作用的数据, 对模型进行了检验。数据来源于对 13 个大西洋森林景观 (10-50% 森林覆盖度) 中114名土地所有者的采访。结果显示, 仅对美洲狮来说, 森林覆盖度与较高的牲畜袭击几率有关, 因此, 人类对其容忍度较低。人类与不同野生动物相关的经历对其信念和情感的影响因物种而异。对野生动物的信念和情感会影响对所有物种的容忍度, 但负面情感只会影响对美洲狮的容忍度。与大型食肉动物 (如美洲狮) 的冲突可以被看作森林对人类造成的危害, 这表明应考虑与生态系统服务的权衡以更广泛地构建人兽冲突框架。对某些物种来说, 在培养容忍性时, 人类与野生动物间积极的经历可能会抵消野生动物攻击家畜的负面影响。类似本研究提出的将生态和人类的维度联系起来的模型可以帮助确定更有效的杠杆点, 以减缓人兽冲突的影响。 翻译:胡怡思;审校:聂永刚.

Aim: Past land use legacy effects—extinction debts and immigration credits—might be particularly pronounced in regions characterized by complex and dynamic landscape change. The aim of this study was to evaluate how current woody plant species distribution, composition and richness related to historical and present land uses. Location: A smallholder farming landscape in south-western Ethiopia. Methods: We surveyed woody plants in 72 randomly selected 1-ha sites in farmland and grouped them into forest specialist, generalist and pioneer species. First, we investigated woody plant composition and distribution using non-metric multidimensional scaling. Second, we modelled species richness in response to historical and current distance from the forest edge. Third, we examined diameter class distributions of trees in recently converted vs. permanent farmland. Results: Historical distance was a primary driver of woody plant composition and distribution. Generalist and pioneer species richness increased with historical distance. Forest specialists, however, did not respond to historical distance. Only few old individuals of forest specialist species remained in both recently converted and permanent farmlands. Main conclusions: Our findings suggest that any possible extinction debt for forest specialist species in farmland at the landscape scale was rapidly paid off, possibly because farmers cleared large remnant trees. In contrast, we found substantial evidence of immigration credits in farmland for generalist and pioneer species. This suggests that long-established farmland may have unrecognized conservation values, although apparently not for forest specialist species. We suggest that conservation policies in south-western Ethiopia should recognize not only forests, but also the complementary value of the agricultural mosaic—similar to the case of European cultural landscapes. A possible future priority could be to better reintegrate forest species in the farmland mosaic.

Cultural landscapes and their social–ecological values are threatened by changing lifestyles, policies and land-use practices, making their appropriate management a key sustainability challenge. Drawing on five years of interdisciplinary research in Transylvania, we conceptualise the notion of a ‘landscape interface’ – the intersection between the ecological and social subsystems, which through time, shapes and is shaped by the local value system. The landscape interface is a source of system continuity and stability. In Transylvania, many locals still act according to the value system associated with a disappearing landscape interface, a phenomenon we term a ‘value change debt.’ We argue that the erosion of the old value system, together with the weakening of the landscape interface, threatens sustainability – whereas reconnecting social–ecological feedback and thus strengthening the landscape interface could foster sustainability. The new conceptual perspective proposed here could foster greater understanding of cultural landscapes, including the social dimension of human–environment interactions.

Given the serious limitations of production-oriented frameworks, we offer here a new conceptual framework for how to analyze the nexus of food security and biodiversity conservation. We introduce four archetypes of social-ecological system states corresponding to win–win (e.g., agroecology), win–lose (e.g., intensive agriculture), lose–win (e.g., fortress conservation), and lose–lose (e.g., degraded landscapes) outcomes for food security and biodiversity conservation. Each archetype is shaped by characteristic external drivers, exhibits characteristic internal social-ecological features, and has characteristic feedbacks that maintain it. This framework shifts the emphasis from focusing on production only to considering social-ecological dynamics, and enables comparison among landscapes. Moreover, examining drivers and feedbacks facilitates the analysis of possible transitions between system states (e.g., from a lose–lose outcome to a more preferred outcome).

We conducted a systematic review of 502 articles, published between 2000 and 2016, to characterize the research on human-carnivore relations according to (i) temporal and geographical distribution, (ii) biology, (iii) relations between carnivores and humans, (iv) social actors, (v) drivers of change, (vi) management, and (vii) applied methods. We performed a detrended correspondence analysis and Kruskal-Wallis tests to identify and describe thematic clusters used in human-carnivore relations research. Our results show that research is deeply biased so far, and four important knowledge gaps were detected. First, we found more studies had been conducted in the Global North than in the Global South, although risks and benefits of living alongside carnivores exist in the Global South equally. Second, most research focused on large predators, while small and medium-sized carnivores are also source of damages and ecosystem services. Third, relations were often framed around conflicts, with little attention to possible ecosystem services. Fourth, most research was carried out using natural sciences methods, despite methods from the social sciences having much to offer in this context. Research fell into seven thematic clusters focusing on: (1) North-American bears, (2) African large carnivores, (3) social research in America, (4) meso-carnivores, (5) Asian felids, (6) conflicts with the grey wolf, and (7) damages to human property. These results highlight the need for more integrative, social-ecological research on human-carnivore relations. We discuss how addressing existing knowledge gaps could contribute to mitigating conflicts as well as fostering coexistence between humans and carnivore species., This study is part of the scientific project ‘Understanding human-carnivore relationships: from social conflicts to ecosystem services’ funded by Leuphana University of Lüneburg. AJC was supported by the NSF Idaho EPSCoR Program and by the National Science Foundation under award number IIA-1301792. MM and AFM were supported by Ramon y Cajal contracts (MEC, RYC-2015-19231 and MINECO, RYC-2016-21114, respectively). ACA was supported by a ‘Programa Viçent Mut’ contract (Government of Illes Balears, Spain; PD/039/2017).

Context: Cultural landscapes provide essential ecosystem services to local communities, especially in poor rural settings. However, potentially negative impacts of ecosystems—or disservices—remain inadequately understood. Similarly, how benefit–cost outcomes differ within communities is unclear, but potentially important for cultural landscape management. Objectives: Here we investigated whether distinct forest ecosystem service–disservice outcomes emerge within local communities. We aimed to characterize groups of community members according to service–disservice outcomes, and assessed their attitudes towards the forest. Methods: We interviewed 150 rural households in southwestern Ethiopia about locally relevant ecosystem services (provisioning services) and disservices (wildlife impacts). Households were grouped based on their ecosystem service–disservice profiles through hierarchical clustering. We used linear models to assess differences between groups in geographic and socioeconomic characteristics, as well as attitudes toward the forest. Results: We identified three groups with distinct ecosystem service–disservice profiles. Half of the households fell into a “lose–lose” profile (low benefits, high costs), while fewer had “lose–escape” (low benefits, low costs) and “win–lose” (high benefits, high costs) profiles. Location relative to forest and altitude explained differences between the “lose–escape” profile and other households. Socioeconomic factors were also important. “Win–lose” households appeared to be wealthier and had better forest use rights compared to “lose–lose” households. Attitudes towards the forest did not differ between profiles. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates the importance of disaggregating both ecosystem services and disservices, instead of assuming that communities receive benefits and costs homogenously. To manage cultural landscapes sustainably, such heterogeneity must be acknowledged and better understood.

Agricultural land use is a key interface between the goals of ensuring food security and protecting biodiversity. “Land sparing” supports intensive agriculture to save land for conservation, whereas “land sharing” integrates production and conservation on the same land. The framing around sparing versus sharing has been extensively debated. Here, we focused on a frequently missing yet crucial component, namely the governance dimension. Through a case‐study in Ethiopia, we uncovered stakeholder preferences for sparing versus sharing, the underlying rationale, and implementation capacity challenges. Policy stakeholders preferred sparing whereas implementation stakeholders preferred sharing, which aligned with existing informal institutions. Implementation of both strategies was limited by social, biophysical, and institutional factors. Land use policies need to account for both ecological patterns and social context. The findings from simple analytical frameworks (e.g., sparing vs. sharing) therefore need to be interpreted carefully, and in a social‐ecological context, to generate meaningful recommendations for conservation practice.

Moist evergreen forests of southwestern Ethiopia host high levels of biodiversity and have a high economic value due to coffee production. Coffee is a native shrub that is harvested under different management systems; its production can have both beneficial and detrimental effects for biodiversity. We investigated how bird community composition and richness, and abundance of different bird groups responded to different intensities of coffee management and the landscape context. We surveyed birds at 66 points in forest habitat with different intensities of coffee management and at different distances from the forest edge. We explored community composition using detrended correspondence analysis in combination with canonical correspondence analysis and indicator species analysis, and used generalized linear mixed models to investigate the responses of different bird groups to coffee management and landscape context. Our results show that (1) despite considerable bird diversity including some endemics, species turnover in the forest was relatively low; (2) total richness and abundance of birds were not affected by management or landscape context; but (3) the richness of forest and dietary specialists increased with higher forest naturalness, and with increasing distance from the edge and amount of forest cover. These findings show that traditional shade coffee management practices can maintain a diverse suite of forest birds. To conserve forest specialists, retaining undisturbed, remote forest is particularly important, but structurally diverse locations near the forest edge can also harbour a high diversity of specialists.

Context: Ecological impacts of past land use can persist for centuries. While present-day land use is relatively easy to quantify, characterizing historical land uses and their legacies on biodiversity remains challenging. Southern Transylvania in Romania is a biodiversity-rich area which has undergone major political and socio-economic changes, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to two World Wars, communist dictatorship, capitalist democracy, and EU accession—all leading to widespread land-use changes. Objectives: We investigated whether present-day community composition of birds, plants, and butterflies was associated with historical land use. Methods: We surveyed birds, plants, and butterflies at 150 sites and classified those sites as forest, arable land, or managed grassland for six epochs using historical maps from the 1870s, 1930s, and 1970s, satellite imagery from 1985 to 2000, and field visits in 2012. Sites were labelled permanent if they had the same land use at all epochs and non-permanent otherwise. We used clustering and PERMANOVA based on community similarity to test for associations between community composition and land-use history. Results: We found significant differences (p = 0.030) in bird communities between permanent and non-permanent forest sites, and permanent and non-permanent grassland sites (p = 0.051). No significant associations were found among plants or butterflies and land-use history. Conclusions: Bird communities were associated with historical land use, though plants and butterflies were not. Historical land-use change in our study area was likely not sufficiently intense to cross relevant ecological thresholds that would lead to legacy effects in present-day plant and butterfly communities.

We thank Seppelt et al. [1] for their thoughts on our paper, and welcome debate regarding how to best move forward in harmonizing food security and biodiversity conservation. We consider it useful to exchange ideas, including in areas where there may be disagreement, recognizing that reflection will help the scientific community to identify constructive ways forward. On the topic of food security and biodiversity conservation, we believe that what is needed, most of all, is qualitative change – we need to think in an entirely different, more holistic, and more visionary way about how to achieve good outcomes for both food security and biodiversity conservation.

Aim Cultural landscapes and their biodiversity are threatened by land use changes and the abandonment of traditional farming techniques. Conceptualizing cultural landscapes as social–ecological systems can be useful to develop strategies for biodiversity conservation. First, this study aimed to develop a typology of social–ecological units based on land use patterns. Second, we sought to relate this typology to biophysical and socio-demographic drivers as well as to biodiversity outcomes. Location Southern Transylvania (Romania). Methods We developed a typology of villages in Southern Transylvania based on land use data. We collected species richness data for plants, butterflies and birds, modelled local richness data for each village and related these values to the village typology. Also, we related village typology to biophysical and socio-demographic variables. Results We identified four types of villages that showed distinct species richness patterns. Bird richness was highest in forest-dominated and mixed-land use villages; plant richness was highest in pasture-dominated villages; and butterfly richness was high in arable-dominated, mixed-land use and pasture-dominated villages. The four types of villages had distinct topographic characteristics and also differed in terms of ethnic composition, migration patterns and geographic location. Drawing on a combined understanding of social–ecological variables, different conservation actions could be prioritized for each of the four village types. Main conclusions Applying social–ecological approaches has the potential to inform biodiversity conservation in cultural landscapes. Social–ecological typologies can improve our understanding of complex systems and provide useful input for the development of effective strategies for biodiversity conservation.

A rapidly growing body of the literature reveals the important roles apex predators play in shaping the composition and functioning of ecological communities worldwide. The principal effects of apex predators—namely herbivore and mesopredator population suppression—are often evident following their removal from environments, or their reintroduction, including rewilding initiatives. What remains less clear, however, is to what extent humans versus other apex predators affect ecosystems, how both interact across gradients of anthropogenic pressure and how such interactions can be affected by underlying bottom-up processes. Such questions are critical to answer in the Anthropocene, where effective management of ecosystems and conservation of biodiversity requires a better understanding of how top-down and bottom-up processes vary according to anthropogenic influences.

Traditional farming landscapes have evolved as tightly coupled socioecological systems that support high biodiversity. However, land‐use change severely threatens the high biodiversity of these landscapes. Navigating nature conservation in such landscapes requires a thorough understanding of the key drivers underpinning biodiversity. Through empirical research on mammals, birds, butterflies, and plants in a traditional cultural landscape in Romania, we revealed seven hypothesized drivers facilitating biodiversity conservation. Similar proportions of three main land‐use types support the landscape species pool, most likely through habitat connectivity and frequent spillover between land‐use types. Landscape complementation and supplementation provide additional habitat for species outside their core habitats. Gradients of woody vegetation cover and gradients in land‐cover heterogeneity provide mosaic landscapes with wide ranges of resources. Traditional land‐use practices underpin landscape heterogeneity, traditional land‐use elements such as wood pastures, and human–carnivore coexistence. Top‐down predator control may limit herbivore populations. Lastly, cultural ties between humans and nature have a central influence on people’s values and sustainable use of natural resources. Conservation approaches should aim to maintain or restore these socioecological drivers by targeting the heterogeneous character of the forest–farmland mosaic at large scales through “broad and shallow” conservation measures. These large‐scale measures should be complemented with “deep and narrow” conservation measures addressing specific land‐use types, threats, or species. In both cases, conservation measures should integrate the entire socioecological system, by recognizing and strengthening important links between people and the environment.

Facilitating human–carnivore coexistence depends on the biophysical environment but also on social factors. Focusing on Central Romania, we conducted 71 semi-structured interviews to explore human–bear (Ursus arctos) coexistence. Qualitative content and discourse analysis identified three socially mediated thematic strands, which showed different ways in which perceived interactions between people, bears and the environment shape coexistence. The “landscape-bear strand” described perceptions of the way in which the landscape offers resources for the bear, while the “landscape-human strand” related to ways in which humans experience the landscape. The “management strand” related to the way bears was managed. All three strands highlight both threats and opportunities for the peaceful coexistence of people and bears. Management and policy interventions could be improved by systematically considering the possible effects of interventions on each of the three strands shaping coexistence. Future research should explore the relevance of the identified thematic strands in other settings worldwide.

Cultural landscapes all over the world harbor species communities that are taxonomically and functionally diverse. In Eastern Europe, but also in many other regions of the world, the conservation of this farmland biodiversity is threatened by land use intensification and abandonment. In order to counteract the negative effects of land use change in such landscapes, a thorough understanding of the functional relationships between species and their environment is crucial. In this study, we investigated the relationshipof functional traits of butterfly and bird communities and environmental conditions in 120 sites in traditional farmlands of southern Transylvania, Romania. First, we compared taxonomic diversity (i.e., Shannon diversity) with functional diversity (i.e., functional dispersion), and second, we linked species traits to environmental variables by performing RLQ analyses. Functional traits indicating reproduction, movement, and feeding behavior related with environmental variables describing heterogeneity, amount of woody vegetation, and topography at three different spatial scales. We found positive relationships between taxonomic and functional diversity, as well as strong linkages between species traits and environmental conditions for both groups. Specifically, butterfly composition was most strongly influenced by land use type and life-history strategies. Bird composition was most strongly related to the amount of woody vegetation and nesting and foraging strategies. We conclude that maintaining the typical features of traditional farming landscapes, especially a small-scale heterogeneity in arable land and gradients of woody vegetation cover, would be desirable in order to sustain a high functional diversity in southern Transylvania in the future. Cultural landscapes all over the world harbor species communities that are taxonomically and functionally diverse. In Eastern Europe, but also in many other regions of the world, the conservation of this farmland biodiversity is threatened by land use intensification and abandonment. In order to counteract the negative effects of land use change in such landscapes, a thorough understanding of the functional relationships between species and their environment is crucial. In this study, we investigated the relationship of functional traits of butterfly and bird communities and environmental conditions in 120 sites in traditional farmlands of southern Transylvania, Romania. First, we compared taxonomic diversity (i.e., Shannon diversity) with functional diversity (i.e., functional dispersion), and second, we linked species traits to environmental variables by performing RLQ analyses. Functional traits indicating reproduction, movement, and feeding behavior related with environmental variables describing heterogeneity, amount of woody vegetation, and topography at three different spatial scales. We found positive relationships between taxonomic and functional diversity, as well as strong linkages between species traits and environmental conditions for both groups. Specifically, butterfly composition was most strongly influenced by land use type and life‐history strategies. Bird composition was most strongly related to the amount of woody vegetation and nesting and foraging strategies. We conclude that maintaining the typical features of traditional farming landscapes, especially a small‐scale heterogeneity in arable land and gradients of woody vegetation cover, would be desirable in order to sustain a high functional diversity in southern Transylvania in the future.