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This study introduces a data-driven framework for enhancing the sustainable management of fish species in Romania’s Natura 2000 protected areas through ecosystem modeling and association rule mining (ARM). Drawing on seven years of ecological monitoring data for 13 fish species of ecological and socio-economic importance, we apply the FP-Growth algorithm to extract high-confidence co-occurrence patterns among 19 codified conservation measures. By encoding expert habitat assessments into binary transactions, the analysis revealed 44 robust association rules, highlighting interdependent management actions that collectively improve species resilience and habitat conditions. These results provide actionable insights for integrated, evidence-based conservation planning. The approach demonstrates the interpretability, scalability, and practical relevance of ARM in biodiversity management, offering a replicable method for supporting adaptive ecological decision making across complex protected area networks.

Reasonable identification of the ecosystem security space and pattern restoration for the Yellow River Basin will be significant for facilitating future ecological protection and restoration projects. This study employs ecosystem services and landscape connectivity to discern ecological source areas and conducts an optimization evaluation method of resistance surfaces and the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model to identify the ecosystem security pattern of urban agglomeration. Then, restoration measures are proposed. The results indicate that: (1) There are 46 ecological source areas in the ecosystem security patterns of the Lanxi urban agglomeration, with a total area of 8199.249 km2. Moreover, in terms of spatial distribution, ecological source areas are sparse in the east while crowded in the west of the Lanxi urban agglomeration and are mainly composed of natural reserves, forest parks, and farmlands. (2) The ecosystem security patterns contain 914 ecological corridors with a total length of 62,970.181 km, most of which are short-distance corridors, being dense in the part of the northwest with a webbed feature. (3) The study adds 10 ecological source areas to restore the ecosystem security pattern and ecological corridors to improve the rationality of the ecosystem security pattern. Meanwhile, this study proposes restoration measures to protect the ecological environment by defining the levels of ecological security in order to provide a reference for the government to formulate policies and regulations.

In order to explore the impact of ecological environmental protection measures on ecological functional zones and promote the sustainable development of ecology, the ecological functional zone of a hilly region in south China is taken as the research object in this study. Combined with the data of ecological environment and land use type in the past ten years, the ecological function index (water conservation index), ecological structure status (forest coverage, grassland coverage, and ratio of wetland in waters), and ecological stress situation (ratio of cultivated land to construction land) are analyzed to reflect the ecological status of ecological functional zones. The results show that in the past ten years, the water conservation index and forest coverage rate in the studied area have been improved significantly, and the ecological condition has become better, which indicates that ecological protection measures such as returning farmland to forest and closing mountains for forest cultivation can improve the ecological environment of ecological functional zones and contribute to the sustainable development of ecology.

Seagrass meadows are essential habitats that support marine biodiversity and coastal communities while sequestering carbon, filtering water, and stabilizing coastal sediments. Warming temperatures stress seagrass meadows and can facilitate seagrass wasting disease, contributing to large-scale diebacks of seagrass meadows. Here, we demonstrate how high-resolution imagery, collected by uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) and validated by in situ sampling, can quantify seagrass responses to disease and thermal stress.

In ecosystems, species interact in various ways with other species, and with their local environment. In addition, ecosystems are coupled in space by diverse types of flows. From these links connecting different ecological entities can emerge circular pathways of indirect effects: feedback loops. This contributes to creating a nested set of ecological feedbacks operating at different organizational levels as well as spatial and temporal scales in ecological systems: organisms modifying and being affected by their local abiotic environment, demographic and behavioral feedbacks within populations and communities, and spatial feedbacks occurring at the landscape scale. Here, we review how ecological feedbacks vary in space and time, and discuss the emergent properties they generate such as species coexistence or the spatial heterogeneity and stability of ecological systems. With the aim of identifying similarities across scales, we identify the abiotic and biotic modulators that can change the sign and strength of feedback loops and show that these feedbacks can interact in space or time. Our review shows that despite acting at different scales and emerging from different processes, feedbacks generate similar macroscopic properties of ecological systems across levels of organization. Ultimately, our contribution emphasizes the need to integrate such feedbacks to improve our understanding of their joint effects on the dynamics, patterns, and stability of ecological systems.

ContextA background assumption of landscape approaches is that some landscape patterns are more sustainable than others, and thus searching for these patterns should be a unifying theme for all landscape-related studies. We know much about biodiversity, ecosystems, and human wellbeing in our landscapes, but much less about how their interactions influence, and are influenced by, landscape patterns. To help fill this knowledge gap, landscape sustainability science (LSS) has emerged. However, the core research questions and key approaches of this new field still need to be systematically articulated.ObjectivesThe main objectives of this paper were: (1) to propose a set of core research questions for LSS, and (2) to identify key cross-disciplinary approaches that can help address these questions.MethodsI took a qualitative and subjective approach to review and synthesize the literature relevant to landscape sustainability, based on which I developed core questions and identified key cross-disciplinary approaches.ResultsEight core questions were proposed to focus on understanding the relationships among landscape pattern, biodiversity, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, and human wellbeing, assessing the impacts of environmental and socio-institutional changes on these relationships, and fusing knowledge and action through landscape design/planning and governance processes. Ten inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches were identified, and their key characteristics were discussed in relation to landscape sustainability.ConclusionsLSS has emerged as an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research field that aims to understand and improve sustainability by focusing on landscape scales, while considering local and global scales in the same time. To advance LSS, future research not only needs to emphasize the relationships among landscape pattern, ecosystem services, and human wellbeing, but also to proactively integrate complementary approaches across natural and social sciences. Landscape sustainability is inevitably connected to the broader regional and global context; but if global sustainability is to be achieved, our landscapes must be sustained first. It is not the other way around.

As a critical component of the geographical divide between the northern and southern regions of China, the ecological stability of the Qinling region has profound implications for ecological balance within China and across East Asia. However, the degradation risk areas of the Qinling region remain unclear, and there are gaps in the delineation of key ecological protection areas. This study examines the improvement and decline in the Qinling region from 2000 to 2023 in terms of ecosystem patterns, quality, and functions. Moreover, key ecological function and degradation risk zones were identified, and future development paths were proposed for the Qinling region. The findings indicate that: (1) Urban area expansion was the most rapid, increasing by about 1800 km², with an average yearly growth rate of 2.43%. Ecosystem quality increased in 48.07% of the Qinling region. The degradation risk zones of ecosystem quality and function were primarily located in the Sanjiangyuan, the Minshan-Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the Loess Plateau in Shaanxi, Henan, and Gansu. The core areas for water and soil conservation only accounted for 17.92% and 10.47%, respectively, mainly distributed across the Qinling-Daba Mountains. Based on ecological patterns, quality, functions, and ecological protection and restoration projects, the Qinling region has been divided into two majority categories and 16 subcategories: 7 ecologically key functional areas and 9 degradation risk areas. This study offers recommendations for formulating ecological protection and restoration policies, thereby promoting the sustainable development of the region’s ecology and economy.

The terrestrial ecosystem plays an important role in maintaining an ecological balance, protecting the ecological environment, and promoting the sustainable development of human beings. The impacts of precipitation, temperature, and other natural factors on terrestrial ecosystem pattern change (TEPC) are the basis for promoting the healthy development of the terrestrial ecosystem. This paper took the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) as the study area, analyzed the temporal and spatial characteristics of TEPC from 1995 to 2015, and used spatial transfer matrix and terrestrial ecosystem pattern dynamic degree models to analyze the area transformation between different terrestrial ecosystem types. A bivariate spatial autocorrelation model and a panel data regression model were used to study the impacts of precipitation and temperature on TEPC. The results show that: (1) The basic pattern of the terrestrial ecosystem developed in a relatively stable manner from 1995 to 2005 in the YREB, and transformations between the farmland ecosystem, forest ecosystem, and grassland ecosystem were more frequent. The temporal and spatial evolution of precipitation and temperature in the YREB showed significant regional differences. (2) There was a significant negative bivariate global spatial autocorrelation effect of precipitation and temperature on the area change of the forest ecosystem, and a positive effect on the area change of the settlement ecosystem. The local spatial correlation between precipitation or temperature and the terrestrial ecosystem showed significant scattered distribution characteristics. (3) The impacts of precipitation and temperature on TEPC showed significant regional characteristics on the provincial scale. The impact utility in the tail region is basically negative, while both positive and negative effects exist in the central and head regions of the YREB. Moreover, the impact showed significant spatial heterogeneity on the city scale. (4) The Chinese government has promulgated policies and measures for strategic planning, ecological environment protection, and economic support, which could effectively promote ecological and sustainable development of the YREB and promote the coordinated development of the ecology, economy, and society in China.

With the advent of large-scale development, extreme imbalance in the ecology of the Heihe River Basin (HRB) has caused a series of ecological problems. In order to explore the spatiotemporal variation of ecosystem services (ESs) and to assess the characteristics of ESs under the terrain gradient effect (TGE), the three key ESs were quantified based on the InVEST model using five series of land-use data obtained from remote sensing images from 2000 to 2020 in this study. The terrain index was used to analyze the influence of terrain on ESs. The results show that most of the ESs were in high numbers in the south and low numbers in the north, as well as high numbers in the middle and upper reaches and low numbers at downstream locations. It was found that high-quality habitats degrade to general-quality habitats, and poor-quality habitats evolve into general-quality habitats. It was also found that the water production volume continues to decline and soil conservation becomes relatively stable with little change. This study illustrates different ESs showing obvious TGE with changes in elevation and slope. These results indicate that the effect of land-use change is remarkable and TGE is highly important to ESs in inland watersheds. This research study can provide a scientific basis for the optimization of regional ecosystem patterns. The results are of great significance in terms of rational planning land use, constructing ecological civilizations, and maintaining the physical conditions of land cover at inland river basins.