Javier Cabello

University of Almería | UAL

An important goal of conservation biology is the maintenance of ecosystem processes. Incorporating quantitative measurements of ecosystem functions into conser-vation practice is important given that it provides not only proxies for biodiversity patterns, but also new tools and criteria for management. In the satellite era, the translation of spect...

Land use decisions induce legacies that affect the welfare of future generations. Here, we present a spatial modeling approach for quantifying how past land use decisions influence provision of multiple ecosystem services based on different land use trajectories. We modeled the effect of past land use changes on water regulation, soil protection an...

The social-ecological system (SES) approach is fundamental for addressing global change challenges and to developing sustainability science. Over the last two decades, much progress has been made in translating this approach from theory to practice, although the knowledge generated is still sparse and difficult to compare. To better understand how...

Conservation biology must set geographic conservation priorities not only based on the compositional or structural but also on the functional dimensions of biodiversity. However, assessing functional diversity is challenging at the regional scale. We propose the use of satellite-derived Ecosystem Functional Types (EFTs), defined here as patches of...

Integrated water management and the application of ecohydrological nature-based solutions, albeit modern concepts, have been part of local resources management for centuries. Exemplary for that, and recently recognized as Spain’s first UNESCO-IHP Ecohydrology demonstration site, are the so-called acequias de careo - simple groundwater recharge chan...

Monitoring ecosystems should allow comparisons at local, regional, and continental scales. To this end, methodologies must capture the spatial and temporal variability caused by natural and anthropic factors, and metrics must be sensitive and responsive to environmental changes. Our aim in this research was to determine which ecosystem functioning...

The chapter belongs to the catalog of the exhibition project of the video artist Carmen F. Sigler, conceived for the Sala Dormitori of the Consorci de Museus de la Generalitat Valenciana by Carmen F. Sigler. The artist proposes a "metamorphosis" of the human being, inspired by the readings of Emanuele Coccia, Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Lynn Mar...

En la primavera de 2023 se celebró en Salobreña (Granada) un taller científico-técnico sobre los problemas de conservación de Maytenus senegalensis subsp. europaea (“arto”) y su hábitat ante el desarrollo de actividades socioeconómicas, y las posibles soluciones para la preservación de tan importante valor de biodiversidad del sur y este ibérico. C...

Research Infrastructures (RIs) are tools intended to be a fundamental pillar in producing knowledge regarding the functioning of Earth’s vital systems. However, it is unclear to what extent these instruments can help to deal with global biodiversity challenges. This paper presents the first assessment of the alignment between the services provided...

Background Water availability is the key limiting factor for plant productivity in drylands covering ca. 40% of Earth’s land surface. For such ecosystems to retain productivity and biodiversity under climatic change, it would be valuable to identify/promote keystone plant species that (i) have developed strategies to more efficiently utilize moistu...

Conservation biology faces the challenge of safeguarding the ecosystem functions and ecological processes (the water cycle, nutrients, energy flow, and community dynamics) that sustain the multiple facets of biodiversity. Characterization and evaluation of these processes and functions can be carried out through functional attributes or traits rela...

Providing historical data on riparian plant biodiversity and physico‐chemical parameters of stream water in Mediterranean mountains helps to assess the effects of climate change and other human stressors on these sensitive and critical ecosystems. This database collects data from the main natural headwater streams of the Sierra Nevada (southeastern...

Wildfires affect the structure, functioning, and composition of ecosystems. Long-term monitoring of the occurrence, abundance, and growth of plant species is key to assessing the responses of the dynamics of plant populations with regard to environmental disturbances, such as wildfires. In this work, we evaluated the changes in the number of indivi...

Nature-Based Solutions for Integrated Water Resources Management (NbS-IWRM) involve natural, or nature-mimicking, processes used to improve water availability in quantity and quality sustainably, reduce the risks of water-related disasters, enhance adaptation to climate change and increase both biodiversity and the social-ecological system's resili...

During the last decades, remote sensing has changed the way humans observe and understand the Earth system. The repeated and increasingly detailed observations made from satelliteSatellite platforms and other remote sensing procedures have revolutionized research, particularly in the atmospheric and oceanographic sciences but also in the biophysica...

The spatial mapping of social-ecological system (SES) archetypes constitutes a fundamental tool to operationalize the SES concept in empirical research. Approaches to detect, map, and characterize SES archetypes have evolved over the last decade towards more integrative and comparable perspectives guided by SES conceptual frameworks and reference l...

Water availability controls the functioning of dryland ecosystems, driving a patchy vegetation distribution, unequal nutrient availability, soil respiration in pulses, and limited productivity. Groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are acknowledged to be decoupled from precipitation, since their vegetation relies on groundwater sources. Despite t...

Significance Statement Reconciling nature conservation and cultural ecosystem services (CES) has become fundamental to manage mountain protected areas. The timely monitoring of CES opportunities at large scales is therefore a pressing need. We combined social media data and Earth observations (EO) into a multi model inference framework to assess CE...

This study implements the ecosystem service framework to link the concepts of farming activity and ecosystem restoration within the circular economy. It proposes a method for identifying social indicators of ecosystem restoration that can be taken into account in the transition towards more circular and sustainable agricultural systems. Using a cas...

Archetype analysis is a key tool in landscape and sustainability research to organize social-ecological complexity and to identify social-ecological systems (SESs). While inductive archetype analysis can characterize the diversity of SESs within a region, deductively derived archetypes have greater interpretative power to compare across regions. He...

Large-scale ecological variations across Earth have important consequences for biodiversity and, therefore, forbiological conservation. Despite the widespread use of ecological maps in conservation schemes, they have been based mainly on structural and compositional features but scarcely on functional dimensions of life. Incorporating functional va...

Conservation Biology faces the challenge of safeguarding the ecosystem functions and ecological processes (water cycle, nutrients, energy flow, and community dynamics) that sustain the multiple facets of biodiversity. Characterization and evaluation of these processes and functions can be carried out through functional attributes or traits related...

Water is the main limiting factor for groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) in drylands. Predicted climate change (precipitation reductions and temperature increases) and anthropogenic activities such as groundwater drawdown jeopardise the functioning of these ecosystems, presenting new challenges for their management. We developed a trait-based...

conocimiento actual de los páramos andinos, a fin de conocer el panorama existente para la gestión ambiental y servicios ecosistémicos, analizando su conservación, posibles cambios frente al cambio climático y actividades antrópicas que tienen lugar o amenazan su integridad, resiliencia y funcionamiento; centrando el tema de estudio en la ecología,...

conocimiento actual de los páramos andinos, a fin de conocer el panorama existente para la gestión ambiental y servicios ecosistémicos, analizando su conservación, posibles cambios frente al cambio climático y actividades antrópicas que tienen lugar o amenazan su integridad, resiliencia y funcionamiento; centrando el tema de estudio en la ecología,...

The variation of plant functional traits, from the cell to the whole-plant level, is a central question in trait-based ecology with regard to understanding ecological strategies and adaptations that result from environmental drivers. Here, we analyzed whole-plant and leaf traits of the phreatophyte Ziziphus lotus (L.) Lam., a long-lived shrub that...

Datos sobre la vegetación de DESIERTO DE TABERNAS, KARST EN YESOS DE SORBAS y CABO DE GATA

Water is the most limiting factor in dryland ecosystems, and plants are adapted to cope with this constraint. Particularly vulnerable are phreatophytic plants from groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) in regions that have to face water regime alterations due to the impacts of climate and land-use changes. We investigated two aspects related to t...

Water is the main limiting factor for groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) in drylands. Predicted climate change (precipitation reductions and temperature increases) and anthropogenic activities such as groundwater drawdown jeopardize the structure and functioning of these ecosystems, presenting new challenges for their management. We developed...

Vegetation generally appears scattered in drylands. Its structure, composition and spatial patterns are key controls of biotic interactions, water, and nutrient cycles. Applying segmentation methods to very high-resolution images for monitoring changes in vegetation cover can provide relevant information for dryland conservation ecology. For this r...

El hábitat prioritario 5220 dominado por Ziziphus lotus ha experimentado en las últimas décadas en España un gran retroceso de su área de distribución y un grave deterioro de su funcionamiento. A pesar del conocimiento generado por parte de los investigadores para su puesta en valor, gestión y conservación, éste difícilmente permea en el ámbito de...

Conservation easements are the fastest growing private conservation strategy in the United States. However, mechanisms to assess private land conservation as well as their support by the general public are not well understood. This study uses the ecosystem services framework for assessing existing private lands in Idaho and identifies areas for fut...

Abstract. Conservation Biology faces the challenge of safeguarding the ecological processes that sustain biodiversity. Characterization and evaluation of these processes can be carried out through attributes or functional traits related to the exchanges of matter and energy between vegetation and the atmosphere. Nowadays, the use of satellite image...

Accurate tree cover mapping is of paramount importance in many fields, from biodiversity conservation to carbon stock estimation, ecohydrology, erosion control, or Earth system modelling. Despite this importance, there is still uncertainty about global forest cover, particularly in drylands. Recently, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the Un...

In this report we show 2 different cases in which Remote Sensing can help Precision Farming techniques to optimize and improve profits in the agricultural sector. First, we’ll show a practical case in an olive trees field and second an example of how to monitor a greenhouse crop with aerial images and deep learning techniques.

Climate change and human actions condition the spatial distribution and structure of vegetation, especially in drylands. In this context, object-based image analysis (OBIA) has been used to monitor changes in vegetation, but only a few studies have related them to anthropic pressure. In this study, we assessed changes in cover, number, and shape of...

Globally, current food consumption and trade are placing unprecedented demand on agricultural systems and increasing pressure on natural resources, requiring tradeo↵s between food security and environmental impacts especially given the tension between market-driven agriculture and agro-ecological goals. In order to illustrate the wicked social, eco...

Social learning (SL) appears to have considerable potential to enhance the impact of the ecosystem services approach (ESA) discourse on policy and society. However, empirical research to better understand the processes that support SL, the effects it generates, and the conditions that enable such learning is limited. This study assesses the ability...

La Biología de la Conservación se enfrenta al desafío de salvaguardar los procesos ecológicos que sustentan la biodiversidad. Este capítulo caracteriza los patrones de funcionamiento de los ecosistemas de Sierra Nevada, proporcionando además la primera caracterización de la diversidad funcional a nivel de ecosistema realizada en Sierra Nevada. Para...

Biodiversity has a spatial basis, this is the reason why a geographical basis at a detailed scale is absolutely essential for this study. In the case of the study of gypsophily (i.e., the link between plants and gypsum soils) at a global scale, a cartography of gypsum outcrops worldwide is essential. In order to compile information on gypsum outcro...

Las perspectivas de conservación de la biodiversidad han evolucionado desde puntos de vista centrados en las especies y los ecosistemas prístinos, hacia enfoques que reconocen la complejidad de las relaciones entre los humanos y la naturaleza. Ello ha llevado a la generación de conflictos y debates que deben ser resueltos para poner en marcha polít...

With an overarching goal of addressing global and regional sustainability challenges, Long TermSocio-Ecological Research Platforms (LTSER) aim to conduct place-based research, to collect and synthesize both environmental and socio-economic data, and to involve a broader stakeholder pool to set the research agenda. To date there have been few studie...

Monitoring temporal trends in ecosystem functioning of protected areas (PAs) provides important knowledge of local and regional ecological responses to both environmental and anthropogenic drivers of change. Understanding such changes constitute a great global effort to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. We characterized the inter-annual...

The identification and location of groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are the first steps in protecting and managing them. Such identifications are challenging where the surface expressions of groundwater are not obvious. This work presents a remote sensing-based approach to infer the groundwater dependence of semi-arid shrubs from their assoc...

Understanding how to improve decision makers' use of scientific information across their different scales of management is a core challenge for narrowing the gap between science and conservation practice. Here, we present a study conducted in collaboration with decision makers that aims to explore the functionality of the mechanisms for scientific...

There is a growing demand for accurate high-resolution land cover maps in many fields, e.g., in land-use planning and biodiversity conservation. Developing such maps has been traditionally performed using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) methods, which usually reach good accuracies, but require a high human supervision and the best configuration...

There is a growing demand for accurate high-resolution land cover maps in many fields, e.g., in land-use planning and biodiversity conservation. Developing such maps has been performed using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) methods, which usually reach good accuracies, but require a high human supervision and the best configuration for one image...

As climate change is expected to have a significant impact on species distributions, there is an urgent challenge to provide reliable information to guide conservation biodiversity policies. In addressing this challenge, we propose a remote sensing-based approach to forecast the future habitat quality for European badger, a species not abundant and...

Differences of intensity and Hellinger distance. Normalized differences of intensity and Hellinger distance forecasted by Climate-models and EVI-models. (DOCX)

GLMs for EVI-derived variables. Summary of the GLMs for EVIMEAN and EVICV variables. (DOCX)

Land cover-land use change maps. Simulated land cover and land use change scenarios. (DOCX)

Spatial distribution predicted for the European badger by the global model. Global model predictions and specificity of EVI-models. (DOCX)

In the 1950s two Agave species, henequen (A. fourcroydes Lem.) and sisal (A. sisalana Perr.), were planted in the Parque Natural Cabo de Gata-Níjar (Almería, Spain) to produce fibers. At present, both species continue growing in this area, invading protected ecosystems. Although sterile, their mechanisms of vegetative reproduction (bulbils from sca...

As climate change is expected to have a significant impact on species distributions, there is an urgent challenge to provide reliable information to guide conservation biodiversity policies. In addressing this challenge, we propose a novel remote sensing-based approach to forecast the future habitat quality for European badger, a species not abunda...

Challenges that humanity face in the Anthropocene require new conceptual frameworks to better understand the linkages and feedbacks between society and nature. The ecosystem services framework constitutes a powerful approach for understanding human dependence on both natural and societal capital. Currently, new operational frameworks are needed for...

Rainfall is the main limiting factor of the primary production in most of the drylands regions around the world. However, in areas dominated by phreatophytic vegetation this constraint cannot be direct. This vegetation had deep roots and is able to use groundwater, showing higher productivity than expected, particularly during the driest season of...