Miguel N. Bugalho

• Professor
• Principal Investigator at University of Lisbon

The genus Quercus holds significant ecological and economic value in the Northern Hemisphere Mediterranean- type climate (MTC) regions. However, Quercus species and ecosystems are threatened by decline. Despite the importance of this genus, a comprehensive analysis of the causes of oak decline across these regions is still lacking. This study ma...

Forest ecosystems of the genus Quercus, which is one of the most widespread genera in the Mediterranean-type climate (MTC) regions of the Northern Hemisphere, have been affected by a worrying decline. However, a systematic review synthesizing the causal factors of this phenomenon in these regions, contributing to a better understanding of the probl...

Understory woody plants are increasing in open Mediterranean oak open woodlands as a result of a number of factors, including land abandonment and/or less active management. This change in vegetation cover has many implications—such as increased fire hazard, changes in plant and animal biodiversity, reduced ability of oak trees to regenerate, and a...

Global change is associated with variable shifts in the annual production of aboveground plant biomass, suggesting localized sensitivities with unclear causal origins. Combining remotely sensed normalized difference vegetation index data since the 1980s with contemporary field data from 84 grasslands on 6 continents, we show a widening divergence i...

Forbs (“wildflowers”) are important contributors to grassland biodiversity and services, but they are vulnerable to environmental changes that affect their coexistence with grasses. In a factorial experiment at 94 sites on 6 continents, we tested the global generality of several broad predictions arising from previous studies: (1) Forb cover and ri...

Forest certification is a voluntary conservation tool that aims to promote sustainable forest management. While research on forest certification has increased recently, there remains a significant gap in understanding how and to what extent certification can promote forest conservation. Mediterranean cork oak open woodlands are ecosystems of high c...

The frequency of severe wildfires is on the rise in the Mediterranean Basin as a result of climate change and land abandonment. Recurrent wildfires may retard or impede ecosystem recovery, frequently requiring the implementation of restoration practices. In that context, a post‐fire deer exclusion experiment was conducted in a Mediterranean mixed f...

Livestock grazing occupies over a quarter of terrestrial land and is prevalent to agroforestry ecosystems, potentially affecting the survival, growth, and density of trees' early developmental stages, such as seeds, seedlings, and saplings. To address the effects of livestock on tree recruitment in the face of ongoing debates about their impacts, w...

Cork oak woodlands are socio-ecosystems recognized as biodiversity hotspots, a fundamental economic source for companies and local communities as well as an identitarian landscape for residents and visitors. Cork oak woodlands, however, are facing tree mortality and lack of regeneration. Considering the oak decline scenario, we present Iberian cork...

Previous research has shown that products labeled as ‘Protected Designation of Origin’ (PDO) correlate positively with indicators for landscape sustainability. However, specific factors that turn PDO products into sustainable landscape management tools remain vague. We analyze interviews from six European production systems to explore the links bet...

Climate change is increasing the frequency of droughts and the risk of severe wildfires, which can interact with shrub encroachment and browsing by wild ungulates. Wild ungulate populations are expanding due, among other factors, to favorable habitat changes resulting from land abandonment or land‐use changes. Understanding how ungulate browsing in...

Plant diversity decline under nutrient addition in local grassland communities is typically ascribed to the loss of rare species, species with particular traits ill-suited for high nutrient levels, and displacement of many localized species with a few widespread species. Whether these changes result in stronger diversity decline and vegetation homo...

Abstract Livestock grazing occupies over a quarter of terrestrial land and is prevalent to agroforestry ecosystems, potentially affecting the survival, growth, and density of trees' early developmental stages, such as seeds, seedlings, and saplings. To address the effects of livestock on tree recruitment in the face of ongoing debates about their i...

Covering approximately 40% of land surfaces, grasslands provide critical ecosystem services that rely on soil organisms. However, the global determinants of soil biodiversity and functioning remain underexplored. In this study, we investigate the drivers of soil microbial and detritivore activity in grasslands across a wide range of climatic condit...

Novel landscape-scale models such as those developed by New Generation Plantations can integrate planted forests and other land uses to increase local support, economic returns and raw material supply and improve biodiversity conservation. New modes of multi-stakeholder governance are needed to institute such integrated landscape approaches. Achie...

FAO’s most recent global synthesis on planted forests was released in 2009 and the last Unasylva on planted forests was published in 2005. Developed together with a coalition of external partners, including the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) task force on planted forests and the TreeDivNet network, Issue 254 hereby res...

Little is currently known about how climate modulates the relationship between plant diversity and soil organic carbon and the mechanisms involved. Yet, this knowledge is of crucial importance in times of climate change and biodiversity loss. Here, we show that plant diversity is positively correlated with soil carbon content and soil carbon-to-nit...

Masting, the synchronized production of variable quantities of seeds, is a global phenomenon in diverse ecosystems, including treed grazing systems where trees and grazing animals coexist. This phenomenon can be interspersed with years of extreme crop failure, whose frequency and unpredictability are increasing. Yet, the combined impact of crop fai...

Eutrophication usually impacts grassland biodiversity, community composition, and biomass production, but its impact on the stability of these community aspects is unclear. One challenge is that stability has many facets that can be tightly correlated (low dimensionality) or highly disparate (high dimensionality). Using standardized experiments in...

Dominance often indicates one or a few species being best suited for resource capture and retention in a given environment. Press perturbations that change availability of limiting resources can restructure competitive hierarchies, allowing new species to capture or retain resources and leaving once dominant species fated to decline. However, domin...

Plant–ungulate interactions are critical in shaping the structure of Mediterranean plant communities. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of knowledge on how plant intrinsic and extrinsic factors mediate the sign and strength of plant–ungulate interactions. This is most relevant when addressing natural or assisted restoration of plant communities in hu...

Human activities are altering ecological communities around the globe. Understanding the implications of these changes requires that we consider the composition of those communities. However, composition can be summarized by many metrics which in turn are influenced by different ecological processes. For example, incidence-based metrics strongly re...

Background and aims A synergistic response of aboveground plant biomass production to combined nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) addition has been observed in many ecosystems, but the underlying mechanisms and their relative importance are not well known. We aimed at evaluating several mechanisms that could potentially cause the synergistic growth re...

Mediterranean ecosystems are threatened by climate change and shrub encroachment. An increase in shrub cover can intensify the competition for water, aggravating the impacts of drought on ecosystem functioning. The effects of shrubs can be positive or negative, depending on the shrub species and density. We used a Mediterranean cork oak (Quercus su...

Eutrophication usually impacts biodiversity, species composition, and functioning of grassland communities. Whether such effects propagate to influence the stability of these community aspects is unknown. Using standardized experiments across 55 global grasslands, we quantified the effects of nutrient addition on five stability facets (i.e., tempor...

Masting, the synchronized production of variable quantities of seeds, is a global phenomenon in diverse ecosystems, including treed grazing systems where trees and grazing animals coexist. This phenomenon can be interspersed with years of extreme crop failure, whose frequency and unpredictability are increasing. Yet, the combined impact of crop fai...

Background and aims: A synergistic response of aboveground plant biomass production to combined nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) addition has been observed in many ecosystems, but the underlying mechanisms and their relative importance are not well known. We aimed at evaluating several mechanisms that could potentially cause the synergistic growth r...

Ecological models predict that the effects of mammalian herbivore exclusion on plant diversity depend on resource availability and plant exposure to ungulate grazing over evolutionary time. Using an experiment replicated in 57 grasslands on six continents, with contrasting evolutionary history of grazing, we tested how resources (mean annual precip...

Background and aims The amount of nitrogen (N) derived from symbiotic N2 fixation by legumes in grasslands might be affected by anthropogenic N and phosphorus (P) inputs, but the underlying mechanisms are not known. Methods We evaluated symbiotic N2 fixation in 17 natural and semi-natural grasslands on four continents that are subjected to the sam...

The Geographical Indications (GIs) scheme is the EU's primary policy tool for increasing the market values of geographically distinct food products. Although GIs are linked to the landscapes of food production, little is known about the social-ecological values they represent, mainly due to a lack of spatial data. In this study, we, therefore, mapp...

Mediterranean-climate oak woodlands, including those in North America and in the Mediterranean basin, are human-shaped ecosystems with high biodiversity value, which generate different ecosystem services, including grazing resources for livestock production. Low oak recruitment rates, however, are affecting the ecological sustainability of these ec...

Background and aims: The amount of nitrogen (N) derived from symbiotic N2 fixation by legumes in grasslands might be affected by anthropogenic N and phosphorus (P) inputs, but the underlying mechanisms are not known. Methods: We evaluated symbiotic N2 fixation in 17 grasslands on four continents that are subjected to the same full-factorial N and P...

Nutrients and herbivores are well-known drivers of grassland diversity and stability in local communities. However, whether they interact to impact the stability of aboveground biomass and whether these effects depend on spatial scales remain unknown. It is also unclear whether nutrients and herbivores impact stability via different facets of plant...

Forest certification is a conservation tool, which aims to promote the sustainable management and conservation of forest ecosystems. Establishing set-aside or lower intervention conservation zones to promote biodiversity conservation is a requisite of forest certification. We tested the effects of conservation zones on the tree bio-metrics and rege...

Nutrient enrichment can simultaneously increase and destabilise plant biomass production, with co-limitation by multiple nutrients potentially intensifying these effects. Here, we test how factorial additions of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium with essential nutrients (K+) affect the stability (mean/standard deviation) of aboveground bio...

Abstract Biotic and abiotic factors interact with dominant plants—the locally most frequent or with the largest coverage—and nondominant plants differently, partially because dominant plants modify the environment where nondominant plants grow. For instance, if dominant plants compete strongly, they will deplete most resources, forcing nondominant...

Although forest areas have been growing in Europe, some forest types have been declining regionally. Since the 1980 s, there have been reports of defoliation and mortality in evergreen oak woodlands of the Iberian Peninsula. However, long-term and large-scale trends of Iberian oak decline are still poorly understood. We quantified trends in canopy...

Plant damage by invertebrate herbivores and pathogens influences the dynamics of grassland ecosystems, but anthropogenic changes in nitrogen and phosphorus availability can modify these relationships. Using a globally distributed experiment, we describe leaf damage on 153 plant taxa from 27 grasslands worldwide, under ambient conditions and with ex...

The effects of altered nutrient supplies and herbivore density on species diversity vary with spatial scale, because coexistence mechanisms are scale dependent. This scale dependence may alter the shape of the species–area relationship (SAR), which can be described by changes in species richness (S) as a power function of the sample area (A): S = c...

Dominant and non-dominant plants could be subject to different biotic and abiotic influences, partially because dominant plants modify the environment where non-dominant plants grow, causing an interaction asymmetry. Among other possibilities, if dominant plants compete strongly, they should deplete most resources forcing non-dominant plants into a...

Nutrients and herbivores have independent effects on the temporal stability of aboveground biomass in grasslands; however, their joint effects may not be additive and may also depend on spatial scales. In an experiment adding nutrients and excluding herbivores in 34 globally distributed grasslands, we found that nutrients and herbivores mainly had...

Interannual variability in grassland primary production is strongly driven by precipitation, nutrient availability and herbivory, but there is no general consensus on the mechanisms linking these variables. If grassland biomass is limited by the single most limiting resource at a given time, then we expect that nutrient addition will not affect bio...

Sustainable forest management needs to address biodiversity conservation concerns. For that purpose, forest managers need models and indicators that may help evaluate the impact of management options on biodiversity under the uncertainty of climate change scenarios. In this research we explore the potential for designing mosaics of stand-level fore...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-20997-9.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-20985-z.

World forests hold 80% of the terrestrial biodiversity, providing critical ecosystem services. Sustainable forest management is essential for promoting environmental and socio-economic forest values, for present and future generations. Forest certification is a voluntary third-party audited tool, under which forest managers commit to responsible fo...

Human activities are transforming grassland biomass via changing climate, elemental nutrients, and herbivory. Theory predicts that food-limited herbivores will consume any additional biomass stimulated by nutrient inputs (‘consumer-controlled’). Alternatively, nutrient supply is predicted to increase biomass where herbivores alter community composi...

Eutrophication is a widespread environmental change that usually reduces the stabilizing effect of plant diversity on productivity in local communities. Whether this effect is scale dependent remains to be elucidated. Here, we determine the relationship between plant diversity and temporal stability of productivity for 243 plant communities from 42...

Europe's forests provide vital habitat for biodiversity and essential ecosystem services whose provision must be sustained or enhanced over the coming century. However, the potential to secure or increase forest ecosystem services, while securing the habitat requirements of taxa remains unclear, especially within the context of uncertain climate an...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Ungulates are key elements that modulate the type and direction of ecosystem services in Mediterranean environments. Our main objective is to synthesize the provision of ecosystem services in forests, shrublands and woodlands dominated by ungulates (wildlife or livestock) in Mediterranean environments. To achieve this objective, we performed a syst...

Including biodiversity assessments in forest management planning is becoming increasingly important due to the importance of biodiversity for forest ecosystem resilience provision and sustainable functioning. Here we investigated the potential to include biodiversity indicators into forest management planning in Europe. In particular, we aimed to (...

The poster illustrates the diverse array of high quality research related to climate change that CEABN has developed for the past years, within its main research areas.

Questions: What are the effects of time since prescribed burning on plant species composition and diversity of a mosaic of Natura 2000 shrub-grassland habitat types? Is it possible to use prescribed burning to reduce fire hazard and simultaneously maintain conservation status in such habitat types? Location: Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, Portugal...

Social‐ecological contexts are key to the success of ecological restoration projects. The ecological quality of restoration efforts, however, may not be fully evident to stakeholders, particularly if the desired aesthetic experience is not delivered. Aesthetically pleasing landscapes are more highly appreciated and tend to be better protected than...

Sustainable forest management is driving the development of forest decision support systems (DSSs) to include models and methods concerned with climate change, biodiversity and various ecosystem services (ESs). The future development of forest landscapes is very much dependent on how forest owners act and what goes on in the wider world; thus, mode...

Effects of forest certification on shrub and grassland diversity of cork oak woodlands The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is the dominant forest certification scheme applied to cork oak (Quercus suber) woodlands in Portugal. Certified estates are required to have conservation zones for biodiversity conservation, where livestock grazing, a common...

The Natura 2000 network is crucial to conserve biodiversity in the European Union and provides hotspots for certain ecosystem services. Grazing, a common land use in different Natura 2000 habitat types, may contribute to the maintenance of protected plant communities and reduce fuel loads and wildfire hazard. Our study aims to assess the effects of...

Leaf traits are frequently measured in ecology to provide a ‘common currency’ for predicting how anthropogenic pressures impact ecosystem function. Here, we test whether leaf traits consistently respond to experimental treatments across 27 globally distributed grassland sites across 4 continents. We find that specific leaf area (leaf area per unit...

Science-based sustainable management of agroforestry and silvopastoral systems is essential for their maintenance in a changing world. Using bibliometric and network analyses, we characterized how research is addressing the ecological and socio-economic dimensions of sustainable management of cork oak (Quercus suber) silvo pastoral systems, Mediter...

Ungulates influence ecosystem services in important ways, including by altering the amount of standing plant biomass and species composition. Browsing, for example, removes biomass and, in consequence, can decrease the risk of wildfires. The influence of ungulates on carbon storage is more complicated. Browsers reduce carbon stocks directly by cons...

Anthropogenic activities are increasing nutrient availability and altering precipitation regimes. This may lead to critical changes in grasslands functioning. This is particularly important for grasslands in the Mediterranean Basin that have evolved in nutrient poor soils, and where more frequent and prolonged droughts are projected to occur. Howev...

Cork (Quercus suber) and holm (Q. ilex) oak woodlands are silvo-pastoral systems, typical of South-West Iberian Peninsula, commonly named montados or dehesas. They are characterized by an open structure of oak trees, sometimes mixed with other tree species, and a diversified understory of shrubs and grasslands. These human shaped systems have high...

Climate change will impact forest ecosystems, their biodiversity and the livelihoods they sustain. Several adaptation and mitigation strategies to counteract climate change impacts have been proposed for these ecosystems. However, effective implementation of such strategies requires a clear understanding of how climate change will influence the fut...

Numa área do Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais, sujeita a um Plano de Fogo Controlado desde 2010, avaliou-se o efeito da técnica de gestão de combustíveis, tanto na biomassa e comportamento potencial do fogo, como na diversidade florística e no estado de conservação dos tipos de habitat da Rede Natura 2000.

Positive relationships between biodiversity and urban ecosystem services (UES) are widely implied within both the scientific and policy literatures, along with the tacit suggestion that enhancing urban green infrastructure will automatically improve both biodiversity and UES. However, it is unclear how much published empirical evidence exists to su...

The sum of fruit and seed predation by multiple species may strongly affect plant reproduction and population dynamics. We evaluated the combined effects of ungulates, seed-eating rodents and insect pre-dispersal seed predators on the reproductive success of the Mediterranean gum cistus shrub (Cistus ladanifer), over two consecutive years within a...

Global change is affecting ecosystems worldwide. Nitrogen (N) deposition is increasing globally and climate change scenarios forecast an increase of prolonged autumn droughts particularly in the Mediterranean regions. Mediterranean grasslands occupy 1.3 million km² of the terrestrial surface, host high biodiversity values and generate important eco...

Plant-animal interactions imply costs and benefits with net balance depending on interacting species and ecological context. Ungulates, in particular, confer costs (e.g., plant leaf consumption, flower bud predation) and benefits (e.g., plant overcompensation, seed dispersal) to plants. Magnitude of costs and benefits may be altered by habitat mana...

Mediterranean oak woodlands are ecosystems of high conservation and socio-economic value that occur in Southwestern Europe, North Africa and California. Oak regeneration failure is occurring in these ecosystems and may be endangering their long-term conservation. Most studies suggest that inadequate management practices may be contributing to oak r...

Extreme drought events and plant invasions are major drivers of global change that can critically affect ecosystem functioning and alter ecosystem-atmosphere exchange. Invaders are expanding worldwide and extreme drought events are projected to increase in frequency and intensity. However, very little is known on how these drivers may interact to a...

Despite the resilience of Mediterranean ecosystems to fire, the ecological restoration of burned plant communities can be hindered by ungulate herbivores, particularly in areas with high population densities. This study compares the post-fire development of a shrub community with and without deer, after a wildfire occurred in 2003 in a protected ar...

Montados are silvo-pastoral systems, typical of the western Mediterranean Basin. When well managed, these ecosystems provide relevant ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. In the northern part of the Mediterranean Basin, cork oak areas are mainly privately owned and a source of income to landowners, chiefly through cork and livestock pr...

Evaluating the effectiveness of conservation funding is crucial for correct allocation of limited resources. Here we used bird monitoring data to assess the effects of long-term conservation investment in a Natura 2000 (N2000) bird protection area (PA), which during two decades benefited from protection regulations, conservation projects, and agri-...

Forest certification, a proxy for sustainable forest management, covers more than 10% of the world's forests. Under forest certification, forest managers and landowners must comply with environmental, economic and social management standards aiming to promote forest conservation. Despite an increasing area of certified forests, there is a dearth of...

Background and Objectives Shrub encroachment into grass-dominated ecosystems is occurring globally and particularly in arid and semi-arid ecosystems (Van Auken 2000). Anthropogenic activities, such as changes in land use (eg land abandonment), are key determinants in the encroachment process (Bugalho et al 2011). These changes are particularly imp...

Understanding the factors driving changes in farm management is needed for designing policies and subsidy schemes to protect High Nature Value Farmland (HNVF). We describe farming system dynamics in HNVF of southern Portugal, between 2000–2002 and 2008–2010, encompassing a period of major policy transformations introduced by the reform of the Commo...