Mangroves are one of the most important ecosystems especially due to the services they provide, but in contrast are one of the most threatened by human activities at a global level. In Ecuador, mangrove forests are currently fragile and threatened due to the great anthropic pressure, which has largely reduced the area they occupy. However, there is already evidence that certain actions are contributing both to their conservation and the recovery of the lost mangrove area. In this study, we assessed the multitemporal dynamics of changes in mangrove cover in four coastal provinces of the country over a period of 20 years (1998–2018) based on remote sensing data analyzed using GIS tools. Our results showed that the area affected by mangrove forest destruction reached its maximum during the 1998–2010 period, when 4.56% (194.57 km²) of the mangrove forest was lost. This situation especially affected the provinces of El Oro and Guayas. The main cause for the loss of mangrove cover was the expansion of shrimp farms, followed by agriculture and construction. However, a slight recovery of ~2.9% has been observed, although loss remains constant. Mangrove ecosystem conservation policies, mainly applied to zones within protected areas; the establishment of use and custody agreements and the halt of shrimp farm expansion; the development of mangrove forests on areas with sediment deposits; and natural mangrove recovery processes are key factors for mangrove restoration. These results suggest that it is possible to continue restoring mangrove cover and thus maintain some of the main ecosystem services they provide for the benefit of humans.

We present the first records of the Red-ruffed Fruitcrow, Pyroderus scutatus (Shaw, 1792), in the Cordillera del Cóndor of Ecuador and the first confirmed records of this species in the east of this country. These new records were made in October 2016 and February and September 2017 in the Blanco river basin in southeastern Ecuador. This place is 200 km and over 500 km from the nearest occurrences of this species in Peru and Ecuador, respectively. We can now confirm the presence of the subspecies P. s. masoni (Ridgway, 1886) in Ecuador.

Este estudio analizó los patrones de cambio de uso del suelo en Loja, Ecuador, entre 1990 y 2020 mediante matrices de transición y el marco metodológico de la intensidad de cambio. A partir de estas dinámicas espacio-temporales, se proyectó la expansión urbana hasta 2070 y se generaron escenarios alternativos. Para explicar las dinámicas actuales, el modelo Random Forest presentó el mejor desempeño (precisión: 90,72 %; Kappa: 0,852; desacuerdo en cantidad: 0,04; desacuerdo en ubicación: 0,17). En el escenario tendencial para 2070, la expansión urbana afectaría principalmente áreas agrícolas (93,6 %) y la vegetación natural (6,15 %), incluyendo aproximadamente el 17,2 % de las zonas de alto riesgo de deslizamientos. En escenarios climáticos futuros, esta expansión se concentraría en áreas con incrementos proyectados de temperatura y precipitación, lo que podría aumentar la vulnerabilidad a eventos extremos. Los resultados evidencian la utilidad de herramientas de acceso libre para modelar escenarios urbanos futuros en contextos con limitaciones de datos, así como la replicabilidad de la metodología en otras ciudades intermedias con desafíos similares, lo que contribuye al diseño de estrategias sostenibles de gestión territorial adaptadas a contextos locales.