Wildfires shape the composition and functioning of Mediterranean ecosystems, but we do not know how these ecosystems respond to both the higher fire recurrence and shorter recovery times expected for future climatic scenarios. We sampled 29 plots with different fire recurrences (from 0 to 4 fires over the past decades) and time since the last fire (up to 35 years; hereafter TSLF) in Southeast Spain, to assess the effect of fire recurrence and TSLF on 25 ecosystem attributes, five related ecosystem services (biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, disturbance regulation, food production, and supporting services), plus the synergies and trade-offs between them. High fire recurrence (number of fires) and TSLF interacted to determine ecosystem services but did not affect the synergies and trade-offs between them. Fire recurrence reduced many ecosystem functions and ecosystem multifunctionality. However, this effect dampened, and even became positive, for biodiversity conservation and food production services provided enough (> 20 years) time to recover. The combined effects of fire recurrence and TSLF, however, reduced carbon sequestration and had no overall effects on supporting services. Disturbance regulation, in turn, diminished drastically with the first fire, with no effect of further fires or their interaction with TSLF. Our results show which ecosystem services will suffer more from an increase in fire recurrence, and where restoration and management efforts should focus to maximize the provision of those services more demanded by stakeholders.

Algeria, the main fire hotspot on the southern rim of the Mediterranean Basin, lacks a complete fire dataset with official fire perimeters, and the existing one contains inconsistencies. Preprocessed global and regional burned area (BA) products provide valuable insights into fire patterns, characteristics, and dynamics over time and space, and into their impact on climate change. Nevertheless, they exhibit certain limitations linked with their inherent spatio-temporal resolutions as well as temporal and geographical coverage. To address the need for reliable BA information in Algeria, we systematically reconstructed, validated, and analyzed a 40-year (1984–2023) BA product (NEALGEBA; North Eastern ALGeria Burned Area) at 30 m spatial resolution in the typical Mediterranean ecosystems of this region, following international standards. We used Landsat data and the BA Mapping Tools (BAMTs) in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) to map BAs. The spatial validation of NEALGEBA, performed for 2017 and 2021 using independent 10 m spatial resolution Sentinel-2 reference data, showed overall accuracies > 98.10%; commission and omission errors < 8.20%; Dice coefficients > 91.90%; and relative biases < 3.44%. The temporal validation, however, using MODIS and VIIRS active fire hotspots, emphasized the limitation of Landsat-based BA products in temporal fire reporting accuracy terms. The intercomparison with five readily available BA products for 2017, by using the same validation process, demonstrated the overall outperformance of NEALGEBA. Furthermore, our BA product exhibited the highest correspondence with the ground-based BA estimates. NEALGEBA currently represents the most continuous and reliable time series of BA history at fine spatial resolution for NE Algeria, offering a significant contribution to further national and international fire hazard and impact assessments and acts as a reference dataset for contextualizing future weather extremes, such as the 2023 exceptional heat wave, which we show not to have led to the most extreme fire year over the last four decades.

Mediterranean landscapes are increasingly threatened by more severe and larger wildfires. Burned ecosystems often regenerate as extremely dense (overstocked) tree stands or shrublands dominated by seeder species, both with a limited ability to promote ecosystem services, and sensitive to further wildfires. Several management techniques can redirect post-fire ecosystems toward less vulnerable and more functional communities, but we do not yet know their long-term effects or which among them could serve to foster more resilient and multifunctional landscapes. We evaluated how combining various management strategies, at landscape scales, regulates multiple ecosystem assets such as biodiversity, carbon sequestration, food production, disturbance regulation, and supporting services, as well as overall ecosystem multifunctionality. We focused on post-fire management of the two dominant ecosystems that emerge after Pinus halepensis forests burn (overstocked pine forest and dense shrublands). We considered planting resprouting species combined with tree thinning (in overstocked pine forests), clearing, and prescribed burns (in dense shrublands), comparing their medium to long-term (>10 years) consequences to unmanaged and unburned ecosystems. We also simulated mixed landscapes by combining different plots to identify which combinations of ecosystems and post-fire management types most effectively enhance landscape-scale multifunctionality and the supply of individual ecosystem services. Reducing vegetation density by thinning and clearing combined with plantation of resprouting species enhances ecosystem attributes associated with biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, disturbance regulation, and multifunctionality. Combining the latter with punctual prescribed burning would establish more functional landscapes that maximize the provision of ecosystem services. Repeated prescribed burnings alone or passive restoration are unlikely to provide long-term benefits for landscape multifunctionality. Our study provides new insights to help restore burned Mediterranean ecosystems towards less vulnerable and more functional landscapes.

Algeria, the main fire hotspot on the southern rim of the Mediterranean Basin, lacks complete fire dataset with official fire perimeters, and the existing one contains inconsistencies. Preprocessed global and regional burned area (BA) products provide valuable insights into fire patterns, characteristics and dynamics over time and space, and into their impact on climate change. Nevertheless, they exhibit certain limitations linked with their inherent spatio-temporal resolutions. To address the need for reliable BA information in Algeria, we systematically reconstructed, validated and analyzed a 40-year (1984–2023) BA product (NEALGEBA; North Eastern ALGeria Burned Area) at 30-m spatial resolution in the typical Mediterranean Ecosystems of this region, following international standards. We used Landsat data and the BA Mapping Tools (BAMTs) in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) to map BAs. The spatial validation of NEALGEBA, performed for 2017 and 2021 using independent 10-m spatial resolution Sentinel-2 reference data, showed overall accuracies > 98.10 %; commission and omission errors < 8.20 %; Dice coefficients > 91.90 %, and relative biases < 3.44 %. The temporal validation, however, using MODIS and VIIRS active fire hotspots, emphasized the limitation of Landsat-based BA products in temporal fire reporting accuracy terms. The intercomparison with five readily available BA products for 2017, by using the same validation process, demonstrated the overall outperformance of NEALGEBA. Furthermore, our BA product exhibited the highest correspondence with the ground-based BA estimates. NEALGEBA currently represents the most extensive and reliable time series of BA history at fine spatial resolution for NE Algeria, offering a significant contribution for further national and international fire hazard and impact assessments and acts as a reference dataset for contextualizing future weather extremes, such as the 2023 exceptional heat wave, which we show not to have led to the most extreme fire year over the last four decades.

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are key pollinators in agricultural ecosystems that face increasing pressure from pathogens and environmental change. However, how these environmental factors interact remains incompletely understood. To assess associations between climate, landscape composition, and pathogen occurrence in real agroecosystems, we monitored honey bee colonies across 30 apiaries in southern Italy over two years, in summer and autumn. Molecular screening revealed widespread multi-pathogen exposure, with two viruses, Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV) and Deformed Wing Virus (DWV), and gut trypanosomatid parasite (Lotmaria passim) being the most frequently detected. In contrast, Nosema ceranae, along with Bee Macula-like Virus (BeeMLV) and Acute Bee Paralysis Virus (ABPV), occurred at lower but still notable frequencies. Infections were generally more frequent in adult foragers than in in-hive bees and larvae, and overall pathogen occurrence tended to be higher in summer than in autumn. Higher humidity was associated with higher overall pathogen occurrence and coinfection levels, whereas higher temperature showed a weaker association with these outcomes. Associations between landscape composition and pathogen occurrence differed across pathogens: a higher proportion of semi-natural habitats was associated with lower viral occurrence, particularly BQCV and DWV; however, N. ceranae was more frequently detected under the same landscape conditions. In contrast, L. passim showed context-dependent responses, with landscape effects emerging only through interactions with humidity and temperature. Pathogen coinfections were more occurrent under warm, humid conditions, although this pattern was partially buffered in landscapes richer in semi-natural habitats. Together, these results indicate that, within the studied apiaries, honey bee pathogen occurrence was associated with climate, season, and land use. These findings suggest that environmental context should be considered when interpreting honey bee health monitoring data in heterogeneous agricultural landscapes, with potential implications for apiary management.