In recent years, traditional olive groves have undergone a shift towards modern farming practices, raising concerns about their potential impact on local fauna. Despite the documented effects of various agricultural practices on wildlife, there is a notable gap in understanding the implications of pruning practices in traditional olive groves. This study presents a unique observation, the first documented adverse effect of pruning on an olive tree within a traditional grove in Lesvos, Greece, inhabited by Persian squirrels (Sciurus anomalus). Beyond immediate impacts, we conducted comprehensive measurements of both the pruned olive tree and the squirrel’s nest (den), along with an assessment of the entire grove. The findings highlight the need for ecologically informed olive grove management to sustain biodiversity in these historically significant environments.

This article describes a field- and laboratory-based framework that can be used to monitor the C balance in Mediterranean pine forest ecosystems under different management practices that determine their structure and function. By jointly monitoring stand structure, gas exchange, litter, and decomposition dynamics, this protocol enables the assessment of how management-driven changes regulate carbon uptake, turnover, and losses, thereby affecting carbon sequestration potential. As an example, we suggest the implementation of the protocol at ten (10) permanent monitoring plots across three study areas located in Greece. The first group of plots represents a post-fire chronosequence in pine stands with no management interventions. The second group includes pine stands that exhibit variation in overstory and understory density driven by differences in microclimate and management history. The third group consists of peri-urban pine stands subjected to thinning of varying intensity. The monitoring protocol is implemented across all plots and the collected data can be classified into three analytical domains: (a) demography, encompassing measurements of tree growth and mortality; (b) litter and decomposition dynamics, involving the quantification of litterfall and its seasonality and the estimation of its decomposition rates; and (c) gas exchange, focusing on measurements of leaf photosynthesis and respiration (including relevant leaf functional traits) and monitoring of soil respiration. These three data domains can be used to comparatively consider the effect of forest management on key ecosystem processes and to constrain local-scale vegetation dynamics models.