Pierre Leonhard Ibisch

Although natural infrastructure is crucial for conserving biodiversity, ensuring ecosystem resilience and adapting to climate change, its definition and spatial priorities are usually based solely on static land cover or indicators of ecosystem condition. We propose an integrated, remote sensing-based framework for quantifying restoration and conservation priorities for natural infrastructure that combines ecosystem functioning, temporal change, and spatial connectivity. We apply this framework to Germany. Ecosystem functioning is represented by the Green–Moist–Cool Index (GMCI), which incorporates late-summer vegetation greenness, hot-day land surface temperatures, and precipitation. Temporal dynamics were assessed using GMCI trends from 2021 to 2025. We also introduce Ecological Coreness, a new pixel-level connectivity metric that measures how functional landscapes are embedded within wider, connected ecological networks. Ecological Coreness is positively associated with vegetation greenness and precipitation and negatively associated with land surface temperature. This suggests that connected functional landscapes tend to be greener, wetter, and cooler. By integrating the GMCI, GMCI trends over the past five years and Ecological Coreness, we can identify priority classes ranging from landscapes with conservation potential to those that are critically damaged and require restoration. In Germany, a significant proportion of both protected and unprotected areas demonstrate reduced functionality and require restoration. Notably, a significant proportion of Natura 2000 areas are categorised as 'Very critical' or 'Critical' (Special Areas of Conservation: 25%; Special Protection Areas: 40%). The proposed framework provides a spatially explicit tool for planning conservation, restoration, and climate adaptation in the context of ongoing climate change.

Old forests that are protected can reduce climatic stress. Nevertheless, they are still affected by long-term warming and extreme weather events, and the question is to what extent. We studied environmental change in five German beech forest landscapes, all of which are part of UNESCO Natural World Heritage Sites and have been out of use since at least 1990. We compared protected core and buffer zones as well as surrounding landscapes using hot-day Land Surface Temperature (LSTHot), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVISep), climate data, canopy height and forest connectivity.LSTHot increased in all sites and zones, core zones were usually cooler and greener, but these differences were small compared with the overall warming trend. Forest connectivity declined in most sites, hot days generally increased, frost days declined, radiation tended to rise, and precipitation fluctuated strongly among years. The fluctuation of NDVISep reflects disturbances from heatwaves and droughts.The greener, higher elevated, and more connected landscapes were generally cooler, while greater thermal exposure and higher radiation were linked to higher LSTHot. The cooling effect was stronger when radiation was high, suggesting that green canopies were most effective when the potential for surface heating was greatest, likely through evapotranspirative cooling. The German UNESCO beech forests still act as relatively cool refuge areas, yet they are certainly not protected from the regional warming trend. Their future buffering capacity depends not only on continued protection of their core zones, but also on keeping surrounding landscapes as connected, forested, and ecologically functional as possible.

Urban heat has captured public attention, yet broader ‘heat landscapes’ remain less widely recognized, and the extent to which land surface temperature (LST) reflects ecosystem working capacity is less emphasized at national scales. We mapped thermal hotspots and functional landscapes across Germany using Landsat LST from hot days, end‐of‐summer vegetation greenness and precipitation. This was based on data from the years 2018 to 2024, which included the five warmest and driest summers in Germany since the beginning of meteorological records. We analysed drivers of thermal performance with correlation analyses and mixed‐effects models. We devised a green–moist–cool index (GMCI) that reflects the triad of ecosystem functionality. The results provide evidence that thermal regulation, vegetation cover, and moisture availability are tightly coupled, supporting ‘green–moist–cool’ as a fundamental ecological triad sustaining working landscapes. Forests were consistently the coolest environments (LST from hot days: ~27–28°C). The hottest land type was industrial sites (~34–35°C). Land cover explains ~17% of LST variance, with forests mainly effective at cooling, whereas built‐up areas and agriculture contribute to elevated LST. Vegetation greenness was the strongest predictor of rainfall (+297 mm per unit increase). LST has a strong negative effect (−4.05 mm per°C). Practical implications . Policy discourse on urban heat islands should shift to broader landscape systems. Degraded rural landscapes multiply climate risks for both ecosystems and human populations. Reforestation, regreening, and wetland restoration increase vegetation cover, which enhances energy capture (via photosynthesis), moisture, carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling. They also improve landscape connectivity and thermal buffering, stabilizing microclimates and increasing the system's ability to dissipate energy gradients—key aspects of thermodynamic work capacity. We recommend using a green–moist–cool index to communicate and monitor ecosystem functionality. This enables the quantification of progress in sustainable land development and the identification of priority areas for restoration and natural climate protection.

In recent years, wildfires have affected relatively large areas of managed forests in Central Europe. Often, forestry uses intensive post‐fire management practices, which can have negative effects on various components of the ecosystem. Fire ecology has been largely neglected in Central Europe and strategies for appropriate management and successful reforestation of burned areas are urgently needed. We have studied the effects of different post‐fire forest management treatments (including different levels of salvage logging and soil disturbances such as ploughing or raking) on soil parameters (phosphorus, nitrogen, calcium, potassium, magnesium, pH), microclimate (temperatures, vapour pressure deficit (VPD), heat and drought stress), deadwood, regrowth (biomass of tree regeneration, herb and bryophyte layer) and species richness (plants and saproxylic beetles) 3 years after wildfire in a Central European Scots pine forest (northeast Germany). Intensive forest management led to more unfavourable abiotic conditions, including stronger temperature extremes and elevated VPD. Consequently, vegetation on these sites experienced increased heat and drought stress and reduced nutrient availability. The biomass of the herb and bryophyte layer, as well as the species richness of plants and saproxylic beetles, was lower on completely salvage logged sites. Tree biomass recovered on all sites, including sites with intensive forest management. Tree regeneration in our study area was mainly driven by the recolonization of the pioneer species European aspen ( Populus tremula) , which can tolerate a wide range of site conditions. Synthesis and applications . We recommend avoiding intensive management on burned sites, such as complete salvage logging or ploughing, as this creates extreme site conditions that could inhibit the regeneration of more sensitive tree species and result in a long‐term legacy of degradation. In addition, herb and bryophyte layers, as well as the species richness of vegetation and saproxylic beetles, which are important components of forest ecosystems, are negatively affected by intense forest management.

Urban heat has captured public attention, yet broader “heat landscapes” remain less widely recognized, and the extent to which land surface temperature (LST) reflects ecosystem working capacity is less emphasized at national scales. Using Landsat LST from hot days and end-of-summer vegetation greenness, we mapped thermal hotspots and functional landscapes across Germany and analyzed drivers of thermal performance with correlation analyses and mixed-effects models. The results provide evidence that thermal regulation, vegetation cover, and moisture availability are tightly coupled, supporting “green–moist–cool” as a fundamental ecological triad sustaining working landscapes. Late-summer vegetation greenness emerged as the dominant predictor of lower LST, exerting a stronger cooling influence than precipitation or altitude. Land cover explains ~17% of LST variance, with forests particularly effective at cooling, whereas built-up areas and agriculture contribute to elevated LST. Vegetation greenness was the strongest predictor of rainfall (+297 mm per unit increase). LST has a strong negative effect (–4.05 mm per °C). Reforestation, regreening, and wetland restoration increase vegetation cover, which enhances energy capture (via photosynthesis), moisture, carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling. They also improve landscape connectivity and thermal buffering, stabilizing microclimates and increasing the system’s ability to dissipate energy gradients — key aspects of thermodynamic work capacity. We recommend using a Green-Moist-Cool Index to monitor ecosystem functionality. This enables the quantification of progress in sustainable land development and the identification of priority areas for restoration and natural climate protection.

Global infrastructure investment will reach $94 trillion by 2040, posing critical threats to biodiversity in rural regions newly exposed to road access. Traditional planning approaches have failed to sufficiently incorporate stakeholder preferences and account for uncertainty, leading to decisions that often compromise ecosystems. To overcome these limitations, we introduce an integrated decision-support framework that fuses Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) with Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN), allowing explicit incorporation of stakeholder-derived preferences and probabilistic modeling of ecological and socioeconomic outcomes. Applying this framework to four proposed roads in Tanzania's Greater Serengeti Ecosystem, we show that conservation-oriented options (Mbulu and Eyasi) offer 15–25% better sustainability performance than conventional connectivity-maximizing routes, while serving 70% of the population with 291% higher per-capita efficiency. Thirty-year projections confirm the long-term benefits of ecosystem-sensitive designs, and cross-validation between MCDA and BBN confirms methodological robustness (r, 0.89). This study provides a scalable, evidence-based planning framework for sustainable road development.

UNESCO biosphere reserves serve as learning areas for sustainable development, where preserving ecosystem functionality is an imperative. However, this critical assumption has yet to be thoroughly examined. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated differences in satellite-derived proxies of ecosystem functions in forests between inside and surrounding areas of biosphere reserves, globally. Our findings based on linear mixed effect models show that (i) only 18 of 119 biosphere reserves exhibited higher values for all forest ecosystem function proxies inside the reserves compared to outside, (ii) smaller reserves in fragmented forestscapes were more affected by hot day temperatures, and (iii) greater forest cover correlated with increased ecosystem functioning across all biomes. This study underscores the potential significance of biosphere reserves to biodiversity conservation efforts and the need for the integration of satellite-based, outcome-oriented proxies of ecosystem functions in assessments of protected area effectiveness.