Long-term monitoring of different drivers of changes increases the effectiveness of protected areas.

Long-term Ecological Research Program helps detecting complex environmental changes.

The effects of disturbances on biodiversity and ecosystems were explored over 22 years in the central Cerrado.

Even in Protected Areas, changes in surroundings affect biodiversity and ecosystems.

Significant ecological changes were detected in responses to long-term stressors.

We reviewed the use of network science in sustainable agriculture.

Network science can be used to understand, harness and restore ecological processes in agricultural systems.

Social, economic and ecological aspects of agriculture can be incorporated using novel methods.

Agricultural systems can be managed using a network-based framework.

Neotropical governments and their environmental agencies have generally poor governance.

Poor governance can be influencing human-top predator conflicts in the Neotropics.

Forty percent of interviewees disapproved the current top-down local management.

Disapproval of top-down local management influenced human tolerance independently.

Neotropics need a better balance between bottom-up and top-down governance.

Bird color diversity increased during the breeding season.

The standardized effect size of bird color diversity did not change between seasons.

Urban areas presented the lowest color diversity along the year.

Bird color composition was stable between seasons in urban areas.

9847 wasps classified into 75 species and 23 genera were recorded.

Inter-habitat dissimilarity decreased with increasing forest cover in the landscape.

Landscape diversity, edge density, and pesticide usage did not affect spillover.

Forested landscapes provide more spillover opportunities than do crop landscapes.

Anthropization drives directional changes on functional traits of bird communities of Neotropical seasonal forests.

Birds within anthropized habitat have short life cycles, rapid development, high fecundity, and broad ecological niches.

According to the Ecological Strategies Theory, birds could show the ruderal strategy within the perturbed anthropic habitat.

Climate change threatens Cerrado anurans.

∼70% of anuran species tend to lose potential distribution areas.

Not all species are likely to be equally affected by climate change.

Anurans’ responses to climate change are mediated by biogeographic character.

Caatinga dry forests are becoming increasingly drier and chronically disturbed.

Herb communities negatively respond to rainfall reduction and increase disturbance.

Responses may be mediated by the local density of woody plants.

Multiple successional pathways should emerge with the new environmental conditions.

Management and conservation actions are urgent to protect Caatinga herb diversity.

Agriculture-frontier classification allows organizing social-ecological processes.

Forest exploitation and real-estate transactions are daily drivers in the early stages.

Global agribusiness and livestock are drivers dominating the advanced stages.

Only crop replacement takes place during mature frontier stages.

Extra-regional people and governments are mentioned as the responsible social actors.

Simulations show that neutral processes and reduced dispersal across rivers can maintain two species in allopatry for many generations.

Reduced dispersal maintained allopatry despite repeated river crossings allowing rivers to act as effective secondary barriers.

Neutral processes across contact zones provide a potential mechanism for the maintenance of Amazonian biodiversity.

More understanding of the dispersal characteristics of organisms and factors that limit river crossing are needed to make predictions about the role of rivers in maintaining Amazonian biodiversity.

The tropical montane cloud forests (TMCF) in Ecuador are endangered ecosystems that may be affected by climate change.

Community – level ecological niche models are useful to reconstruct TMCF boundaries to guide conservation strategies.

By year 2050, 42 -54 % TMCF area reduction and 207 – 429 m upwards elevational shift was predicted by our models.

TMCF model corresponds to 68% of the Ecuadorian ecosystem map, with transitional zones on adjacent montane ecosystems.

TMCF under protected areas might increase in future scenarios, as climatic suitability areas will move to higher elevations.

The abundance-suitability relationship differs between protected and unprotected populations of Euterpe edulis.

The magnitude and direction of the relationship is modulated by population density.

The abundance-suitability relationship is positive only outside protected areas and in low-density populations.

Protection status and density-dependence should be incorporated into abundance-suitability models of threatened species.

There is no evidence of genetic population structure in Ashy red colobus monkeys inhabiting a highly fragmented landscape.

A “stepping stone” model could maintain connectivity between the main forest and the fragments improving the viability of red colobus populations.

Forest stepping stones can be established through restoration efforts of non-arable areas between fragments and the park.

A community-based forest restoration effort can benefit multiple stakeholders and increase the conservation value of forest fragments.