Zoological Record

Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and cyber-physical resilience are typically governed through separate institutional and operational frameworks, despite their growing interdependence in digitally mediated supply chains. This separation creates an execution gap that fragments decarbonization, resilience, and investment decisions across data architectures and organizational functions. Grounded in resilience theory and a transdisciplinary systems perspective, this study advances the testable hypothesis that institutional separation of Scope 3 emissions management and cyber-physical resilience is associated with lower system performance, whereas integration through digital governance mechanisms improves operational resilience, emissions measurement accuracy, and financial decision coherence. System performance is operationalized through three dimensions: (1) supply-chain observability and data integration; (2) resilience capacity across the prepare–absorb–recover–adapt cycle; and (3) coherence of investment decision-making under dual materiality. The study applies a structured integrative review with analytical triangulation across sectoral datasets, cyber-risk distributions, and governance frameworks, complemented by an illustrative application in emergency medical services (EMS) in Lithuania. Findings indicate that Scope 3 burdens and cyber-physical risks co-locate in supplier-intensive and digitally dependent sectors, revealing systemic vulnerability; and that effective integration requires a joint governance architecture linking digital observability, standards, financial evaluation, and human-centered decision-making. The article contributes an integrative framework that reframes decarbonization and cyber-physical resilience as a unified systems problem and provides an operational basis for coordinated governance across sustainable supply chains.

The burden of children’s disease in many low-and middle-income countries is associated with poor sanitation, including unsafe disposal of children’s stool. Infants and toddler stools pose a greater public health risk than adults. Studies on stool disposal in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Ghana have focused on prevalence, patterns, and associated factors. Nevertheless, these studies have not focused on factors that independently influence rural and/or urban child stool disposal. This study, therefore, examines factors associated with safe child stool disposal in rural areas separately from urban areas towards Ghana’s readiness for ending open defaecation by 2030.

Wildfires are global phenomena with positive and negative impacts on ecosystems. They are a natural ecosystem element that shaped several biomes. However, for some time, they may disturb the ecosystems, reducing their capacity to supply several services. The objective of this article is to resume the impacts of wildfires on flood regulation and water purification and discuss the use of some restoration measures to mitigate the wildfire impacts. Wildfires, especially in the immediate period after, reduce the ecosystem’s capacity to regulate floods and purify water due to vegetation removal and ash that can degrade water quality. The magnitude of the impacts depends essentially on wildfire severity and post-wildfire precipitation intensity. Restoration measures must be applied, especially after high-severity wildfires and if the recurrence is high. In the context of climate change, the interval between fires is expected to be shorter, and the severity will be high. Therefore, restoration measures may be more needed.

Urban areas are characterised by land use change processes. Urban and peri-urban soils degradation increase at the different land uses, and the characteristic of each land use affecting soil carbon stock and, consequently, the role of soil as a CO2 sink. The aim of this work was to assess the effect of land use and soil management practices in urban and peri-urban soils in Vilnius (Lithuania). Studied properties were: Sand, Clay, Silt, Stoniness, bulk density (BD), pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and soil organic carbon stocks (SOCS). Ten samples were collected at depths 0-10 cm in 8 different land uses and soil management practices in the urban and peri-urban areas of Vilnius. Forests – Quercus robur, Acer plantanoides, Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies, grasslands – semi-natural grasslands (SNG) and managed semi-natural-grasslands (MSNG), both dominated by Taraxacum officinale, artificial grasslands (AG), and urban. SOC (t/ha) resulted significantly higher in Pinus sylvestris and Art. Grass than in Quercus robur, Acer plantanoides, and urban land uses. Urban land use recorded lower values of SOC (t/ha) than the other land uses except for Acer plantanoides. Land uses with high human intervention decline soil quality and affect the role of soil as a climate regulator.

The links between subjective health, psychological wellbeing, and psychological capital in adolescence are under-researched, even though a lot of studies investigated links between health and wellbeing in adult population. The purpose of this research was to examine psychological wellbeing and psychological capital in groups of subjectively healthy and unhealthy adolescents and identify significant associations. The survey has revealed that, in general, the subjective health relates to psychological capital and psychological wellbeing in adolescent sample. The structural model on associations between the study variables demonstrated some significant links between self-reported quantity of illnesses, psychological wellbeing, and psychological capital (χ2 = 101.4728; DF=24; RMSEA=0.0649 [0.0522- 0.0782]; CFI=0.9145; NFI=0.8933; TLI=0.8997; p=0.000). However, the limitation of this study was that the information on health was self-reported and not checked in a clinical report and the sample size was relatively small. In the future research, it would be essential to compare information on subjective and objective health status and evaluate psychological capital and wellbeing by objective health-illness groups.

The spatial variability of soil chemical properties is affected by factors of soil formation and human activities. Understanding their spatial variability will improve agricultural production, reduce environmental problems (e.g., soil pollution, offsite effects), and achieve sustainable agroecosystems. The main objective was to study the spatial variability of pH, soil organic matter, available phosphorus, and available potassium using univariate and multivariate methods in cropland fields in eastern Croatia. For the study, 169 (0-30 cm) soil samples were collected in a 911 ha study area. The results showed that soils had slightly acidic pH, adequate available phosphorus and potassium values for crop production, and low soil organic matter concentration. The variability was high in available phosphorus and low in pH. Soil pH, soil organic matter, available phosphorus, and potassium nugget/sill ratio was 0.00, 2.79, 18.68, and 22.08, respectively. Auxiliary variables increased the accuracy of the predictions. Soil organic matter levels were below the recommendable, and this is very likely an anthropogenic effect, even though the intrinsic process influences soil organic matter. The heterogeneous distribution of phosphorus and potassium highlighted the necessity of fertilization in some areas. For the sustainability of agroecosystems, adaptable site-specific soil management strategies need to be implemented

Fire and pre- or post-fire management practices shape the distribution and richness of plant species. Here, the effects of pre- and post-fire management on vegetation recovery were studied at different times, up to 18 months after a wildfire. Two months after a 2015 wildfire, 18 study plots were established (three 4-m2 plots for each treatment), vegetation regrowth was monitored and vegetal species richness (S), evenness (IT), density (D), diversity (H′) and maximum diversity (HMax) after 2, 10 and 18 months. The treatments were (1) control, unaffected by 2015 wildfire; (2) no treatment (NT), burned in 2015 wildfire and not managed; (3) managed in 2005 and burned in 2015 (M05B); (4) managed in 2015, 2 months before wildfire (M15B); (5) cut and manual removal after the 2015 wildfire (CR); (6) cut and no trunk removal randomly deposited on topsoil after the 2015 wildfire (CL). All the treatments were carried out in a Pinus halepensis Miller forest. At 10 and 18 months after the wildfire, vegetation recovery was greater in NT, CR and CL plots than in M05B and M15B the plots. By 18 months after the wildfire, Brachypodium retusum (Pers.) P. Beauv. and Rosmarinus officinalis L. were still dominant, especially in M15B, corroborating the belief that pre-fire treatment reduced ecosystem resilience and vegetal recovery compared to the NT and post-fire managed plots. Richness was significantly lower 10 months after wildfire in control plots, and IT was significantly higher in that inventory than previously in M15B. Eighteen months after the wildfire, H′ was significantly lower in M15B. Ten months post-wildfire, HMax was significantly lower in the control plots. Eighteen months after the wildfire, HMax, was significantly higher in CR, CL and M05B than in the control and M15B plots. Overall, pre-fire management was detrimental to post-fire vegetation recovery, while manual post-fire management proved beneficial.

The vegetation in karst regions (KR) is crucial to maintain fragile local ecosystems. Therefore, it is critical to understand the factors that affect their vitality. The objective of this work is to study global KR vegetation dynamics between 1986 and 2015 and the natural and anthropogenic factors that affect it. The results showed a significantly (p < 0.05) positive greening trend (greening and browning trends were estimated to be 31.90% and 14.29%, respectively). The recuperation of KR vegetation was mainly observed at high latitudes and equatorial regions, where there is less human influence. Nevertheless, the growth of vegetation in some middle and low latitudes areas was a consequence of the human intervention. Vegetation degradation in KR was especially observed at middle latitudes due to the harsh environment and human impact. No significant correlation was observed between karst vegetation stability, the variation of annual average temperature and precipitation accumulated. Globally, karst vegetation dynamics depend more on precipitation than in temperature. In some areas, vegetation can recover gradually, even under extreme conditions and without human intervention. In areas with high population density, vegetation recuperation is mainly as a consequence of restoring programs.

Studies of post-fire soil status in Mediterranean ecosystems are common; however, few have examined the effects of long-term forest management after a wildfire on physicochemical soil properties. Here, we analyzed differences in soil properties attributable to long-term post-fire management and assessed the sustainability of these management practices in relation to the soil properties. The study area is located in Ódena in the northeast region of the Iberian Peninsula consisted of the control forest (burned more than 30 years ago), low density forest (LD; burned in a wildfire in 1986 and managed in 2005) and high density forest (HD; burned in a wildfire in 1986 and no managed). For soils from each plot, we measured soil water repellency, aggregate stability, total nitrogen (TN), soil organic matter (SOM), inorganic carbon (IC), pH, electrical conductivity, extractable calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium (K), phosphorus, aluminum (Al), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), zinc, copper, boron, chrome, silicon and sulfur and calculated the ratios of C/N, Ca + Mg/(Na + K)1/2, Ca/Al and Ca/Mg. Significant differences were found in TN, IC, SOM, pH, K, Al, Mn, Fe and C/N ratio (p < 0.05). All soil properties were found to have largely recovered their pre-fire values. Soils were affected by the post-fire management practices implemented 20 years after the fire, as reflected in their respective physicochemical properties, so that soil properties at the control and LD sites are more similar today than those at the control and HD sites. Thus, sustainable forest management can overcome soil degradation in areas affected by wildfire in the medium- and long-term by improving soil properties.