The human propensity to kill carnivores is associated with the distribution of spotted hyaenas Large carnivores are declining globally, making it crucial to understand the factors associated with their distribution for effective conservation. Mu…

🚨🚨New research alert: Spotted hyaena distribution in Kenya is shaped not just by prey or livestock, but by humans’ propensity to kill them.

Understanding human behavior is key to carnivore #conservation. 🌍🍪

Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@helsinki.fi

Toward a more effective ecological security pattern: why explicit integration of disservices and trade-offs matters Faced with global biodiversity and ecosystem service losses, international frameworks—including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework—set ambitious targets to safeguard and restore ecosystem integrity, connectivity, and resilience. Given limited financial resources, strategic cost-effective spatial planning is essential to maximise socio-environmental benefits while minimising unintended risks [1]. Peng et al. [2] reviewed ecological security pattern (ESP)—an emerging framework for landscape conservation and sustainability planning—and argued that ESP offers an actionable approach to strengthening ecological security by enhancing connectivity, biodiversity, and ecosystem services in real-world landscapes.

Online now: Toward a more effective ecological security pattern: why explicit integration of disservices and trade-offs matters

Conservation planning experts in training ✨ The annual Spatial conservation planning course at #HelsinkiUni is well underway, led by HELICS members. Today is our second practical session on using the cutting-edge Zonation 5 conservation prioritization software. Exciting stuff! 🖥️🌍🌿

Great catch-up and celebrations for a new paper out!

At today’s HELICS meeting, we had our regular catch-up, shared recent research progress, and celebrated Federico’s new paper out with oat cookies, macarons and bubbles.

Cheers! 🍻

What is the evidence on indirect drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide? A systematic map protocol An estimated 1 million species of animals and plants are threatened with extinction. While much research has concentrated on direct drivers (e.g., land use change) of biodiversity loss, understanding ...

New in @plosone.org: Our protocol for a global systematic map of the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss. Full paper: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Congrats to Federico Grossi & the team! 👏 #ConservationScience #Biodiversity (2/2)

What causes biodiversity loss? Land- and sea-use change, overexploitation, invasive species, climate change, and pollution are the direct drivers pushing species towards extinction - but what are the indirect drivers behind them? 📉 (1/2)

Destroying wild ecosystems like these doesn't just reduce biodiversity but has repercussions for local communities losing ecosystem services as well as contributing to the climate disaster by eliminating these valuable carbon sinks. At HELICS we're examining the drivers behind trends like this.

Harnessing social media data to track species range shifts Biodiversity monitoring programs and citizen science data remain heavily biased toward the Global North. Especially in megadiverse countries with limited biodiversity records, incorporating social me...

Focusing on the tawny coster 🦋 we show the power of social media data to help tracking species redistribution under anthropogenic climate change 🌳🌲🦔🦇🦅🦉🦎🐸🐝🐜🐠🐙

#SOTM

🧪🌐🌍🌏

doi.org/10.1111/cobi...

Happy #WorldWildlifeDay! Let's keep doing the work to bring more and more wild populations towards recovery.

It’s the Saimaa ringed seal! 🦭
1️⃣ Population: <200 in Finland
2️⃣ Tracks: Oversized paw prints in snow
3️⃣ Habitat: Only in Lake Saimaa
Want to know more?❄️ Take a look at: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
#SaimaaSeal #WildlifeConservation

Guess the endangered species 🌊
1️⃣ Fewer than 200 of us live in Finland
2️⃣ We leave oversized tracks in fresh snow
3️⃣ Our home is a freshwater lake in Saimaa

Did you guess? 🤔
#EndangeredSpecies #Conservation

An exciting story in island conservation today; wishing these tortoises the best!

Fuel for ideas and a taste of tradition 🍰

At today’s HELICS meeting, as we discussed upcoming teaching courses, we enjoyed a laskiaispulla a cardamom bun with cream, traditional for Laskiainen.

Almond paste or jam, which do you prefer?

#HELICS #Laskiainen #Finland

@helsinki.fi

Great exchanges on network science & biodiversity complexity for Federico Grossi with Anne-Sophie Crépin and @daniel-iavor.bsky.social at the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics. Sharp feedback & perfect weather for a face-to-face encounter with Stockholm's nature (frozen lake dip included)!

No single method captures all impacts to biodiversity. 🌵🦏🪸

Same for conservation science: interdisciplinary, scale-dependent.

Governance needs multi-method approaches—integrating ecological & socio-economic perspectives.

Conservation challenges are systemic. Our methods must be as well.

Abigail Parker & Fedor Zolotarev presented two #BIOBANG posters at #SBDIDays in Stockholm. Tough crowd when you're competing with a life-size moose for attention, but the poster session brought great conversations!

#BiodiversityInformatics #ComputerVision #AIforEcology

There is also a nice summary of the paper on the People and Nature blog: relationalthinkingblog.com/2025/12/11/p... Great to see perspectives from these Indigenous and rural communities!

How Lived Climate Change Shapes Well-Being: Insights from 14 Nature-Dependent Communities Climate change is more than shifting temperatures and rainfall, it is something people experience in their daily lives. A new study by Reyes-García et al. (2025), published in People and Nature, sh…

Check out this blog post by our postdoc Miquel Torrents-Ticó on a recent paper he-authored. This excellent, nuanced work relates people's perceptions of climate change impacts to their well-being. miqueltorrentstico.wordpress.com/2026/01/14/h...

We're kicking off posting here to share our work on conservation science! We work especially with digital data to understand biodiversity loss, illegal wildlife trade, and human-nature interactions. Follow along for updates on the work of our interdisciplinary team here at @helsinki.fi