ORIGINAL ARTICLE Unravelling the response of diurnal raptors to land use change in a highly dynamic landscape in northwestern Spain: an approach based on satellite earth observation data L. Tapia 1 & A. Regos 1,2,3 & A. Gil-Carrera 4 & J. Domínguez 1 Received: 14 September 2016 /Revised: 7 March 2017 /Accepted: 9 March 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017 Abstract Land use and land cover change (LULCC) is one of the main components of current anthropogenic global change. Unravelling the ecological response of biodiversity to the combined effect of land use change and other stressors is essential for effective conservation. For this purpose, we used co-inertia analysis to combine LULCC analysis of earth ob- servation satellite data-derived maps and raptor data obtained from road censuses conducted in 2001 and 2014 at sampling unit level (10 km 2 spatial resolution), in northwestern Spain (province of Ourense, c. 7281 km 2 ). In addition, habitat suit- ability models were also computed using ten widely used single-modelling techniques providing an ensemble of predic- tions at landscape level (four spatial resolutions: 500-m, 1-km, 2-km and 5-km radius around each sighting) for each year and raptor species to analyse the habitat suitability changes in the whole study area through three niche overlap indices. The models revealed an increase in occurrence and habitat suitabil- ity of forest raptor species coupled with a strong decrease in species associated with open habitats, mainly heaths and shrub formations. Open-habitat specialist species were negatively affected by the concomitant effects of intensive forest man- agement and a long-lasting trend of rural abandonment coupled with an unusually high frequency of wildfires. Sustainable forest management and agricultural practices should be encouraged by both public and private sectors, through, e.g. policies related to European funds for rural and regional development (FEDER and FEADER programs) to effectively protect threatened habitats and species, and to comply with current environmental legislation. The combined use of satellite imagery and ground-level biodiversity data proved to be a cost-effective and systematic method for mon- itoring priority habitats and their species in highly dynamic landscapes. Keywords BIOMOD2 . Co-inertia analysis . Habitat suitability modelling . Monitoring . Raptor conservation . Remote sensing Introduction Land use change is one of the main components of current anthropogenic global change and is considered a major threat to biodiversity (Groom et al. 2006; Newbold et al. 2016). Unravelling the ecological response of ecosystems and biodi- versity to complex synergistic or antagonistic interactions be- tween land use changes and other stressors is essential for effective conservation (Brook et al. 2008; Darling and Côté 2008). Landscapes in southern Europe are complex and highly dynamic systems. Thus, while marginal mountain areas are more susceptible to suffering a decline in extensive agropastoral use (Navarro and Pereira 2012; Queiroz et al. L. Tapia and A. Regos are joint lead authors. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10344-017-1097-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * L. Tapia luis.tapia@usc.es 1 Departamento de Zooloxía, Xenética e Antropoloxía Física, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Campus Sur, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain 2 Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, Predictive Ecology Group, CIBIO/InBIO, Campus Agrario de Vairão, R. Padre Armando Quintas, N° 7, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal 3 InForest Joint Research Unit, CTFC-CREAF, 25280 Solsona, Spain 4 GREFA, Monte del Pilar S/N, Majadahonda, 28220 Madrid, Spain Eur J Wildl Res DOI 10.1007/s10344-017-1097-2