Although Mediterranean ecosystems have suffered throughout history from human action, the pace and intensity of environmental change resulting from human activity in recent decades is unprecedented. The heightened pace of these changes requires better knowledge of the ecology of these systems both in order to be able to foresee possible losses of biodiversity and to intervene and properly manage the natural resources of these ecosystems with a view towards their conservation.

Most Mediterranean forests and shrublands are quite fragmented, as they are in other areas of Europe. Nevertheless, the degree of scientific knowledge on the capacity of migration of the species, demographic minima or the amount of genetic variability required for the survival of Mediterranean ecosystems lags far behind that of European temperate climates. Moreover, it is precisely in Mediterranean areas where general models of climate change predict irreversible losses of plant formations owing to a precarious balance where many of these communities survive under the pressure of intense summer dry spells.

This network aims to contribute to addressing the problem of biodiversity in Mediterranean forest environments, conceiving biodiversity in a broad sense: not only as a variety of species, but of processes and interactions. Variations in land use together with climate change are having and will continue to have a major impact on Mediterranean forest ecosystems. The common problem of loss of vegetation and soil to erosion is compounded by unusually severe spells of drought, intense fires and overgrazing. The precise way these factors will affect biodiversity is unclear because of the complex network of interactions between different factors and scales.

In spite of the general effort under way in many countries to learn more about their ecosystems, a comprehensive vision has yet to be achieved that would enable proper management of natural resources with a view towards the preservation and restoration of biodiversity. And, once again, this problem is particularly urgent in the Mediterranean. There is a growing consensus among scientists and conservationists on the need to integrate a variety of approaches in dealing with the problem of conservation of forest ecosystems in a scenario of global climate change. Such integration would enable a more complete assessment of these ecosystems, and clear the way to a more truly sustainable use of them. This will require joining diverse fields like vegetable ecology, eco-physiology, genetics, conservation biology, ecology of disturbances, and biodiversity, vegetable systems and biogeography. A multidisciplinary approach of this kind is possible only through working networks and coordination of groups and scientific specialists in diverse branches of expertise.

This network is based on the growing interest of many Spanish ecologists in working together so as to prevent redundancies and to boost the competitiveness, complementariness and scope of their research . The organisation of this network is therefore based on collaborations that are already under way, thereby ensuring its viability, while at the same time adding new research groups from different Spanish institutions and regions, enabling a higher degree of interdisciplinary work and a broader capacity for dissemination of the results.