摘要：Human practices have had an impact on Mediterranean ecosystems for millennia, particularly through agriculturaland pastoral activities. Since the mid-19th century, land-use abandonment has led to the expansion of shrubland and forest,especially in the mountainous areas of the northern Mediterranean basin. Knowledge of these factors is vital to understandingpresent forest patterns and predicting future forest dynamics in the Mediterranean mountains. We aimed to analyze and understandhow land-use abandonment affected spatial modifications of landscapes in two study areas, 44,000 ha and 60,000 ha, locatedon the island of Corsica, France, representing a typical Mediterranean environment with chestnut forests. Our approach usedland-cover archive documents from 1774, 1913, 1975, and 2000, and human population history, 1770 to present day, to describelandscape patterns following land-use abandonment. This research showed that dramatic changes in landscape at the two studyareas were caused by the suspension of human influence and the interruption of traditional farming practices. Over the studyperiod, both study sites showed significant reforestation of shrubland and cultivated areas marked by the presence of Quercusilex forests (+3.40% yr-1 between 1975 and 2000) and by Pinus pinaster (+3.00% yr-1 between 1975 and 2000) at one studysite that had experienced heavy rural exodus. At the same time, areas containing chestnut forests decreased by 50% between1774 and 2000 (-0.09% yr-1 between 1774 and 1975 and -1.42% yr-1 between 1975 and 2000). Shrubland expansion remainedlimited at both study sites. Our study highlights the value of small-scale approaches for understanding the ecological consequencesof land-use abandonment and present and future land-management decisions. Discussion concludes on the importance of workingwith long-term series for studies on resilience in social-ecological systems and on the consequences in terms of provision ofecosystem services
关键词：historical archives; human population; landscape patterns; land-use change; Mediterranean ecosystems
