New publication on the survival of Burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia) !

Rebolo-Ifrán, N.,  Carrete, M., Sanz-Aguilar, A., Rodríguez-Martínez, S., Cabezas, S., Marchant, T., Bortolottu, G. and Tella, J. L. (2015). Links between fear of humans, stress and survival support a non-random distribution of birds among urban and rural hábitats. Scientific Reports 5:13723.  DOI: 10.1038/srep13723

Photo: Natalia Rebolo

Abstract:Urban endocrine ecology aims to understand how organisms cope with new sources of stress and maintain allostatic load to thrive in an increasingly urbanized world. Recent research efforts have yielded controversial results based on short-term measures of stress, without exploring its fitness effects. We measured feather corticosterone (CORT_f, reflecting the duration and amplitude of glucocorticoid secretion over several weeks) and subsequent annual survival in urban and rural burrowing owls. This species shows high individual consistency in fear of humans (i.e., flight initiation distance, FID), allowing us to hypothesize that individuals distribute among habitats according to their tolerance to human disturbance. FIDs were shorter in urban than in rural birds, but CORT_f levels did not differ, nor were correlated to FIDs. Survival was twice as high in urban as in rural birds and links with CORT_f varied between habitats: while a quadratic relationship supports stabilizing selection in urban birds, high predation rates may have masked CORT_f-survival relationship in rural ones. These results evidence that urban life does not constitute an additional source of stress for urban individuals, as shown by their near identical CORT_f values compared with rural conspecifics supporting the non-random distribution of individuals among habitats according to their behavioural phenotypes.

Ana Payo at NAUKAS BILBAO 2015: The big van theory

A new monologue by Ana Payo and Helena González from The Big Van Theory at NAUKAS BILBAO.

Nikola Matovic Master defense on streaming, now!

Nikola Matovic will defend his Master work on Storm petrel demographic parameters for the European Master Marine Environment and Resources today (09/09/2015). If you are interested you can follow his defense on streaming here

New Publication on the effect of tagging birds

Sergio, F., Tavecchia, G., Taferna, A., López Jimenez, L. Blas, J., De Stephanis, R. Marchant, T. A., Kumar, N. and Hiraldo, F. 2015 No effect of satellite tagging on survival, recruitment, longevity, productivity and social dominance of a raptor, and the provisioning and condition of its offspring. J. App. Ecol. Accepted.

Abstract:

1.The deployment of electronic devices on animals is rapidly expanding and producing leapfrog advances in ecological knowledge. Even though their effects on the ecology and behaviour of the marked subjects are potentially important, less than 10% of the studies are accompanied by an evaluation of impact, and comprehensive, long-term assessments have been few. Therefore, there is an urgent need to test for impacts, especially for tags that are heavy and deployed for long time periods, such as satellite transmitters.

Photo: F. Sergio

2.We marked 110 individuals of a medium-sized, migratory raptor, the black kite Milvus migrans, with GPS satellite tags, representing about 4% of the body mass and attached as backpacks through a Teflon harness. Tagged individuals were compared to control animals of similar sex, age and breeding status for a large number of behavioural, condition-related and ecological traits.

3.Despite a sample size 2–3-fold greater than most previous assessments that reported significant impacts, there was no detectable difference between tagged and control individuals in key vital rates such as survival probability, longevity, recruitment, age of first breeding, reproductive performance and timing of breeding.

4.Tagged and untagged kites showed similar social dominance during fights over food and a similar capability to provision nestlings, which prevented carry-over effects on the stress levels and condition of their offspring.

5.Synthesis and applications. Radio-marking studies are growing exponentially in the current “movement ecology era” and impact assessments will be ever more important. In principle, tags of up to 4% mass-load can be deployed without apparent harm on some avian soaring species, but impacts should be properly evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Resilient species for which impacts seem weak could be used as early warning systems for trials of new devices: if impacts are observed, they are likely to be even greater on more vulnerable species. Finally, individual fatalities caused by marking should be taken into serious account, but comprehensively evaluated in the light of broader population-level impacts. Future initiatives to minimize tagging impacts could include more stringent licensing criteria enforcing attendance at training courses or incorporation of impact evaluations into study designs, increased availability of training courses for tagging, and enhanced sharing of information through blogs, workshops or specialized journal sections.

News : keeping seabirds off the hook

Lasers can rescue seabirds

Foto: J.M. Arcos

The newspaper "El Pais" published on the use of laser light to reduce seabird bycatch in Galicia.  See here (in Spanish)

New publication on Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins - Kenya

Pérez-Jorge, S., Pereira, T., Corne, C., Wijtten, Z., Omar, M.,  Katello, J., Kinyua, M., Oro, D., amd Louzao, M. 2015.Can Static Habitat Protection Encompass Critical Areas for Highly Mobile Marine Top Predators? Insights from Coastal East Africa PloSOne DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133265

Abstract: Along the East African coast, marine top predators are facing an increasing number of anthropogenic threats which requires the implementation of effective and urgent conservation measures to protect essential habitats. Understanding the role that habitat features play on the marine top predator’ distribution and abundance is a crucial step to evaluate the suitability of an existing Marine Protected Area (MPA), originally designated for the protection of coral reefs. We developed species distribution models (SDM) on the IUCN data deficient Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus) in southern Kenya. We followed a comprehensive ecological modelling approach to study the environmental factors influencing the occurrence and abundance of dolphins while developing SDMs. Through the combination of ensemble prediction maps, we defined recurrent, occasional and unfavourable habitats for the species. Our results showed the influence of dynamic and static predictors on the dolphins’ spatial ecology: dolphins may select shallow areas (5-30 m), close to the reefs (< 500 m) and oceanic fronts (< 10 km) and adjacent to the 100m isobath (< 5 km).We also predicted a significantly higher occurrence and abundance of dolphins within the MPA. Recurrent and occasional habitats were identified on large percentages on the existing MPA (47% and 57% using presence-absence and abundance models respectively). However, the MPA does not adequately encompass all occasional and recurrent areas and within this context, we propose to extend the MPA to incorporate all of them which are likely key habitats for the highly mobile species. The results from this study provide two key conservation and management tools: (i) an integrative habitat modelling approach to predict key marine habitats, and (ii) the first study evaluating the effectiveness of an existing MPA for marine mammals in the Western Indian Ocean.

Kenya Marine Mammal Network

Award! Watson Raptor Prize 2015

The publication by Sergio et al. won the Watson Raptor Prize for the best publication on raptors of 2014. Congratulation to all (again) and thank to the Watson Birds Organization  !!