Suchergebnisse

1. Over a large part of its very restricted and fragmented range, Iberian lynx Lynx pardinus occur in remote mountainous country at low density, where the only information about the species comprises records of incidental sightings obtained by inquiry. In this study we developed an approach for quantifying lynx-habitat relationships and distribution patterns from sighting data, using records from western Algarve (Portugal) in 1990-95. 2. Habitat was described in terms of land cover, topography, human disturbance and rabbit abundance, in 25-km(2) cells surrounding lynx sightings and at random locations within the study area. 3. Lynx sightings were consistently associated with predictable habitat features. Sighting probabilities estimated from a logistic regression model increased with the abundance of rabbits and the proportion of land covered by tall Mediterranean maquis, and declined with road density and the amount of developed land. This model identified correctly 85.7% of lynx sightings; at the same time only 20.7% of the random locations were misclassified. 4. Indices of human presence were never associated positively with lynx sightings, suggesting that observation patterns were not influenced by the spatial distribution of potential observers. 5. Kriging was used to interpolate spatially between sighting probabilities derived from the logistic model in order to produce a map of sighting potential for the Iberian lynx in western Algarve. Jack-knife resampling assessed the accuracy of this map. Three well-defined areas of high sighting potential were identified, probably representing the lynx core areas in this region. 6. Our analysis of lynx sighting records suggests that these data may provide a first approximation to lynx habitat and distribution when further information is lacking. The application of this approach to other ran and reclusive species is discussed. ; This study was funded by the Instituto da Conservação da Natureza (ICN) and by the European Union (Project LIFE B4±3200/94/767) ...

Research Article - Ecology ; Wildlife trade is a major pathway for introduction of invasive species worldwide. However, how exactly wildlife trade influences invasion risk, beyond the transportation of individuals to novel areas, remains unknown. We analyze the global trade network of wild-caught birds from 1995 to 2011 as reported by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). We found that before the European Union ban on imports of wild-caught birds, declared in 2005, invasion risk was closely associated with numbers of imported birds, diversity of import sources, and degree of network centrality of importer countries. After the ban, fluxes of global bird trade declined sharply. However, new trade routes emerged, primarily toward the Nearctic, Afrotropical, and Indo-Malay regions. Although regional bans can curtail invasion risk globally, to be fully effective and prevent rerouting of trade flows, bans should be global ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

European Union's ban on trade in wild-caught birds both reduces and redistributes bird invasion risk globally.

Wildlife trade is a major pathway for introduction of invasive species worldwide. However, how exactly wildlife trade influences invasion risk, beyond the transportation of individuals to novel areas, remains unknown. We analyze the global trade network of wild-caught birds from 1995 to 2011 as reported by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). We found that before the European Union ban on imports of wild-caught birds, declared in 2005, invasion risk was closely associated with numbers of imported birds, diversity of import sources, and degree of network centrality of importer countries. After the ban, fluxes of global bird trade declined sharply. However, new trade routes emerged, primarily toward the Nearctic, Afrotropical, and Indo-Malay regions. Although regional bans can curtail invasion risk globally, to be fully effective and prevent rerouting of trade flows, bans should be global. ; This study was funded by FEDER Funds through the Operational Competitiveness Factors Program "COMPETE", and by National Funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) within the framework of project "PTDC/AAG-GLO/0463/2014-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016583." L.R. and C.C. acknowledge support from the FCT through grants SFRH/BPD/93079/2013 and SFRH/BPD/84422/2012, respectively. D.S. is funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015, grant 706318) and, together with M.B.A., acknowledges the Danish National Research Foundation for support to the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate (grant DNRF96). P.B. was supported by EDP (Energias de Portugal) Biodiversity Chair. ; We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI). ; Peer reviewed

Game bird management has the potential to benefit conservation, as management practices specifically targeted at reducing the factors limiting game populations may have positive effects on non‐game species. However, such management may also have costs to species. We review the literature that examines the effect of different forms of game bird management on non‐target species in Europe, including habitat management, predator control, parasite control, provision of water and food and rear and release. We focus on Europe, where these forms of management are common and sometimes intensive. We identified 35 studies, which recorded 122 individual significant effects. Most studies (80%) focussed on the effects of habitat management and predator control, and >90% were carried out in the UK. 63% of the 122 significant effects on non‐game species were positive. Overall, 85% of the effects of habitat management in agricultural habitats were positive, while in non‐agricultural habitats 65% of effects were negative. Effects of rear and release were mixed (8 positive and 7 negative). Legal predator control was almost always positive (96% of effects), or benign, whereas illegal predator control was always negative (8 effects). This continues to be a major cost to conservation. No studies examined the effects of parasite control on non‐target wildlife. Three of four significant effects of supplementary feeding were negative. More studies are needed on the impacts of game bird management on non‐game species, and particularly of rear and release, the provision of supplementary food and water, and parasite control. We also found few experimental studies examining the specific effects of management for shooting of game birds, and very few studies overall outside the UK. Future studies should aim to fill these gaps. Synthesis and applications. The management of game bird populations for shooting is widespread across Europe. Our study shows that effects of such management practices vary between different non‐target species. There is a need to understand these trade‐offs, find effective strategies to limit the damaging aspects of game bird management and work to enhance the benefits for the conservation of biodiversity. ; This work was originally funded by EU Framework IV for the project Reconciling Gamebird Hunting and Biodiversity (REGHAB), and continued under FP7 HUNTing for Sustainability. S.R. is grateful for his King Carl XVI Gustaf guest professorship with SLU, which gave him the time to finish this manuscript. P.B. was supported through the EDP Biodiversity Chair. S.N. and R.J.I. were also supported by the Rural & Environment Science & Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government. ; Peer Reviewed

Traditional biodiversity assessment methods rely on morphological identification of bioindicators species such as benthic macroinvertebrates. This is the case of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the key legislation for the protection and sustainable use of European freshwater resources (2000/60/EC). The possibility of identifying all life stages is particularly relevant, but it requires high levels of specialization and expertise and entail procedures that are expensive and time consuming. Also, the majority of these bioindicator taxa are in their larval stage, which imposes constrains on their morphological identification at lower taxonomic levels (e.g. genus or species). Advanced molecular tools, such as metabarcoding, allow the processing of complex multi-species assemblages at greater resolution (up to species level), by combining DNA taxonomy with high-throughput DNA sequencing. Here, we demonstrate the potential use of preservative ethanol from macroinvertebrate bulk and metabarcoding tools to assess macroinvertebrate communities and biological quality of surface water bodies. We examined etanol samples collected from five macroinvertebrate bulks of Tua subbasin (Douro) and morphologically identified organisms down to the lowest practical taxonomic level. Our results showed that 60% of the taxa found in ethanol were macroinvertebrate taxa targeted by WFD, while the remaining percentage was identified as e.g. Bacteria, Stramenopiles, terrestrial invertebrates, amphibians and fishes. In comparison with morphological identification, molecular methods detected in average 70% of the WFD families and 86% of the EPTO (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera and Odonata) families. Yet, the percentage of families matching between etanol metabarcoding and morphological identification increased when rare families (<5 individuals) were excluded (80 and 92.2% respectively) and was maximum on groups well represented in DNA reference databases, such as the order Trichoptera. Also, 113 species were successfully identified from ethanol samples but only half was detected morphologically. Ethanol metabarcoding can potentially be a faster, low-priced and more refined approach for assessing biological quality than traditional methods, by increasing taxonomic resolution and thus sensitivity of metrics to fine variations in stream Ecosystem functioning. Nevertheless, further validation is needed as well as expanding the existing DNA reference databases. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Political boundaries may represent ecological barriers due to differences in wildlife management policies. In the European Union, it might be expected that these differences should be highly diluted, because all countries have to comply with common directives issued by the European Commission. However, the subsidiarity principle may lead to the uneven uptake of European Union regulations, which can impact on biodiversity conservation due to unequal legislation in neighboring countries, particularly in the case of highly mobile organisms. Here we address this issue, by analyzing how EU regulations issued in response to the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis differentially affected vulture conservation in Portugal and Spain. Taking advantage of the intensive GPS-tracking of 60 griffon (Gyps fulvus) and 11 cinereous vultures (Aegypius monachus) from Spain, we found that the Spanish-Portuguese border acts as a quasi-impermeable barrier. In fact, there was an abrupt decline in the number of vulture locations across the Spanish-Portuguese border, with modelling showing that this was unlikely to be related to differences in land cover or topography. Instead, the pattern found was likely due to differences in trophic resource availability, namely carcasses from extensive livestock husbandry, resulting from the differential application of European sanitary legislation regarding the mandatory removal of dead livestock from the field. Overall, our results should be seen as a warning signal to policy makers and conservation managers, highlighting the need for a stronger integration of sanitary and environmental policies at the European level. ; This research was funded by the Consejeria de economia innovacion ciencia y empleo Junta de Andalucia (Proyecto de Excelencia 2012 RNM-1925) (Junta de Andalucía), Comunidad de Bardenas Reales de Navarra (Convenios EBD-CSIC 2014-2017), ; MInisterio de Economia, Industria y competitividad (Projecto CGL2015-66966-C2-1- 2-R) (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and ...

This study was funded by project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016664 (PTDC/AAG-REC/5007/2014), supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The study was also sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through projects PTDC/ AGR-AAM/102300/2008 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-008701) and PTDC/BIA-BIC/2203/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028289), under FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors – COMPETE and by National Funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, and grants to PFR (SFRH/BD/87530/ 2012) and JS (SFRH/BD/63566/2009). LR received support from the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science and the European Social Fund, through FCT, under POPH – QREN – Typology 4.1 (post-doc grants SFRH/BPD/62865/2009 and SFRH/BPD/93079/2013). PB was supported by EDP Biodiversity Chair. FM was supported by the REN Biodiversity Chair and FCT (IF/01053/2015) ; High Nature Value (HNV) farmland is declining in the EU, with negative consequences for biodiversity conservation. Agri-environment schemes implemented under the Common Agricultural Policy have addressed this problem, with recent proposals advocating direct support to HNV farming systems. However, research is lacking on the economics of HNV farming, which makes it difficult to set the level and type of support that ensure its sustainability. In this paper, we focused on a Special Protection Area for steppe bird conservation, analysing how economic incentives, biophysical and structural features govern the choice of farming system. We found that persistence of the traditional farming system important for steppe birds was associated with economic incentives, resistance to change, and good quality soils, whereas a shift to specialised livestock production systems was favoured by higher rainfall and less fragmented farms. A supply curve built using the choice model predicted that the proportion of traditional farming increased from 20% to 80% of the landscape, when economic incentives increased from about 100€/ha to 160€/ha. Overall, our study highlights the dependence of HNV farming systems on economic incentives, and provides a framework to assess the effects of alternative policy and market scenarios to sustain farmland landscapes promoting biodiversity conservation. ; authorsversion ; published

DNA metabarcoding can contribute to improving cost‐effectiveness and accuracy of biological assessments of aquatic ecosystems, but significant optimization and standardization efforts are still required to mainstream its application into biomonitoring programmes. In assessments based on freshwater macroinvertebrates, a key challenge is that DNA is often extracted from cleaned, sorted and homogenized bulk samples, which is time‐consuming and may be incompatible with sample preservation requirements of regulatory agencies. Here, we optimize and evaluate metabarcoding procedures based on DNA recovered from 96% ethanol used to preserve field samples and thus including potential PCR inhibitors and nontarget organisms. We sampled macroinvertebrates at five sites and subsampled the preservative ethanol at 1 to 14 days thereafter. DNA was extracted using column‐based enzymatic (TISSUE) or mechanic (SOIL) protocols, or with a new magnetic‐based enzymatic protocol (BEAD), and a 313‐bp COI fragment was amplified. Metabarcoding detected at least 200 macroinvertebrate taxa, including most taxa detected through morphology and for which there was a reference barcode. Better results were obtained with BEAD than SOIL or TISSUE, and with subsamples taken 7–14 than 1–7 days after sampling, in terms of DNA concentration and integrity, taxa diversity and matching between metabarcoding and morphology. Most variation in community composition was explained by differences among sites, with small but significant contributions of subsampling day and extraction method, and negligible contributions of extraction and PCR replication. Our methods enhance reliability of preservative ethanol as a potential source of DNA for macroinvertebrate metabarcoding, with a strong potential application in freshwater biomonitoring. ; This article has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 668981 (ERA Chair in Environmental metagenomics, EnvMetaGen) and was supported by EDP‐Biodiversity Chair (EDP/FCT) and the project FRESHING funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and COMPETE (PTDC/ AAGMAA/2261/2014—POCI‐01‐0145‐FEDER‐356 016824). FMSM was supported by FCT PhD grant SFRH/BD/104703/2014. PB was supported by EDP‐Biodiversity Chair, MG and JP by the EnvMetaGen, and AFF by FRESHING/FCT. We thank B. Maia‐ Carvalho for his invaluable support on the development of the BEAD protocol, and M. Monaghan for suggestions on DNA quality assessment. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Conserving biodiversity on farmland is an essential element of worldwide efforts for reversing the global biodiversity decline. Common approaches involve improving the natural component of the landscape by increasing the amount of natural and seminatural habitats (e.g., hedgerows, woodlots, and ponds) or improving the production component of the landscape by increasing the amount of biodiversity-friendly crops. Because these approaches may negatively impact on economic output, it was suggested that an alternative might be to enhance the diversity (compositional heterogeneity) or the spatial complexity (configurational heterogeneity) of land cover types, without necessarily changing composition. Here, we develop a case study to evaluate these ideas, examining whether managing landscape composition or heterogeneity, or both, would be required to achieve conservation benefits on avian diversity in open Mediterranean farmland. We surveyed birds in farmland landscapes of southern Portugal, before (1995–1997) and after (2010–2012) the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform of 2003, and related spatial and temporal variation in bird species richness to variables describing the composition, and the compositional and configurational heterogeneity, of the natural and production components of the landscape. We found that the composition of the production component had the strongest effects on avian diversity, with a particularly marked effect on the richness of farmland and steppe bird species. Composition of the natural component was also influential, mainly affecting the richness of woodland/shrubland species. Although there were some effects of compositional and configurational heterogeneity, these were much weaker and inconsistent than those of landscape composition. Overall, we suggest that conservation efforts in our area should focus primarily on the composition of the production component, by striving to maximize the prevalence of biodiversity-friendly crops. This recommendation probably applies to other areas such as ours, where a range of species of conservation concern is strongly associated with crop habitats ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Conserving biodiversity on farmland is an essential element of worldwide efforts for reversing the global biodiversity decline. Common approaches involve improving the natural component of the landscape by increasing the amount of natural and seminatural habitats (e.g., hedgerows, woodlots, and ponds) or improving the production component of the landscape by increasing the amount of biodiversity-friendly crops. Because these approaches may negatively impact on economic output, it was suggested that an alternative might be to enhance the diversity (compositional heterogeneity) or the spatial complexity (configurational heterogeneity) of land cover types, without necessarily changing composition. Here, we develop a case study to evaluate these ideas, examining whether managing landscape composition or heterogeneity, or both, would be required to achieve conservation benefits on avian diversity in open Mediterranean farmland. We surveyed birds in farmland landscapes of southern Portugal, before (1995-1997) and after (2010-2012) the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform of 2003, and related spatial and temporal variation in bird species richness to variables describing the composition, and the compositional and configurational heterogeneity, of the natural and production components of the landscape. We found that the composition of the production component had the strongest effects on avian diversity, with a particularly marked effect on the richness of farmland and steppe bird species. Composition of the natural component was also influential, mainly affecting the richness of woodland/shrubland species. Although there were some effects of compositional and configurational heterogeneity, these were much weaker and inconsistent than those of landscape composition. Overall, we suggest that conservation efforts in our area should focus primarily on the composition of the production component, by striving to maximize the prevalence of biodiversity-friendly crops. This recommendation probably applies to other areas such as ours, where a range of species of conservation concern is strongly associated with crop habitats.

Conserving biodiversity on farmland is an essential element of worldwide efforts for reversing the global biodiversity decline. Common approaches involve improving the natural component of the landscape by increasing the amount of natural and seminatural habitats (e.g., hedgerows, woodlots, and ponds) or improving the production component of the landscape by increasing the amount of biodiversity‐friendly crops. Because these approaches may negatively impact on economic output, it was suggested that an alternative might be to enhance the diversity (compositional heterogeneity) or the spatial complexity (configurational heterogeneity) of land cover types, without necessarily changing composition. Here, we develop a case study to evaluate these ideas, examining whether managing landscape composition or heterogeneity, or both, would be required to achieve conservation benefits on avian diversity in open Mediterranean farmland. We surveyed birds in farmland landscapes of southern Portugal, before (1995–1997) and after (2010–2012) the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform of 2003, and related spatial and temporal variation in bird species richness to variables describing the composition, and the compositional and configurational heterogeneity, of the natural and production components of the landscape. We found that the composition of the production component had the strongest effects on avian diversity, with a particularly marked effect on the richness of farmland and steppe bird species. Composition of the natural component was also influential, mainly affecting the richness of woodland/shrubland species. Although there were some effects of compositional and configurational heterogeneity, these were much weaker and inconsistent than those of landscape composition. Overall, we suggest that conservation efforts in our area should focus primarily on the composition of the production component, by striving to maximize the prevalence of biodiversity‐friendly crops. This recommendation probably applies ...