municable disease control to the newer responsibilities of the hazards of ionizing radiation and medical defense against atomic attack. The individual topics are adequately developed with emphasis, in the majority, on brevity of presentation rather than complete and exhaustive detail. References are listed after each chapter for the reader desiring more definitive information. \"Epidemiologic Methods and Inferences\" by Dr. Dienfeld and \"Official and Voluntary Health Agencies\" by Dr. Hilleboe are two chapters which offer especially well-organized, succinct, and effective discussions of their respective subjects. The editors state in their preface that they are presenting \". . a new way to look at preventive medicine for the medical students, general practitioners, specialists, and professional workers in official and voluntary health agencies.\" In the opinion of the reviewer, the authors have achieved their purpose by editing a book which is more an introductory text than a reference tome.

Histochemistry, Theoretical and Applied.

Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics

The Handbook of Ethological Methods, Philip N. Lehner. Garland STMP Press, New York (1979), Price $24.50

The red cell.

Roads have numerous direct and indirect ecological impacts on wildlife. Vehicle collisions are a top impact of roads on birds, with tens of millions of birds thought to be killed each year in the United States. However, currently available mortality estimates are extrapolated from a single study. We reviewed the literature and used 20 mortality rates extracted from 13 studies to systematically quantify data-driven estimates of annual U.S. mortality from bird-vehicle collisions. We generated 4 separate estimates along with uncertainty using different subsets of data deemed to be rigorous enough to contribute relatively little bias to estimates. All of our estimates of vehicle mortality are higher than previous U.S. figures. When averaging across model iterations, we estimated that between 89 and 340 million birds die annually from vehicle collisions on U.S. roads. Sensitivity analyses indicated that uncertainty about survey-related biases (scavenger removal and searcher detection of carcasses) contributes the greatest amount of uncertainty to our mortality estimates. Future studies should account for these biases to provide more accurate local estimates of mortality rates and to inform more precise national mortality estimates. We found relatively little information available to quantify regional, seasonal, and taxonomic patterns of vehicle collision risk, and substantial uncertainty remains about whether collisions contribute to large-scale impacts on bird populations. Nonetheless, the large magnitude of bird mortality caused by vehicle collisions combined with evidence that collisions can contribute to local population declines for some species highlights the need for implementation of conservation and management actions to reduce this mortality. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/management/lossetal2014birdvehiclecollisions.pdf

Estimation of Bird-Vehicle Collision Mortality on U.S. Roads

The current study reports 29 cases of abnormal amplexus in some anuran species (Bombina variegata, Bufo bufo, Epidalea viridis, Pelophylax ridibundus, Rana temporaria and Rana dalmatina) from Bulgaria and one from Greece (Rana dalmatina and Rana graeca). Totally six different types of aberrations from the normal amplexus in anurans were detected: multiple amplexus (numerous males and one female); amplexus from the abdominal side; amplexus between two males; amplexus between alive male and dead female; amplexus between specimens from different species and amplexus between a male and inanimate object. The possible reasons for the occurrence of the various cases of abnormal amplexus are discussed.

/pdf/cases-of-abnormal-amplexus-in-anurans-amphibia-anura-from-2rur6zashs.pdf

Cases of abnormal amplexus in anurans (Amphibia: Anura) from Bulgaria and Greece

The study explores the mortality of birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals causes of traffic on Tra- kia highway (the section is 68 km long) and one control road section: first-class road (the section is 58 km long) between Pazardzhik and Plovdiv. To observe the number of killed amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals on the highway 11 one-kilometer transects were chosen and on the control section - 10 transects. They were visited for overall 20 days in seven months. During the visiting of transects was reg- istered every animal, the species, sex and age (if possible) and also the exact distance from the end of the road at which the individual was found. In total, 756 corpses of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals were found. The results from this one-year study show that the amphibians are most affected from the traf- fic on the two types of roads between Pazardzhik and Plovdiv, but if we exclude the migration of Marsh Frog, the most affected groups are birds and mammals. From all killed animals, 67.2% were amphibians, 15.7% birds, 9.2% mammals and 7.8% reptiles. Difference of animal mortality between Trakia highway and the first-class road between Pazardzhik and Plovdiv was found. On the highway the most abundant group of killed animals are birds and on first-class road are amphibians and reptiles. The highest casual- ties occurred in September - 92 individuals and the numerous killed individuals are adults (without the masking effect of migration of Marsh Frog). Overall 36 killed animals per 1 km were found. The largest number of killed animals was found on the roadway (44%).

http://www.ecolab.bas.bg/main/Members/nevena/Kambourova_Effect_mortality.pdf

Effect of Traffic on Mortality of Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals on Two Types of Roads Between Pazardzhik and Plovdiv Region (Bulgaria) - Preliminary Results

The aim of the current paper is to study the distribution of the amphibians and reptiles in the urban habitats in the city of Plovdiv and the changes in species composition from the periphery to the city center, as well as to classify them according to their level of synantropy. The urban habitats occupied by amphibians were clustered into two main groups: (1) aquatic/semi-aquatic habitats and (2) terrestrial habitats. From the group of aquatic habitats clearly distinguished were the rivers, at about 60 % similarity level as the other aquatic habitats were further divided into two groups: (1) standing ponds and (2) irrigation canals with riparian plant communities. The terrestrial habitats were divided into three groups: (1) inner spaces between buildings, courtyards and the ruderal communities; (2) abandoned lands and vineyards and (3) small and large urban parks and high-fruit orchards. The urban habitats inhabited by reptiles were divided into terrestrial and aquatic, where the semi-aquatic habitats were differentiated from the typical aquatic ones at about 60% faunistic similarity level. The terrestrial habitats were further clustered into two major groups with approximately 27% of faunistic similarity. The distribution of the batracho- and the herpetofauna along urban-rural gradient is analyzed and the recorded species are classified based on their habitat preferences and level of sinantropy.

/pdf/habitat-distribution-of-the-amphibians-and-reptiles-in-the-4aw4o49t72.pdf

Habitat distribution of the amphibians and reptiles in the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria

During our study we identi fi ed 182 prey items in the trophic spectrum of Pelophylax ridibundus (110 in males and 72 in females) with average number of prey items per stomach as follows: ♂ - 2.05 (SD=2.18); ♀ - 2.00 (SD=2.00). For both sexes the most important prey category is Hymenoptera ( ♂ - 20.91% and ♀ - 31.95%), followed by Coleoptera ( ♂ - 19.09% and ♀ - 22.23%) and Diptera ( ♂ - 17.29% and ♀ - 15.28%). A presence of vertebrates ( fi sh and amphibians) in the trophic spectrum was also recorded for both sexes. The fi sh ( Carassius gibelio ) is taking 1.82% from the diet of the males and 2.78 % from the diet of the females. The amphibians are presented with tadpoles ( ♂ - 3.65 % and ♀ - 1.39 %) and adult specimens of Pelophylax ridibundus, recovered only form the female stomachs. The trophic niche breadths for both sexes are quite high ( ♂ - 22.70, ♀ - 17.45). The estimated trophic niche overlap be- tween the sexes is moderate (63.8%), but the numeric proportion of all prey taxa occurring in the stomachs did not differ signi fi cantly between the sexes.

/pdf/sex-based-differences-in-the-trophic-niche-of-pelophylax-325l8emaw3.pdf

Sex Based Differences in the Trophic Niche of Pelophylax ridibundus (Pallas, 1771) (Amphibia: Anura) from Bulgaria

MOLLOV, I., P. BOYADZHIEV and A. DONEV, 2010. Trophic role of the Marsh frog Pelophylax ridibundus (Pallas, 1771) (Amphibia, Anura) in the aquatic ecosystems. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 298-306 During our study we identified 1356 prey items, divided in 64 prey categories in the trophic spectrum of Pelophylax ridibundus from the surrounding of Skutare Village (Plovdiv District, South Bulgaria). The average number of prey items per stomach for all studied seasons is as follows: spring 1994 11.93 (SD=18.31); autumn 1994 9.65 (SD=13.44); spring 1995 11.84 (SD=16.34) and totally – 11.49 (SD=38.67). The most important prey category for the whole period of study is Coleoptera (31.93%), followed by Diptera (27.65%) and Hymenoptera (13.42%). A presence of vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles and mammals) in the trophic spectrum was also recorded. The amphibians are presented with tadpoles (0.59 %) and adult specimens of Pelophylax ridibundus (0.36%). The reptiles with two subadult specimens (0.15%) of the Balkan Wall lizard (Podarcis tauricus) and the mammals with one (0.07%) Mus sp., which evidently were accidental captured in the water. The trophic niche breadths for spring seasons are quite high spring 1994 (15.04) and spring 1995 (19.52), but for the autumn of 1994 it was 3.14. The trophic niche breadth for the whole period of study is 15.15. The trophic role of the Marsh frog in the aquatic ecosystems in Bulgaria is discussed.

/pdf/trophic-role-of-the-marsh-frog-pelophylax-ridibundus-pallas-20aiile8bv.pdf

Ivelin A. Mollov

Papers

Cases of abnormal amplexus in anurans (Amphibia: Anura) from Bulgaria and Greece

Effect of Traffic on Mortality of Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals on Two Types of Roads Between Pazardzhik and Plovdiv Region (Bulgaria) - Preliminary Results

Habitat distribution of the amphibians and reptiles in the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Sex Based Differences in the Trophic Niche of Pelophylax ridibundus (Pallas, 1771) (Amphibia: Anura) from Bulgaria

Trophic role of the marsh frog pelophylax ridibundus (pallas, 1771) (amphibia, anura) in the aquatic ecosystems