Published 16 years after the last comprehensive work on the birds of the Iberian Peninsula, Aves Ibéricas I and II (Telleŕıa et al. 1996, 1999), this is the first modern volume dedicated to the Iberian avifauna written in English and addressed to an entirely international audience. It is also the first one encompassing, with comparable effort, information from the two main countries integrating this (ornithologically) important region of the western Palearctic, Spain, and Portugal. Authored by two experts on Iberian birds, Eduardo de Juana and Ernest Garcia, this extensive volume represents an impressive and successful attempt to compile and synthesize all the information required by amateur and professional ornithologists to attain a profound and updated (to December 2013) knowledge of present-day Iberian avifaunal composition, distribution, habitat preferences, phenology, and movements. In addition, species accounts include, when available or relevant, information on population trends and conservation issues. The authors have left out general information on taxonomy and breeding biology/ ecology, as is usually the case in such works (which are between field guides and world or regional handbooks). The volume starts with a Preface in which the geographic scope of the work is presented. This basically comprises the four political entities of the Peninsula: Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and Gibraltar. However, it is important to keep in mind that the entirety of the two main Iberian countries, Spain and Portugal, is not encompassed in the work: The distant Macaronesian archipelagos—that is, the Canary Islands (Spain) and the Azores and Madeira Islands (Portugal)—are excluded. Contrarily, all the small Portuguese and Spanish islands surrounding the Peninsula, plus the relatively large Balearic Islands (Spain), are considered. The species accounts are preceded by five sections that are of great interest in themselves for non-Iberian readers, but also highly useful for understanding and interpreting the species-specific information provided later. The first of them is a brief history of avifaunal accounts carried out in Iberia from the mid19th century to the present day. This historical outline is followed by a physiographic and climatic description of the Peninsula, providing a description of the great environmental heterogeneity of this region, often unsuspected by nonfamiliarized readers. In this section, simple but informative maps (elevation, precipitation, bioclimatic zonation) and tables allow straightforward interpretation. An interesting and somewhat critical comment on what climate trends should be observed in Iberia, according to forecasted climatic changes, is also included in this section. A description of the main habitat types for birds follows, including purely anthropogenic ones such as farmland and urban areas, which are becoming increasingly important

https://bioone.org/journals/the-auk/volume-132/issue-4/AUK-15-116.1/The-Birds-of-the-Iberian-Peninsula/10.1642/AUK-15-116.1.pdf

The Birds of the Iberian Peninsula

Our review looks at recent advances in technologies applied to studying pollinators in the field. These include RFID, radar and lidar for detecting and tracking pollinators; wireless sensor networks (e.g. ‘smart’ hives); automated visual and audio monitoring systems including vision motion software for monitoring fine-scale pollinator behaviours over extended periods; and automated species identification systems based on machine learning that can vastly reduce the bottleneck in (big) data analysis. An improved e-ecology platform that leverages these tools is needed for ecologists to acquire and understand large spatiotemporal datasets, and thus inform knowledge gaps in environmental policy-making. Developing the next generation of e-ecology tools will require synergistic partnerships between academia and industry and significant investment in a cross-disciplinary scientific consortia.

Technological advances in field studies of pollinator ecology and the future of e-ecology

Migratory connectivity is the degree to which populations are linked in space and time across the annual cycle. Low connectivity indicates mixing of populations while high connectivity indicates population separation in space or time. High migratory connectivity makes individual populations susceptible to local environmental conditions; therefore, evaluating migratory connectivity continuously across a species range is important for understanding differential population trends and revealing places and times contributing to these differences. The common nighthawk Chordeiles minor is a widespread, declining, long‐distance migratory bird. Variable population trends across the nighthawk breeding range suggest that knowledge of migratory connectivity is needed to direct conservation. We used GPS tags to track 52 individuals from 12 breeding populations. We estimated migratory connectivity as 0.29 (Mantel coefficient: 0 = no connectivity, 1 = full connectivity) between the breeding and wintering grounds. We then estimated migratory connectivity at every latitude (spatial connectivity) or day (temporal connectivity) of migration and smoothed those migratory connectivity estimates to produce continuous migratory connectivity ‘profiles'. Spatial and temporal connectivity were highest during migration through North America (around 0.3–0.6), with values generally around 0 in Central and South America due to mixing of populations along a common migratory route and similar migration timing across populations. We found local peaks in spatial and temporal connectivity during migration associated with crossing the Gulf of Mexico. We used simulations to estimate the probability that our method missed peaks (spatial: 0.12, temporal: 0.18) or detected false peaks (spatial: 0.11, temporal: 0.37) due to data gaps and showed that our approach remains useful even for sparse and/or sporadic location data. Our study presents a generalizable approach to evaluating migratory connectivity across the full annual cycle that can be used to focus migratory bird conservation towards places and times of the annual cycle where populations are more likely to be limited.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ecog.05111

Comprehensive estimation of spatial and temporal migratory connectivity across the annual cycle to direct conservation efforts

Long-distance migrations are among the most physically demanding feats animals perform. Understanding the potential costs and benefits of such behaviour is a fundamental question in ecology and evolution. A hypothetical cost of migration should be outweighed by higher productivity and/or higher annual survival, but few studies on migratory species have been able to directly quantify patterns of survival throughout the full annual cycle and across the majority of a species' range. Here, we use telemetry data from 220 migratory Egyptian vultures Neophron percnopterus, tracked for 3,186 bird months and across approximately 70% of the species' global distribution, to test for differences in survival throughout the annual cycle. We estimated monthly survival probability relative to migration and latitude using a multi-event capture-recapture model in a Bayesian framework that accounted for age, origin, subpopulation and the uncertainty of classifying fates from tracking data. We found lower survival during migration compared to stationary periods (β = -0.816; 95% credible interval: -1.290 to -0.318) and higher survival on non-breeding grounds at southern latitudes (<25°N; β = 0.664; 0.076-1.319) compared to on breeding grounds. Survival was also higher for individuals originating from Western Europe (β = 0.664; 0.110-1.330) as compared to further east in Europe and Asia, and improved with age (β = 0.030; 0.020-0.042). Anthropogenic mortalities accounted for half of the mortalities with a known cause and occurred mainly in northern latitudes. Many juveniles drowned in the Mediterranean Sea on their first autumn migration while there were few confirmed mortalities in the Sahara Desert, indicating that migration barriers are likely species-specific. Our study advances the understanding of important fitness trade-offs associated with long-distance migration. We conclude that there is lower survival associated with migration, but that this may be offset by higher non-breeding survival at lower latitudes. We found more human-caused mortality farther north, and suggest that increasing anthropogenic mortality could disrupt the delicate migration trade-off balance. Research to investigate further potential benefits of migration (e.g. differential productivity across latitudes) could clarify how migration evolved and how migrants may persist in a rapidly changing world.

Differential survival throughout the full annual cycle of a migratory bird presents a life-history trade-off.

Intensive farming as a source of bacterial resistance to antimicrobial agents in sedentary and migratory vultures: Implications for local and transboundary spread.

Disentangling individual- and population-level variation in migratory movements is necessary for understanding migration at the species level. However, very few studies have analyzed these patterns across large portions of species’ distributions. We compiled a large telemetry dataset on the globally endangered Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus (94 individuals, 188 completed migratory journeys), tracked across ~70% of the species’ global range, to analyze spatial and temporal variability of migratory movements within and among individuals and populations. We found high migratory connectivity at large spatial scales (i.e. different subpopulations showed little overlap in wintering areas), but very diffuse migratory connectivity within subpopulations, with wintering ranges up to 4000 km apart for birds breeding in the same region and each subpopulation visiting up to 28 countries (44 in total). Additionally, Egyptian Vultures exhibited a high level of variability at the subpopulation level and flexibility at the individual level in basic migration parameters. Subpopulations differed significantly in travel distance and straightness of migratory movements, while differences in migration speed and duration differed as much between seasons and among individuals within subpopulations as between subpopulations. The total distances of the migrations completed by individuals from the Balkans and Caucasus were up to twice as long and less direct than those in Western Europe, and consequently were longer in duration, despite faster migration speeds. These differences appear to be largely attributable to more numerous and wider geographic barriers (water bodies) along the eastern flyway. We also found that adult spring migrations to Western Europe and the Balkans were longer and slower than fall migrations. We encourage further research to assess the underlying mechanisms for these differences and the extent to which environmental change could affect Egyptian Vulture movement ecology and population trends.

/pdf/spatial-and-temporal-variability-in-migration-of-a-soaring-25q4ijd1yb.pdf

Spatial and Temporal Variability in Migration of a Soaring Raptor Across Three Continents

Trichomonas spgallinae. is a pathogen of conservation relevance, whose main maintenance hosts are Columbiformes, but spillover to avian predators has been described. The goal of this study was to characterize the epidemiology of Trichomonas spp. in a community of free-ranging domestic and wild Columbiformes and an endangered predator, Bonelli’s eagle Aquila fasciata. We surveyed 253 live-captured Rock doves, 16 nestling Bonelli’s eagles and 41 hunted Columbiformes. Oro-esophageal swabs were incubated in culture media and Trichomonas spp. isolated from Bonelli’s eagle (6.3%, CI95 1.1-28.3), Turtle dove Streptopelia turtur (56.3%, CI95 39.3-71.8), Wood pigeon Columba palumbus (83.3%, CI95 43.7-97.0) and Rock dove Columba livia (68.4%, CI95 62.4-73.8). Infected Rock doves showed significantly poorer body condition than uninfected ones (p=0.022). From a subset of 32 isolates, 18S and ITS1/5.8S/ITS2 rRNA genes were sequenced and Maximum-Likelihood trees inferred. Four ribotypes of Trichomonas spp. were identified. In this study area Trichomonas spp. seem to persists in a multi-host system involving several species of Columbiformes. Conservation actions aimed at increasing the availability of trophic resources for Bonelli’s eagles through Rock dove restocking should consider the risk of pathogen transmission and of introduction of alien strains.

/pdf/trichomonas-infection-in-a-community-of-free-ranging-3ifcsafxt0.pdf

José Jambas

Papers

Spatial and Temporal Variability in Migration of a Soaring Raptor Across Three Continents

Trichomonas infection in a community of free-ranging domestic and wild Columbiformes and Bonelli’s eagle (Aquila fasciata)