A clear understanding of a species’ diet is crucial in understanding its spatio-temporal dynamics, and is, therefore, pertinent to conservation considerations. The diet of the Grey Falcon (Falco hypoleucos), a rare and threatened predator endem...
The Leucocytozoon genus comprises numerous widely distributed parasites which have been less investigated than other avian hemoprotozoa. Their occurrence is common, with very variable prevalence values and pathogenicity degrees. Leucocytozoon species...
Wildlife residing in cities has made encounters between humans and wild animals a common phenomenon. The perspective of the conflict-laden animal–human relationship has been over-emphasized by traditional media, which neglects the peaceful and...
The global decline in biodiversity, mainly caused by human activities such as land use change, agricultural intensification, habitat degradation, and climate change, is impacting many species, including raptors. The lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), a...
Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus) recovered after DDT bans in North America and Europe, but trends in East Asia are poorly documented. South Korea downgraded the species in 2022 without a published trend analysis. We analyzed four long-term datase...
Intraspecific brood parasitism (IBP), where one female lays eggs in another’s nest, is considered rare in raptors, including typically monogamous and solitary or semi-colonial falcons. The Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni) is a colonial falcon wi...
Vision is considered the most important of the five primary senses in birds, particularly in raptors, and the relatively large size of the avian eye reflects its importance. This study provides a morphological and histomorphometric characterisation o...
Background/Objectives: The Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) is an endangered raptor species of ecological and conservation relevance. Despite its status, data regarding its microbiota and the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remain scarce, es...
Environmental variables and eyrie site characteristics may influence reproductive output, yet their associations with Barbary falcon (Falco peregrinus pelegrinoides) productivity remain poorly understood in the Arabian Peninsula. We quantified fledgl...
The main objective of this study was to determine the impact of increased demand for peregrine falcons via breeding (mainly Polish, Czech, German and Slovak) on the genetic structure of the birds. In the analysis, 374 specimens from six countries wer...
Microsatellite DNA analysis is a powerful tool for assessing population genetics. The main aim of this study was to assess the genetic potential of the peregrine falcon population covered by the restitution program. We characterized individuals from...
The peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) stands out as a crucial sentinel species for assessing environmental contamination, owing to its widespread distribution, high position in the food chain, and susceptibility to pollutants. As apex predators, th...
By integrating species distribution modeling techniques, phylogenetic comparative methods, and climatic data, we analyzed how European falcon climatic niches have changed over evolutionary time in order to understand their tempo and mode of evolution...
Bromadiolone is a second generation anticoagulant rodenticide (SGAR) used to control pest rodents worldwide. SGARs are frequently involved in secondary poisoning in rodent predators due to their persistence and toxicity. This study aims to evaluate t...
This study presents preliminary data on the diet composition of reintroduced Lesser Kestrels (Falco naumanni) in two restored colonies in Bulgaria—near Stara Zagora and in the Sakar Mountains at Levka village—based on pellet analysis. A t...
The conservation of threatened species is prevalently oriented towards two management strategies, i.e., habitat-level and species-level approaches. The former is focused on improving the conditions of the habitat of a certain species, whereas the lat...
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) epizootics have caused repeated mass mortality events among wild birds. The effect of the infection is potentially detrimental for a variety of bird species, including the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)....
Captive birds of prey often exceed their wild counterparts’ lifespan, as seen in bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus, ~20 years wild vs. ~40 years captive), golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos, ~32 years wild vs. ~46 years captive), and Andean c...
Studying intraspecific differentiation in closely related species is essential to clarify the phylogenetic relationships and mechanisms of early stage speciation, particularly in evolutionarily young lineages affected by human-driven population decli...
As a subclass of nanosatellites, CubeSats have changed the game’s rules in the scientific research industry and the development of new space technologies. The main success factors are their cost effectiveness, relative ease of production, and p...
In this study we solved the issue of measuring the degree of overlap/segregation among an arbitrarily large number (n ≥ 2) of 3D volumetric home ranges (i.e., x, y, and hg; where hg is height above ground level) for the first time. For this purpos...
A number of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) have been reported to interfere with the thyroid signaling pathway and cause oxidative stress in birds, yet the underlying shifts in gene expression associated with these effects remain poorly understood...
Home range overlap/segregation has several important applications to wildlife conservation and management. In this work, we first address the issue of measuring the degree of overlap/segregation among an arbitrarily large number (i.e., n ≥ 2) of prob...
Every year, several hundred million birds cross the Mediterranean on their migration from Eurasia to their wintering quarters in Africa. As many migrants travel at night or at high altitudes, direct observations of bird migration are difficult and th...
Spring conditions may influence reproduction in the Gyrfalcon, Falco rusticolus, but their effects are difficult to separate from prey variation. We compared 66 nesting territories in 2024 and 69 in 2025 across natural tree nests, artificial nests mo...
The red-footed falcon (Falco vespertinus) is a species that is of great interest to conservation. Because of this, understanding the red-footed falcon’s flight behavior is important for the conservation of this species. In this context, by usin...
In the age of fast digital transformation, Docker containers have become one of the central technologies for flexible and scalable application deployment. However, this has opened a new dimension of challenges in security, which are skyrocketing with...
Sperm cryopreservation is a complex process that needs to be adapted to wild and domestic avian species to ensure proper efficiency. Because of its accessibility, the peregrine falcon may be used as a good model for studying other raptor species. To...
The morphological characteristics of different sperm cells (normal, abnormal, and immature) in the peregrine falcon during the reproductive season were analysed. We also classified the main sperm defects found in semen. Semen samples were collected f...
Prolyl 3-hydroxylase 2 (P3H2) catalyzes the post-translational formation of 3-hydroxyproline on collagens, mainly on type IV. Its activity has never been directly associated to angiogenesis. Here, we identified P3H2 gene through a deep-sequencing tra...
Eleonora’s Falcon is the commonest bird of prey in Greece, with more than 80% of the global population breeding on Greek islands. The aim of this study was to assess the population status and the colony characteristics for the species in the Na...
Behavioral and movement ecology have quickly advanced as a result of the development of biotelemetry devices and analytical techniques. Global positioning system (GPS) transmitters assist scientists in gathering location and movement data at detailed...
The rising popularity of UAVs and other autonomous control systems coupled with real-time operating systems has increased the complexity of developing systems with the proper robustness, performance, and reactivity. The growing demand for more sophis...
Xinjiang’s distinctive geography and climate provide important habitats for Falconidae species, yet their climate-driven habitat shifts and conservation gaps remain poorly understood. Using 2731 validated occurrence records and 26 environmental...
Academic contributions pertaining to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the wine industry have seen a steady rise in recent years due to the tremendous importance of these topics for economic, social, and environmental advancement. This stu...
Chromosomal rearrangements can interfere with the disjunction and segregation of other chromosome pairs not involved in the rearrangements, promoting the occurrence of numerical abnormalities in resulting gametes and predisposition to trisomy in offs...
Heart failure (HF) is a complex and progressive disease marked by substantial morbidity and mortality rates, frequent episodes of decompensation, and a reduced quality of life (QoL), with severe financial burden on healthcare systems. In recent years...
While the frequency of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) has increased in recent decades, both due to improvements in diagnostic procedures and a real, effective percentage increase in cases, the frequency of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC), howeve...
This study aims to assess the occurrence of external arthropods on deceased raptors in rescue centers in Tuscany, central Italy. The examined diurnal raptors include 17 common buzzards (Buteo buteo), two European honey buzzards (Pernis apivorus), sev...
We conducted a helicopter survey in 2010 for cliff-nesting raptors along the Dalton Highway in northern Alaska. The study area extended from the Yukon River northward ~395 km through the Brooks Range to the Arctic Plain. We documented 55 occupied rap...
Plastic pollution in terrestrial and freshwater environments and its accumulation along food chains has been poorly studied in birds. In this paper we reported evidence of microplastic (MP) contamination in pellets collected in rural and urban sites...
19 October 2022
Possible avian mortality rates due to the presence of a wind farm on Kefalonia Island, Greece, were studied and no bird deaths were recorded. The most commonly occurring species were Buteo buteo and Falco tinnunculus. These species generally have low...
We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of orbital ultrasound in the etiologic diagnosis of central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO). For this purpose, patients with CRAO evaluated at our center between 2011 and 2021 were reviewed. Demographic varia...
This paper proposes a novel and autonomous weighing system for wild animals. It allows evaluating changes in the body weight of animals in their natural environment without causing stress. The proposed system comprises a smart scale designed to estim...
In 1794, French Engineer Claude Chappe coordinated the deployment of a network of dozens of optical semaphores. These formed “strings” that were hundreds of kilometers long, allowing for nationwide telegraphy. The Chappe telegraph inspire...
7 December 2019
The Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary (SEHS-S), which is a measure of core psychological assets based on a higher-order model of Covitality, is comprised of 36 items and four latent traits (with three measured subscales): belief in self (self-...
Oligodendrogliomas constitute 5% of all primary brain. [...]
HIV and antiretroviral therapy affect lipid metabolism. Lipidomics quantifies several individual species that are overlooked using conventional biochemical analyses, outperforming traditional risk equations. We aimed to compare the plasma lipidomic p...
We present a new experimental technique to characterise the crosstalk of a thermopile-based thermal imager, based on bi-directional electrical heating of thermopile elements. The new technique provides a significantly simpler and more reliable method...
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the most lethal cancer types world-wide. Its high mortality is related to the difficulty in the diagnosis, which often occurs when the disease is already advanced. As of today, no early diagnostic test...
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