Wet grassland degradation is a global issue that involves both altered land cover patterns and ecological processes, which affect the distribution and abundance of species. The sharp decline in European wader bird (Charadrii) populations is a good ex...
When different introduced species across trophic levels (parasite, predator) invade island systems, they may pose significant threats to nesting birds. In this study, we measure nesting height and infer causes of offspring mortality in the critically...
Biosphere Reserves aim at being role models for biodiversity conservation. This study focuses on the unsuccessful conservation of waders (Charadrii) on wet grasslands in the Kristianstad Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve (KVBR) in southern Sweden. Predati...
Urbanization changes the environment through physical constructions, disturbances, and altered resource availability. These modifications influence both prey and predator assemblages. Several studies have indicated that hole-nesting birds outnumber g...
Food niche overlap statistics are a common way to show competition for food resources in a group of animals. Niche breadths of various species are very variable and their diet composition changes reflecting prey availability. The aim of this study wa...
At the end of the 20th century, the common vole (Microtus arvalis) colonized the practical totality of agricultural ecosystems in the northern sub-plateau of the Iberian Peninsula. To prevent crop damage, chemical control campaigns using anticoagulan...
Natural selection has favored the evolution of different capabilities that allow animals to obtain food—e.g., the development of senses for improving prey/food detection. Among these senses, chemical sense is possibly the most ancient mechanism used...
Nestboxes are commonly used to increase the number and quality of nest sites available to birds that usually use tree cavities and are considered an important conservation intervention. Although usually safer than natural cavities, birds nesting in s...
Psychotropic pharmaceuticals present in the environment may impact organisms both directly and via interaction strengths with other organisms, including predators; therefore, this study examined the potential effects of pharmaceuticals on behavioral...
Land use and landcover change alter the ability of habitat networks to maintain viable species populations. While their effects on the quality, amount and patterns of landcover patches are commonly studied, how they affect ecological processes, such...
The impact of avian predation on a declining population of the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumifereana (Clem.), was measured using single-tree exclosure cages in a mature stand of balsam fir, Abies balsamea (L.), and white spruce, Picea glauca (Moe...
Ural owls are one of the largest owls in Europe, exhibiting known aggressive behaviour toward other raptors. They are known to interact with nearly all sympatric owls and many diurnal raptors. To summarise these interactions, a literature search was...
In many agroecosystems, brown marmorated stink bugs (Halyomorpha halys) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) are polyphagous pests that cause significant economic losses to numerous crops every year. Insectivorous birds may provide a means of sustainable predat...
Some taxa have adopted the strategy of mimicry to protect themselves from predation. Butterflies are some of the best representatives used to study mimicry, with the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) a well-known model. W...
The White-Tailed Eagle (WTE) Haliaeetus albicilla is a top avian predator that has rapidly increased in numbers and range in large parts of Europe in recent decades. In Poland, over the past 30 years, it has recolonized previously abandoned areas. In...
Investigations of seasonal variations in nest predation rates yield highly variable results. Some investigations argue that search image is responsible for some of the nest-predation patterns, but as far as we know, this study is the first in which s...
Fires of natural or anthropogenic origin shape some ecosystems on Earth; this disturbance can maintain the landscape and influence many processes like vegetation structure, carbon, and hydrological cycle, climate, and others [...]
The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is an obligate brood parasite that has evolved a series of strategies to trick its hosts. The female cuckoo has been hypothesized to mimic the appearance and sounds of several raptors to deceive the hosts into exhi...
Bird nests function as vessels for eggs and nestlings, and an environment for rearing offspring. However, foreign objects falling into bird nests and nestling eggshells may be harmful. Moreover, the smell of fecal sacs increases the risk of detection...
Depredation of birds by domestic cats is hypothesized to be one of many significant sources of mortality leading to global bird declines. Direct observations are relatively rarely documented compared with large numbers of birds hypothesized to be kil...
During a late-winter field survey in Baihuashan National Nature Reserve, Beijing, several noctuid moths were observed flying during the daytime at low temperatures and being actively preyed upon by Marsh tits, which removed the heads and wings of cap...
The tri-trophic interactions between plants, insects, and insect predators and parasitoids are often mediated by chemical cues. The attraction to herbivore-induced Plant Volatiles (HIPVs) has been well documented for arthropod predators and parasitoi...
Predation is a major source of mortality for many avian species. Species that face more predators, and those with less effective anti-predator responses, are presumably more likely to die from predation over time. Predation rate, as a measure of susc...
Nest defense is a key component of avian reproductive success, yet its intensity and expression often depend on ecological and social contexts. We investigated the nest defense behaviors of Saunders’s Gulls (Saundersilarus saundersi) breeding i...
Many toxic animals display bright colour patterns to warn predators about their toxicity. This sometimes leads other sympatric palatable organisms to evolve mimetic colour patterns to also evade predation. These mimics, however, are often imperfect,...
Recent taphonomic studies have shown that avian predators such as owls are responsible for most small-mammal fossil accumulations, and that predators cause bone loss and breakage as well as modification to the surface of bones that are preserved. How...
The Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) is a large, generalist predator widely distributed across Eurasia, including mainland Greece, where it occupies a broad range of habitats. Its diet is known to consist primarily of mammals and birds, with reptiles o...
Lateralisation of eye use indicates differential specialisation of the brain hemispheres. We tested eye use by zebra finches to view a model predator, a monitor lizard, and compared this to eye use to view a non-threatening visual stimulus, a jar. We...
The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a measurement of landscape “greenness” and is used as a proxy for productivity to assess species distributions and habitats. Seasonal levels of productivity have been strongly related t...
Nest predation is a major factor limiting avian reproductive success. It depends on factors such as bird community, land use, vegetation structure and landscape. Anthropogenic disturbances in native forests, such as logging and livestock grazing, alt...
Preserving ecosystem services, such as natural enemies that can provide pest control, can positively impact crops without compromising agricultural yield. Even though controlling pests by natural enemies has been suggested to reduce pests in agricult...
The relatively extensive fossil record of owls (Aves, Strigiformes) in North America and Europe stands in stark contrast to the paucity of fossil strigiformes from Africa. The first occurrence of a fossil owl from the Paleogene of Africa extends the...
Globally, zoonotic vector-borne diseases are on the rise and understanding their complex transmission cycles is pertinent to mitigating disease risk. In North America, Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vector-borne disease and is caused by t...
Predation is an important factor limiting bird populations and is usually the main factor influencing nest survival. In riverine habitats, flooding poses an additional significant challenge. Our study aimed to elucidate the influence of nest location...
Human activities like urbanization and agriculture affect spatial biodiversity patterns. The presence and activities of humans richly benefit alien species, but native species usually decline in human-impacted areas. Considering that the richness of...
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...
Many life history traits show predictable patterns at broad biogeographical scales, yet much less is known about how behavioural traits vary across such gradients. In this study, I investigated global variation in foraging group size within a large,...
The ability of terrestrial isopods (Crustacea: Isopoda: Oniscidea) to protect themselves effectively from predation by birds has never been tested. They are equipped with glands producing chemical substances; moreover, some species show conspicuous c...
Raptors (Accipitriformes, Falconiformes and Strigiformes) are important for ecological niches as bioindicators and an apex predator; however, their global populations have continuously decreased due to human activities, habitat loss and contagious di...
Birds are important indicators of ecosystem health and provide a range of benefits to society. It is important, therefore, to understand the impacts of agricultural land use changes on bird populations. The cultivation of energycane (EC)—a suga...
Island tameness results largely from a lack of natural predators. Because some insular rattlesnake populations lack functional rattles, presumably the consequence of relaxed selection from reduced predation, we hypothesized that the Santa Catalina Is...
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...
Many species produce alarm calls in response to predators, and the anti-predator signals are often used by other species. Eavesdropping on heterospecific alarm calls has been widely found in bird and mammal species. Other taxa, such as reptiles and a...
Among the different models that have been proposed to explain the origin of avian flight from terrestrial predators, the cursorial and arboreal hypotheses remain the most discussed. However, the fossil data at hand show that, taken separately, both t...
The variation in egg and clutch mass in sympatric species at high altitudes is poorly understood, and the potential causes of variation are rarely investigated. This study aimed to describe the interspecific variation in avian egg and clutch mass amo...
Avian poxvirus was diagnosed in eight wild Stone-curlews (Burhinus oedicnemus) from the Canary Islands, based on a combination of pathological and molecular analysis. Affected birds exhibited lesions consistent with poxvirus infection; three of four...
We know a good deal about brain lateralization in birds and a good deal about animal welfare, but relatively little about whether there is a noteworthy relationship between avian welfare and brain lateralization. In birds, the left hemisphere is spec...
The White-tailed eagle, an apex predator, is currently recovering its populations across Europe and has already reached high numbers in many countries. This led to the saturation of eagles in optimal habitats and their encroachment on suboptimal ones...
Describing home range and resource selection is crucial for understanding ecological needs and creating conservation programs. Still, our knowledge of spatial and behavioural ecology for most species remains limited. Here, we used satellite transmitt...
Bradykinin-related peptides (BRPs) are significant components of the defensive skin secretions of many anuran amphibians, and these secretions represent the source of the most diverse spectrum of such peptides so far encountered in nature. Of the man...
of 2