Search

In Israel, Long-eared Owls (Asio otus) were considered primarily a wintering species with documented sporadic breeding. However, by the turn of the last century, it had become an increasingly numerous breeding species in the northern and central parts of the country. Based on the analysis of nest numbers in the Judea region, we determined that the population increased by at least 22% each year between 2003 and 2008, from 28 known nests in 2003 to 118 in 2008. We believe our study was conducted during the initial years for the Long-eared Owl population expansion in the region. We found that birds nesting in more-urban areas produced fewer offspring per brood than birds in more rural areas. We also found that nestlings from more-urban areas, exposed to artificial light at night, fledged earlier than birds from wild areas. The rapid growth in the numbers of nesting Long-eared Owls in the Judea region was likely due, at least in part, to the species' adaptation to urban areas. En Israel, Asio otus fue consideraba principalmente como una especie migratoria invernal, con registros esporádicos de reproducción. Sin embargo, a partir del siglo 21, se convirtió en una especie reproductora cada vez más numerosa en en norte y centro del país. Basándonos en el análisis de números de nidos en la región de Judea, determinamos que la población aumentó al menos un 22% cada año entre 2003 y 2008, pasando de 28 nidos conocidos en 2003 a 118 en 2008. Creemos que nuestro estudio se llevó a cabo durante los primeros años de la expansión de la población de A. otus en la región. Descubrimos que las aves que anidaban en áreas más urbanas produjeron menos crías por nidada que las aves en áreas más rurales. También encontramos que los polluelos de áreas más urbanas, expuestos a la luz artificial por la noche, emplumaban antes que las aves de áreas silvestres. El rápido crecimiento en el número de individuos de A. otus que anidaban en la región de Judea probablemente se debió, al menos en parte, a la adaptación de la especie a áreas urbanas. [Traducción del equipo editorial] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lot of animals detect and then align their body axis with respect to the Earth's magnetic field lines (MF). This behavior was also presented for territory marking dogs. We collected data on directional preferences of dogs under different MF conditions and analyzed the data using circular statistics. Dogs excreted with the body aligned along the North–South axis, but when exposed to small bar magnets, significantly changed their directional positions. The study suggests that dogs are able to recognize MF. Additional value of this research is that the data were collected by local high school students, which required collaboration with teachers and their parents. We think that this idea has great potential and can be developed at a global scale and to become a citizen-science project involving other high school pupils and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic structures and installations in wild areas are known to directly and indirectly affect wildlife populations, especially apex predators such as Eagle Owls (Bubo bubo). To understand the situation at the national level we analyzed data collected by the Scientific Data Department of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the wildlife hospital at the Safari in Ramat Gan. We analyzed a total of 189 dead Eagle Owls during fifteen years, 2007–2021; 39.7% were electrocuted, 29.2% roadkill, 12.7% flew into fences/barbed wire, 3.8% drowned, and 14.9% died from other causes. The largest mortality of the Eagle Owls was detected in agricultural (34.92 %) and urban areas (31.74%). Also, the pylons identified as lethal should be prioritized and modified with appropriate insulators. Only a sincere effort on the part of the authorities will the continued electrocution of eagle owls and other avian wildlife be truncated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many species, the artificial raising of orphaned nestlings is a time and cost-prohibitive task, usually accompanied by low survivability. The introduction of orphaned nestlings to other natural nests was found to be a successful technique wherein fostered nestling(s) developed better in the wild and imprinting on humans is avoided. To date, the number of diurnal species in which induced alloparenting has been conducted is limited to several eagle species, falcons, buzzards, and vultures. In the owls, it has only been demonstrated to work in two species, but the eagle owl has not been studied in this aspect. Eagle Owls, amongst the largest of the owls with a geographic distribution stretching across Europe and Asia, are a favored species in the wildlife trade, and many a nestling is removed from the nest. In Israel, when reported or rescued, the nestlings are removed to the wildlife hospital where they are rehabilitated and then introduced into a wild nest with similarly aged nestlings. From 2009 to 2021 we conducted 44 successful adoptions of Eagle Owl orphans into active, wild nests. This success stresses the importance of our work as a conservation tool for the preservation of an apex predator across its breeding range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International tourism and nature-recreation accounts for ca. > 10% of the international trade and has influenced urban planning, political thought, and land-use. Eilat, Israel, is just such a city of tourism-dependent development. We investigated whether beach tourism affected the ecology of the endemic Red Sea Ghost Crab (Ocypode saratan ; RSGC). We hypothesized that we would find lower numbers of RSGC on the tourist beach because it results in the destruction of the burrows and the display pyramids of the male RSGC. All observations were conducted during August and September 2015, 2016, and 2018. We conducted a total of 221 h of observation of which 116 were on a beach without tourist activity i.e., of a fenced naval base beach and 105 on the tourist beach. We found that the number of crabs and those excavating sand from the burrows was highest at the tourist beach, while the number of pyramids was greater, and were higher, on the naval beach. Considering that the height of the pyramid and it's complex are a reproductive signal for the females we speculate that there is segregation of beaches where on the tourist beach there are more food resources from anthropogenic activity and are occupied by large individuals, while on the navy beach the low human activity allows males to maintain higher pyramids, but which are built by the smaller individuals. Although we found that tourism appears to have benefited the RSGC population, the underlying effects of the food- web must be studied to understand the diet of the endemic species. Authorities need to regulate tourist activities and to educate them of the importance of the maintenance of a healthy environment and the conservation of biodiversity by placing appropriate billboards and signs at the tourist beach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Basic & Applied Ecology is the property of Urban & Fischer Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

● Feral domestic cat density is negative predictor of some farmland bird density. ● Bird density distribution were determined by a combination of habitat structure, topographic metrics and feral cat density. ● Species specific predictors can improve the predictive power of predictive density distribution modelling. ● Domestic cat density can be considered as surrogates for elusive environmental factors influence on distribution of native bird populations. Ecological interactions between native species are often disturbed by invasive species. However, to understand their impact on wild native animal populations on a country scale it is necessary to develop a predictive model. Therefore, I followed the species density distribution modelling approach to explore how feral domestic cats (Felis catus) along with environmental predictors determined densities of two bird species, the Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) and the Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla flava) on the whole area of Poland. As a modelling method, I used the Generalised Additive Model to develop two models for each of the two bird species: The first with the feral cat density as an additional predictor, and the second without it. As a result, I demonstrated the negative impact of cat density on native bird populations, illustrated by reduced density of the two studied species in their preferred habitats, in which cats reached a high density. Although it cannot be explicitly asserted that cats lead to a local extinction of the two bird species, these predators should not be underestimated. In many locations feral populations are fed with new individuals, and they do not follow the same internal mechanisms regulating their population as the native bird fauna. Thus, on a large spatial scale species density distribution models of birds should include cats' population size as an additional predictor when this predator's environmental preferences overlap with preferences of the studied target groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Density of species were best described by a combination of habitat structure, topographic metrics, climate and artificial light at night. • Artificial light at night can improve the predictive power of species distribution models in density setting. • ALAN can be considered as surrogates for elusive urbanization processes in species diversity modeling. Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) is one of the most important anthropogenic environmental components that affects biodiversity worldwide. Despite extensive knowledge on ALAN, being a measure of human activity that directly impacts numerous aspects of animal behaviour, such as orientation and distribution, little is known about its effects on density distribution on a large spatial scale. That is why we decided to explore by means of the Species Distribution Modelling approach (SDM) how ALAN as one of 33 predictors determines farmland and forest bird species densities. In order to safeguard study results from any inconsistency caused by the chosen method, we used two approaches, i.e. the Generalised Additive Model (GAM) and the Random Forest (RF). Within each approach, we developed two models for two bird species, the Black woodpecker and the European stonechat: the first with ALAN, and the second without ALAN as an additional predictor. Having used out-of-bag procedures in the RF approach, information-theoretic criteria for the GAM, and evaluation models based on an independent dataset, we demonstrated that models with ALAN had higher predictive density power than models without it. The Black woodpecker definitely and linearly avoids anthropogenic activity, defined by the level of artificial light, while the European stonechat tolerates human activity to some degree, especially in farmland habitats. What is more, a heuristic analysis of predictive maps based on models without ALAN shows that both species reach high densities in regions where they are deemed rare. Hence, the study proves that urbanisation processes, which can be reflected by ALAN, are among key predictors necessary for developing Species Density Distribution Models for both farmland and forest bird species. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]