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Honey bees are key insect pollinators, providing important economic and ecological value for human beings and ecosystems. This has triggered the development of several monitoring methods for assessing the temporal development of colony size, food storage, brood and pathogens. Nonetheless, most of these methods are based on visual assessments that are observer-dependent and prone to bias. Furthermore, the impact on colony development (invasiveness), as well as accuracy, were rarely considered when implementing new methods. In this study, we present and test a novel accurate and observer-independent method for honey bee colony assessment, capable of being fully standardized. Honey bee colony size is quantified by assessing the weight of adult bees, while brood and provision are assessed by taking photos and conducting image analysis of the combs with the image analysis software Deepbee®. The invasiveness and accuracy of the method were investigated using field data from two experimental apiaries in Portugal, comparing results from test and control colonies. At the end of each field experiment, most of the tested colonies had the same colony size, brood levels and honey production as the control colonies. Nonetheless, continuous weight data indicated some disturbance in tested colonies in the first year of monitoring. The overall accuracy of the image analysis software was improved by training, indicating that it is possible to adapt the software to local conditions. We conclude that the use of this fully quantitative method offers a more accurate alternative to classic visual colony assessments, with negligible impact on colony development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The 'Endangered' Cape Vulture Gyps coprotheres has been monitored across its range for decades through disparate studies varying in geographical scope and length. Yet, no long-term, range-wide survey exists for the species. Coordinated monitoring across the range of the Cape Vulture would be logistically challenging but provide a holistic view of population dynamics in this long-lived species that forages across much of southern Africa. Here, we report breeding pair counts from seven colonies in the Cape Vulture's north-eastern breeding region from 2010 to 2019. We used state-space models to assess population growth across time. Manutsa, Soutpansberg, and Nooitgedacht colonies increased significantly over the study period, with three other colonies having positive estimates of population growth, but 95% credible intervals overlapped zero. The smallest colony at Moletjie is declining toward extirpation; only one breeding pair remained in 2019. Our results suggest the north-eastern population has been stable or increasing since 2010 with our 2019 surveys counting 2,241 breeding pairs across all sites. Indeed, there is an 89% chance that the population across the colonies we monitored increased from 2010 to 2019. Coordinated, range-wide, full-cycle monitoring is needed to thoroughly assess conservation status and efficacy of conservation actions taken for this endangered species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies are part of almost any branch of human lives. During the last decade also beekeeping joined the direction of application of IT tools and solutions and precision beekeeping was defined. Still in the beekeeping many operations and observations are completed manually, and there is a potential to switch to the digital realisation. Information technologies can be used in the beekeeping to partly support the beekeepers by implementation of automatic or semi-automatic solutions for bee colony remote monitoring, apiary record making and other actions. The aim of this paper is to make a summary of the usage of information technology tools by the beekeepers in Latvia, summarizing precision beekeeping development status and conclude about its future development potential. To achieve this aim, in cooperation with Latvian Beekeepers Association, a beekeepers survey was conducted. More than 200 beekeepers shared thoughts and opinions about their application of information and communication technologies for monitoring the bee colonies and apiary management. The summary of the survey conducted is described in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex ratios are commonly skewed and variable in wild populations, but few studies track temporal trends in this demographic parameter. We examined variation in the operational sex ratio at two protected and declining breeding colonies of Magellanic Penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) in Chubut, Argentina. Penguins from the two colonies, separated by 105 km, migrate north in the non‐breeding season and have overlapping distributions at sea. Conditions during the non‐breeding season can impact long‐term trends in operational sex ratio (i.e., through sex‐specific survival) and interannual variation in operational sex ratio (i.e., through sex‐specific breeding decisions). We found an increasingly male‐biased operational sex ratio at the two disparate colonies of Magellanic Penguins, which may contribute to continued population decline. We also found that the two colonies showed synchronous interannual variation in operational sex ratio, driven by variation in the number of females present each year. This pattern may be linked to sex‐specific overwintering effects that cause females to skip breeding, i.e., to remain at sea rather than returning to the colony to breed, more often than males. Contrary to our predictions, colony‐wide reproductive success was not lower in years with a more male‐biased operational sex ratio. We did find that males showed more evidence of fighting and were less likely to pair when the operational sex ratio was more male biased. Our results highlight an indirect mechanism through which variation in the operational sex ratio can influence populations, through a higher incidence of fighting among the less abundant sex. Because biased sex ratios can reduce the size of the breeding population and influence rates of conflict, tracking operational sex ratio is critical for conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]