Search

Although several studies have focused on the influence of moonlight over deer-vehicle collisions, findings have been inconsistent. This may be due to neglecting the effects of cloud cover, a major impediment to moon illumination, and circannual variation in both deer and human activity.We modeled how median cloud cover interacted with the illuminated fraction of the moon in affecting daily roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) roadkill in Slovenia (Central Europe). Data included nationwide roadkill (n = 49,259), collected between 2010 and 2019 on a mandatory basis by hunters as well-trained citizen scientists.Roadkill peaked for medium-to-high cloud cover, while decreased at nights with low or extremely high cloudiness. This pattern was more pronounced at full moon nights. However, the effects of moon illumination and cloud cover had a lower predictive potential than circannual variation.Our results suggest that moonlight could influence deer movements through compensatory foraging. However, at full moon nights collisions could then be modulated by weather conditions, affecting human movement and vehicle traffic, and likely also road crossing by roe deer.Moon illumination may indeed affect wildlife-vehicle collisions and roadkill, but its effects should be quantified as a function of cloud cover. Because collisions with roe deer, the most common road-killed large mammals in Europe, peak at nights with full moon and casted skies, and at some precise periods of the year, interactive warning signs that detect ground illumination at these periods may improve drivers’ awareness and increase their safety.

Online learning tools establish a virtual connection between teachers and studentsand aim to provide technological support for teaching. These tools refer to software or any program, app, virtual classroom, or technology that can be accessed through an Internet connection and that enhances a teacher's ability to present information and astudent's ability to access that information. Some basic online tools are Zoom, MS Teams, Google meet, Moodle, etc. There are many other programmes that can help the teachercommunicate with students, engage students, or test student knowledge, such as Kahoot,Canava. For more details, see our Technical Platform Booklet, “Revision on available ITsolutions for online education”.&nbsp

Socioeconomic changes characterizing the last 70 years changed human-wildlife relationships and diminished activities such as recreational hunting. However, little research has tested whether the s...

The European Union (EU) has recently adopted a regulation on invasive alien species that foresees the possibility of developing lists of species of National Concern. We developed a prioritisation process for alien mammals already established in Italy, but not yet included in the EU list (n = 6 species) and a systematic horizon-scanning procedure to obtain ranked lists for those species that are already introduced worldwide or traded in Italy (n = 213). Experts were asked to score these species, by evaluating their likelihood of establishment and spread and the magnitude of their potential impacts on biodiversity, economy, human-health and society. The manageability of each species was also evaluated, both for the proritisation and the horizon-scanning processes. We produced five lists that ranked species according to their potential spread and impacts and their manageability. These will allow policy-makers to select outputs according to a balance between risk assessment and risk management, establishing priorities for alien species management at the national level.

5 pages, 2 figures, The silver-cheeked toadfish Lagocephalus sceleratus (Gmelin, 1789) is rapidly expanding westward through the Mediterranean Sea. On December 2017, a single individual was caught by a local fisherman at the westernmost end of the basin, the Straits of Gibraltar at San Amaro beach, Bahia norte, Ceuta, Spain (35.8974; −5.2994). This new record opens to the possibility of this Indo-Pacific pest to spread beyond the Mediterranean region, prospecting the future extension of Lessepsian bioinvasions to the Atlantic Ocean, This study has been partially supported by the Interreg Med Programme (Project MPA-Adapt - Grant number 1197 | 1MED15_3.2_M2_337 and Project MPA-ENGAGE -grant number: 5216 | 5MED18_3.2_M23_007), With the funding support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI)

Invasive mosquitoes are an emerging ecological and sanitary issue. Many factors have been suggested as drivers or barriers to their control, still no study quantified their influence over mosquito management by local authorities, nor their interplay with local economic conditions. We assessed how multiple environmental, sanitary, and socio-economic factors affected the engagement of municipalities in Italy (n = 7,679) in actions against Aedes albopictus, an invasive mosquito affecting human health and well-being, between 2000 and 2020. Municipalities are more prone to manage A. albopictus if more urbanized, in lowlands, with long infestation periods and close to outbreaks of Chikungunya, for which A. albopictus is a competent vector. Moreover, these variables were more strongly associated with management in municipalities with a high median income, and thus more economic resources. Only 25.5% of Italian municipalities approved regulations for managing A. albopictus, and very few of them were in Southern Italy, the most deprived area of the country. Our findings indicate that local economic conditions moderate the effect of other drivers of mosquito control and ultimately can lead to better management of A. albopictus. Thus, to ensure social justice, existing policies for managing the impacts of invasive vectors should explicitly address territorial inequalities by providing policymakers with adequate economic means.

Abstract Invasive alien species could generate a multitude of impacts towards native species. The introduction and spread of Vespa velutina in Europe is raising concern for the conservation of insect’s biodiversity, including wasps due to predation, competition or a combination of these two mechanisms. Nevertheless, most evidence for negative effects on other wasps are based on laboratory experiments, direct observations, and on considerations about the biology and ecology of Vespidae. No field study in Europe explored how the abundance of V. velutina could affect the population of native Vespidae, as expected in case of competition and predation. We analysed how the abundance of V. velutina influenced that of Vespa crabro, 4 years after the arrival and establishment of V. velutina in our study area, in Italy. Moreover, we compared the abundances of three native Vespidae (V. crabro, Vespula vulgaris, Vespula germanica), between our study area and an adjacent uninvaded area with similar environmental conditions. Bayesian Generalized Linear Models revealed that the abundance of V. velutina and V. crabro was positively associated, where V. velutina was scarce. Covariation disappeared only at those trapping sites where V. velutina was extremely abundant. Moreover, abundances of native wasps were similar between the invaded and the uninvaded areas. Implications for insect conservation The wide-scale monitoring activity performed to investigate the effects of V. velutina on native wasps has not detected any negative effects in relation to the presence of the invasive species. More effort is however requested for understanding if V. velutina could really affect native Vespidae at the population-level.

SARS‐CoV‐2, the virus that caused the COVID‐19 pandemic, is genomically similar to a SARS‐like beta‐coronavirus found in Asian rhinolophid bats. This evolutionary relationship impressed the global media, which then emphasised bats as key actors in the spillover that resulted in the pandemic. In this study, we highlight changes in the traditional and new media coverage of bats and in Internet search volumes that occurred since the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020.We analysed Google and Wikipedia searches for bats and coronaviruses in 21 countries and eight languages, as well as television broadcasts in the USA, some of which have global coverage, between January 2016 and December 2020. In January 2020, the amount of television news about bats boomed, and news associated with the term ‘bat’ shifted to COVID‐19‐related topics. A nearly identical pattern was observed in Google searches during 2020 at the global scale. The daily time series of television coverage and Internet search volumes on bats and coronavirus in the USA covaried in the first quarter of 2020, in line with the existence of a media bubble. Time‐series analysis revealed that both the Google Trends index and visits to Wikipedia pages about bats boomed in early 2020, despite the fact that this time of year is usually characterised by low search volumes.Media coverage emphasised, correctly or not, the role of bats in the COVID‐19 pandemic and amplified public interest in bats worldwide. The public image of these mammals, in many cases threatened and important ecosystem service providers, was seriously compromised. We therefore recommend that policymakers and journalists prioritise scientifically accurate communication campaigns about bats, which would help counteract the surge in bat persecution, and leverage interest towards positive human–bat interactions., During the COVID‐19 pandemic, the global media reported that bats were involved in the spillover of SARS‐CoV‐2, despite a lack of reliable scientific evidence. In this study, we quantified changes in media coverage about bats, and their resulting impact on Internet searches about bats and coronavirus, across 21 countries. We downloaded information about television news coverage of bats from the USA, as well as Google searches and visits to Wikipedia pages about bats and coronavirus, between 2016 and 2020. In early 2020, news coverage about bats in the USA increased its frequency and shifted to topics associated with viruses and the COVID‐19 pandemic. Related searches about bats on Google, across 21 countries, followed a similar topic. Also, the volume of searches about bats on Google and Wikipedia peaked at the same time, decreasing only after June 2020. Our findings indicate that in 2020, COVID‐related inaccurate media coverage of bats compromised the public image of these animals. We therefore recommend that policymakers and the media should prioritise scientifically accurate communication campaigns about bats, which would help counteract the surge in bat persecution, and leverage interest towards positive human‐bat interactions.

Collisions with vehicles are a major anthropogenic cause of mortality for wildlife, with conservation and evolutionary implications. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries worldwide enforced lockdowns which importantly reduced traffic, and therefore had unprecedented consequences for global wildlife populations. We modeled how the two lockdown periods in spring and autumn 2020 influenced wildlife-vehicle collisions in Slovenia (central Europe), by comparing long-term (for the period 2010–2020) and high-quality time series data on road mortality of seven mammalian species: European roe deer (n = 53,259), red fox (n = 9,889), European badger (n = 5,170), brown hare (n = 5,050), stone marten (n = 4,267), wild boar (n = 1,188), and red deer (n = 1,088). We decomposed 2010–2019 data through autoregressive Bayesian Generalized Additive Models, and then we compared 2020 data to forecasts, aiming to estimate anomalies in number of collisions during both lockdown periods. During the spring lockdown (16 March – 30 April 2020), we observed far less collisions than in the 2010–2019 average as well as in 2020 forecasts, for roe deer and badger. In the autumnal lockdown (20 October – 31 December 2020), we observed significantly less collisions for roe deer and wild boar. Traffic reduction in both lockdown periods had a major impact on roe deer, which in autumn and spring 2020 experienced 270–330 less road-related mortality cases than expected. COVID-19 lockdown reduced traffic-related mortality for the majority of studied species. In some species, this decrease reached a magnitude of biological significance, which can have long-term repercussions on both evolution and management. Obviously, large-scale sanitary policies, imposing a reduction to human mobility, can have large-scale impacts on wildlife. As pandemics may increase in the next decades, we encourage further research exploring the consequences of their enforcement over global change and wildlife conservation and evolution.

Eradication of invasive alien species is a form of pest control linked to biodiversity conservation, which usually involves animal killing. Squirrels are prominent among invasive alien species in Italy, with four species introduced. Three of them are included within the list of alien species of European concern, and their eradication and control is recommended. However, their local control is not an easy task, being often hindered by the general public. We propose a socio-ecological approach to evaluate the feasibility of eradicating Siberian chipmunks Eutamias sibiricus populations in Italy. We performed a structured questionnaire to assess the social perception of invasive Siberian chipmunks in urban parks, and to identify groups of visitors who might oppose eradication. We also carried out geographic profiling to test for the spatial expansion of chipmunk populations. Overall, park visitors regarded chipmunks positively and appreciated to see them, but human-chipmunk interactions were still rare. We did not identify any group of visitors with a strong attachment to chipmunks, who might oppose future control programs. Geographic profiling showed that chipmunks in Valeggio sul Mincio are starting to expand outside of their introduction site. Data from questionnaires show that chipmunks eradication, coupled with adequate communication initiatives, might be feasible. Moreover, geographic profiling indicates that time for a rapid removal is running out. Socio-ecological approaches, combining the analysis of structured questionnaires administered to stakeholders and statistical modeling of pest observations, could be a valuable tool to decide the feasibility and the urgency of invasive alien species control.

Where introduced, the European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus is considered among the most destructive and invasive species. To date, research focused mostly on populations of wild rabbit, whereas little is known on feral domestic rabbit populations. In this work, we reported the establishment of two self-sustaining populations of feral rabbits in Italy. Direct observations were conducted to assess rabbit range expansion and population increase over time. We also evaluated prey-predator interactions between rabbits and native red foxes Vulpes vulpes, by means of camera trapping and the analysis of fox scats. Moreover, we also assessed the social perception towards feral rabbits and the acceptability of various management options through the administration of a structured questionnaire to park visitors. Rabbit populations increased between 2018 and 2019, as well as the size of the invaded range. Rabbits are predated by foxes, but they seem to have adapted their activity rhythms to minimize the risk of predation, becoming diurnal. Park visitors loved rabbits and deemed them to be a positive presence in the park, which deserve to live there. Surgical sterilization of rabbits was the only management option which was partially supported. Feral domestic rabbits, albeit a neglected species in invasion biology, can become extremely successful invaders of urban green areas: in

In this work a mathematical model is built in order to validate on theoretical grounds field study results on a three-species system made of two prey, of which one is native and another one invasive, together with a native predator. Specifically, our results mathematically describe the negative effect on the native European hare after the introduction of the invasive Eastern cottontail, mediated by an increased predation rate by foxes. Two nonexclusive assumptions can be made: an increase in cottontail abundance would lead to a larger fox population, magnifying their predatory impact (“hyperpredation”) on hares; alternatively, cottontails attract foxes in patches where they live, which are also important resting sites for hares and consequently the increased presence of foxes results in a higher predation rates on hares. The model results support hyperpredation of increasing fox populations on native hares.

Plastics are extremely useful, but their mismanagement has affected the environment and our health. Rethinking the development and use of plastics is central to the circular economy paradigm, to provide less harmful options for the environment. Thus, more types of plastic packaging are available, but each reflects diverse circular economy strategies (we refer to these as potentially circular packaging - PCP). We aim to explore consumers’ awareness of these strategies and its effect during the purchasing moment. This study consists of a between-subject experiment, where five types of PCP (i.e., bottled juice packaged in different plastics) were tested on a representative panel of the Italian population (1236 individuals) through stratified random sampling. We designed a 2×2 factors experiment (recycled plastics vs. compostable plastics × third-party certification vs. no certification) with a control group (recyclable plastic). Data were processed through Bayesian Generalized Linear Modeling. We found that despite the assumptions about sustainable plastic packaging consumption in the food sector, all of our options can be considered as valuable alternatives. Consumers may be confused and unable to establish the consequences in the circular economy in terms of each type of PCP. Regardless of whether third-party certifications are provided, consumers’ purchasing intentions are mainly affected by the attractiveness, perceived quality, and eco-friendliness of the packaging. Concerns about pollution, affluent behavior, and openness to change are also found to be relevant in PCP choices. Our findings provide various theoretical and managerial implications.

Conservationists measuring noncompliance with measures limiting the exploitation of natural resources often ask sensitive questions. However, respondents may distort their answers due to the risk of sanctions, taboos or social norms. Specialized Questioning Techniques (SQTs) can encourage honest answering through protecting respondent's privacy by design. This study provides a complete overview of the main SQTs, as well as their most recent advances. We performed a scoping review of existing SQTs, starting with those covered in Nuno and St. John (2015). We covered techniques which advanced over the last few years (n = 14), and included techniques that have never been explained in a conservation context before (n = 2), or that were invented after 2015 (n = 4), like the parallel model, the pair method, the list method and the person count technique. We explained each technique with real, or hypothetical, examples and also discussed advantages and limitations, emphasizing the need to understand the context where they are applied and to imagine the potential repercussions of SQTs, to protect both respondents and their communities. SQTs developed impressively over the last few years, and many different techniques are available to elicit sensitive behaviors with implications for conservation. This research offers a summary to conservationists and practitioners who want to approach this topic and integrate them in their work.

Over the last 40 years the gray wolf (Canis lupus) re-colonized its historical range in Italy increasing human-predator interactions. However, temporal and spatial trends in wolf mortality, including direct and indirect persecution, were never summarized. This study aims to fill this gap by focusing on the situation of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regions, hosting a significant proportion of the Italian wolf population, by: (i) identifying the prevalent causes of wolf mortality, (ii) summarizing their temporal and spatial patterns and (iii) applying spatially-explicit Generalized Linear Models to predict wolf persecution. Between October 2005 and February 2021, 212 wolf carcasses were collected and subjected to necropsy, being involved in collisions with vehicles (n = 104), poisoned (n = 45), wounded with gunshot (n = 24) or blunt objects (n = 4) and being hanged (n = 2). The proportion of illegally killed wolves did not increase through time. Most persecution events occurred between October and February. None of our candidate models outperformed a null model and covariates such as the density of sheep farms, number of predations on livestock, or human density were never associated to the probability of having illegally killed wolves, at the municipal scale. Our findings show that conventional correlates of wolf persecution, combined with a supposedly high proportion of non-retrieved carcasses, fail to predict illegal wolf killings in areas where the species have become ubiquitous. The widespread spatial distribution of illegal killings indicates that persecution probably arises from multiple kinds of conflicts with humans, beyond those with husbandry. Wolf conservation in Italy should thus address cryptic wolf killings with multi-disciplinary approaches, such as shared national protocols, socio-ecological studies, the support of experts’ experience and effective sampling schemes for the detection of carcasses.

Aquatic Invasive species (AIS) are a growing driver of change across marine and freshwater ecosystems but spatially-explicit information is seldom available for supporting management actions and decision making. Here we conceived and tested a new participatory method to map the distribution of three invasive species (Callinectes sapidus, Procambarus clarkii and Oreochromis niloticus) in the coastal lagoon of Lesina (Italy). Local fishers were asked to draw the distribution of each species on pre-printed maps, indicating districts of the lagoon characterized by different abundance levels. Then, maps were converted to a lattice grid and a Bayesian hierarchical Generalized Additive Modeling was adopted to model species distribution in the lagoon, calculating the coefficient of variation for model fitted values to map fishers agreement about the distribution of each species. The spatial gradient in the abundance of the three species in the lagoon aligned with their ecological requirements. C. sapidus was abundant throughout the whole lagoon, peaking in correspondence of saltmarsh vegetation, while P. clarkii and O. niloticus, were much less abundant and remained distributed near to freshwater inputs. Experts agreed about the spatial distribution of C. sapidus in the lagoon, with a median coefficient of variation in model fitted values of 3.9%. On the other hand, the coefficient of variation was higher for P.clarkii (19.9%) O. niloticus (18.4%), indicating a higher level of uncertainty about their estimated distribution. With this example, we provided new metrics to evaluate the quality of LEK-based participatory mapping in terms of agreement and consistency among experts. The resulting information provides new insights for spatially informed management across aquatic realms in relation to the increasing ecological and socio-economical pressures posed by biological invaders.

Artificial wildlife feeding might contribute to the successful establishment of some invasive alien species, like the Eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) in Europe and the UK. Reducing squirrel feeding at urban parks can be important to reduce squirrel populations while avoiding social conflicts. From April to October 2018, we conducted interviews and administered factorial surveys to two samples of visitors at the Valentino urban park in Torino (Italy). We established whether squirrel feeding can be regarded as an independent or an interdependent behavior, by eliciting visitors’ moral beliefs, and their empirical and normative expectations.Most respondents did not regard artificial feeding as something neither intrinsically positive nor negative. Satisfaction, the need for a connection with nature and the presence of children were its main causes. On the other hand, feeding squirrels was deemed to be potentially dangerous for squirrel health, and leading to high squirrel densities and to confident squirrels.Factorial surveys indicated that empirical expectations about the behavior of other visitors, altogether with their past behavior, lead visitors to feed squirrels, while the availability of suboptimal food types (e.g. sweets), was deemed to made people less prone to forage squirrels. Our findings indicate that supplementary feeding is an interdependent behavior, governed by descriptive norms. It might be reduced by means of informative panels containing descriptive information about the fact that most visitors indeed do not feed squirrels, as well as by panels emphasizing the potential damage that squirrels could suffer from eating suboptimal food provided by humans.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused COVID-19 pandemic, is genomically similar to a SARS-like beta-coronavirus found in Chinese rhinolophids. This evolutionary relationship impressed global media, which emphasized bats as key actors in the spillover during the pandemic outbreak. In this study we highlight qualitative and quantitative changes about bats in the media coverage, and Internet search volumes that occurred since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We analyzed Google and Wikipedia searches for bats and coronaviruses across 20 countries in 8 languages, as well as television broadcasts in the US, some of which have a global coverage, between January 2016 and December 2020. The amount of television news about bats on US newscasts boomed in January 2020, and news associated with the term “bat” shifted to COVID-19 related topics. A nearly identical pattern was also observed on 2020 Google searches, at the global scale. The daily time series of television coverage, and Internet search volumes about bats and coronavirus in the US, showed a very high correlation in the first semester of 2020, in line with the existence of a media bubble. Time series analysis revealed that both the GoogleTrends index and visits to Wikipedia pages about bats boomed in early 2020, despite such time of the year was usually characterized by low search volumes. The media coverage emphasized, correctly or not, the role of bats in COVID-19 pandemic and amplified public interest towards them worldwide, yet the public image of these mammals, in many cases threatened and important ecosystem service providers, was seriously compromised We therefore recommend policymakers to quickly enforce communication campaigns about bats, which would help counteract the surge in bat persecution and leverage interest towards positive human-bat interactions.

Here, we investigate the recent spatio-temporal dynamics of the bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix, a warm water species, which is considered to have conquered the northern Mediterranean coasts due to climate warming. Capitalizing two independent surveys carried out through online questionnaires and vis-à-vis interviews, we accessed the ecological knowledge of 640 recreational fishers, and 206 small-scale fishers, respectively. Respondents provided coherent evidence of a rapid northward expansion of the bluefish along the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas at an estimated speed of 0.8-1.4 degrees of latitude per year. Most fishers in the two seas believed the bluefish to negatively affect both fishing activities and the environment, just as if it was an invasive species and this negative perception was positively correlated with increasing bluefish abundances. The phenomenological effects of this widespread outbreak can be assimilated to a large invasion across various sectors of the Mediterranean Sea, posing the urgency of manage this issue and better understanding its linkage to climate drivers.

11 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, supplementary material http://www--int-res--com.csic.debiblio.com/articles/suppl/m634p147_supp.pdf, Marine recreational fishers accumulate a vast amount of local ecological knowledge (LEK) during their fishing activity that can be of paramount importance for monitoring how climate change affects fish assemblages. We assessed LEK of recreational fishers to investigate the increase in the abundance of 5 northward-expanding indigenous thermophilic fish species in 2 Mediterranean subregions. We accessed LEK through an online survey completed by 794 recreational fishers (386 from the Adriatic/Ionian subregion and 408 from the Tyrrhenian/Ligurian subregion). The species perceived to have increased most in abundance were Pomatomus saltatrix (71% of replies) followed by Sphyraena viridensis (58%). The remaining species (Sparisoma cretense, Balistes capriscus and Coryphaena hippurus) ranged between 17 and 25%. Recreational fishers have a stable system of beliefs about meridionalization, which is perceived homogeneously between recreational anglers and recreational spearfishers. Our results indicate that latitude is negatively correlated with meridionalization in the Adriatic/Ionian, but not in the Tyrrhenian/Ligurian Seas, suggesting that meridionalization of the Adriatic/Ionian Seas could be a process that has temporally lagged with respect to the Tyrrhenian/Ligurian Seas. Our study demonstrates that LEK of recreational fishers can be easily accessed on a large geographical scale and can be useful to monitor changes in the distributions of data-limited species such as those studied here, This study was supported by the Interreg Med Programme (Grant number Pr MPA-Adapt 1MED15_3.2_M2_337) 85% co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and by the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ), under project IP-2016-06-525, With the funding support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI)

Anglers can be significant vectors for non-native species (NNS) in freshwater ecosystems, and monitoring their behaviour can be a useful way to counteract biological invasions. However, anglers may be unwilling to reveal their real behaviour in conventional surveys. In this study, the Randomised Response Technique (RRT) and the Bean Method (BM) survey technique were compared using direct questions to obtain frequency estimates of four angler behaviours that may affect NNS management in freshwater ecosystems: angling without a license, release of macroinvertebrates in the environment, use of fish bait and unauthorised fish restocking. Higher estimates were obtained from responses to RRT than BM questions, and BM provided contradictory results. Use of the RRT is recommended in those human dimension studies that explore angler behaviour as a vector for aquatic invasions.

Marine bioinvasions require integrating monitoring tools with other complementary strategies. In this study, we collected information about the invasive alien crab Callinectes sapidus in Italy, Croatia and Montenegro, by means of online questionnaires administered to recreational fishers (n = 797). Our records matched the current distribution of the species: C. sapidus resulted far more common in the Adriatic/Ionian than in the Tyrrhenian/Ligurian sector. Most respondents rated the species as ‘occasional’ or ‘rare’. Moreover, the more C. sapidus was considered to be abundant, the more fishers tended to perceive it as a negative disturbance over fisheries and the environment. Our findings suggest that C. sapidus is more common than previously thought in most of the study area, and it could have reached the levels of a true invasions in the south-eastern Adriatic Sea. This experience demonstrates that online questionnaires can be appropriate tools to effectively engage stakeholders in alien species monitoring.

In postmodern societies socioeconomic changes characterizing the last decades shifted value orientations and attitudes towards wildlife, diminishing consumptive uses of wildlife, such as recreational hunting or fishing. However, no study has tested yet whether the same forces of modernization also increased non-consumptive uses of wildlife. We adopted multivariate random forests to model the effect of urbanization, average income and higher education over the conjoint incidence of recreational hunters and people who volunteer with animals at the municipal scale, in Tuscany (Central Italy). We also used time series analysis to see if these effects were supported by long term trends in recreational hunting across different areas. Urbanized areas, characterized by higher proportion of residentswith a higher education, are negatively associated with the incidence of recreational hunters, and positively to the incidence of people volunteering with animals. Cluster analysis identi fied two groups of municipalities, characterized by opposite incidences of hunters and volunteers, by a different magnitude of change in recreational hunting and by a different level of urbanization. Although hunting participation declined steadily over the last 15 years, this decline was greater at urbanized municipalities. These differences are likely to produce conflicts about wildlife management, and we believe regional agencies should adopt preemptive measures to mitigate them, such as improved data sharing and staff training about human dimensions of wildlife. Our findings indicate that the cognitive hierarchy can be a valuable theoretical frame to link socioeconomic dynamics to changes in human-wildlife relationships, even for non-consumptive wildlife uses.

The Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) has become invasive in Central and Northern Italy, where it affects prey-predator dynamics between native species. Although many different studies explored survival rates and the density of cottontails in North America, no information is available for its invasive range. Between December 2003 and October 2005, a capture-recapture scheme for Eastern cottontails was enforced on the Orba River, Italy. We fitted an open-population Cormack-Jolly-Seber model to estimate survival of adult individuals (n=258) and their density in the study area. Adult cottontails showed a constant survival (phi = 0.84 ± 0.02) across the various sessions, as well as between individuals of different sexes. Capture probabilities and densities varied seasonally, with densities ranging between 2.06 ± 1.24 and 8.00 ± 4.60 cottontails/hectare, with an average of 4.72 individuals/hectare. Eastern cottontails are characterized by high survival and high densities, in their invaded range in Italy. Although densities are comparable to those reported in North America, our analysis focused on adult cottontails only and overall densities are certainly higher. Moreover, our estimates, obtained through a capture-recapture approach, were higher than those reported in previous studies from Italy that adopted nocturnal spotlight censuses. Spotlight transects are likely to underestimate cottontail densities, due to nocturnal habitat selection of cottontails, which might decrease their detectability., The Ms contains supplementary information, in terms of reproducible code and dataset, {"references":["Balestrieri A., Remonti L., Prigioni C., 2006. Local feeding specialization of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) in response to eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) introduction (NW Italy). Hystrix 16: 113-126.","Barbar F., Lambertucci S. A., 2018. The roles of leporid species that have been translocated: a review of their ecosystem effects as native and exotic species. Mammal Rev. 48(4): 245-260.","Bertolino S., Hofmannova L., Girardello M., Modry, D., 2010. Richness, origin and structure of an Eimeria community in a population of Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) introduced into Italy. Parasitology 137(8): 1179-1186.","Bertolino S., di Montezemolo N. C., Perrone A., 2011a. Daytime habitat selection by introduced eastern cottontail Sylvilagus floridanus and native European hare Lepus europaeus in Northern Italy. Zool. Sci. 28(6): 414-420.","Bertolino S., Perrone A., Gola L., Viterbi R. 2011b., Population Density and Habitat Use of the Introduced Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) Compared to the Native European Hare (Lepus europaeus). Zool. Stud. 50(3): 315-326.","Bertolino S., di Montezemolo N. C., Perrone A., 2013. Habitat use of coexisting introduced eastern cottontail and native European hare. Mamm. Biol. 78(4): 235-240.","Cerri J., 2014. Uso dell'habitat, metodi di stima della densità e prospettive di gestione della minilepre (Sylvilagus floridanus) in Toscana. M.Sc. thesis, Università degli Studi di Firenze. retrievedat: https://sol.unifi.it/tesi/consultazione","Cerri J., Ferretti M., & Bertolino S., 2017. Rabbits killing hares: an invasive mammal modifies native predator–prey dynamics. Anim. Conserv. 20(6): 511-519.","Cerri J., Batisti G., Ferretti M., Zaccaroni M., & Bertolino S., 2018. Hunters' preferences for engaging in control programs of introduced Eastern cottontails in Italy: a factorial survey approach. Eur. J. Wildlife Res 64(2), 21.","Chapman J. A., Litvaitis J. A., 2003. Eastern cottontail. In: Feldhamer G.A., Thompson B.C., Chapman J.A., (Eds.) Wild mammals of North America. Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore, MD, 101-125.","D'Angelo A., Cerri J., Cavadini P., Lavazza A., Capucci L., Ferretti M., (2018). The Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) in Tuscany (Central Italy): weak evidence for its role as a host of EBHSV and RHDV. Hystrix. https://doi.org/10.4404/hystrix-00146-2018","Delibes-Mateos M., Castro F., Piorno V., Ramírez E., Blanco-Aguiar J. A., Aparicio F., Mínguez L.E., Ferreira C.C., Rouco C., Ríos-Saldaña C.A., Recuerda P., Villafuerte R., 2018. First assessment of the potential introduction by hunters of eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) in Spain. Wildl. Res. 45(7): 571-577.","Dori P., Scalisi M., Mori E., 2019. \"An American near Rome\"… and not only! Presence of the eastern cottontail in Central Italy and potential impacts on the endemic and vulnerable Apennine hare. Mammalia 83(3): 307-312.","Dorney R.S., 1962. Coccidiosis in Wisconsin cottontail rabbits in winter. J. Parasitol 48(2): 276-279.","Flowerdew J. R., 1976. Ecological methods. Mammal Rev 6: 123–159.","Gallo M.G., Tizzani P., Peano A., Rambozzi L., Meneguz, P.G., 2005. Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) as carrier of dermatophyte fungi. Mycopathologia 160(2): 163-166.","Havera S.P., 1973. The relationship of Illinois weather and agriculture to the eastern cottontail rabbit. Illinois State Water Survey. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiCi8G1hK3jAhWJ6aQKHcC3AGQQFjAAegQIABAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcore.ac.uk%2Fdownload%2Fpdf%2F29157886.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2_hgjm4XqK7_9x3n5kY-jG","Langbein J., Hutchings M.R., Harris S., Stoate C., Tapper S.C., Wray S., 1999. Techniques for assessing the abundance of brown hares Lepus europaeus. Mammal Rev. 29(2): 93-116.","Lavazza A., Cavadini P., Barbieri I., Tizzani P., Pinheiro A., Abrantes J., Esteves P.J., Grilli G., Gioia E., Zanoni M.G., Meneguz P.G., Guitton J.S., Marchandeau S., Chiari M., Capucci., L., 2015. Field and experimental data indicate that the eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) is susceptible to infection with European brown hare syndrome (EBHS) virus and not with rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) virus. Vet. Res. 46(1): 13.","Mancina C.A., Tió E.G., Borroto-Páez R., Díaz H.M., Cervantes F.A. 2015., Taxonomic identity of invasive rabbits in Cuba: first record of Eastern Cottontail, Sylvilagus floridanus (Mammalia: Lagomorpha). Check List 11(6): 1820.","McCrea R.S., Morgan B.J., 2014. Analysis of capture-recapture data. Chapman and Hall/CRC, London.","Nichols J.D., 1992. Capture-recapture models. BioScience 42(2): 94-102.","Nielsen, C., Lanier, H.C., 2019. Sylvilagus floridanus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2019: e.T41299A45191626. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-1.RLTS.T41299A45191626.en","Pradel R., 2005. Multievent: an extension of multistate capture–recapture models to uncertain states. Biometrics 61(2): 442-447.","R Core Team (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical computing.","Sakai A.K., Allendorf F.W., Holt J.S., Lodge D.M., Molofsky J., With K.A., Baughman S., Cabin R.J., Cohen J.E., Ellstrand N.C., McCauley D.E., O'Neil P., Parker I.M, Thompson J.N., Weller S.G., 2001. The population biology of invasive species. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evo. S. 32(1): 305-332.","Salvioli M., Pasquali S., Lavazza A., Zanoni M., Guberti V., Chiari M., Gilioli G., 2017. EBHS in European brown hares (Lepus europaeus): disease dynamics and control. Hystrix 28(2): 202-207.","Schwarz C.J., Seber G.A., 1999. Estimating animal abundance: review III. Stat Sci, 427-456.","Silvano F., Acquarone C., Cucco M., 2000. Distribution of the eastern cottontail Sylvilagus floridanus in the province of Alessandria. Hystrix 11(2): 75-58.","Sutherland W.J., 2006. Ecological census techniques: a handbook. Cambridge university press, Cambridge.","Tizzani P., Catalano S., Rossi L., Duignan P.J., Meneguz P.G., 2014. Invasive species and their parasites: eastern cottontail rabbit Sylvilagus floridanus and Trichostrongylus affinis (Graybill, 1924) from Northwestern Italy. Parasitol. Res. 113(4): 1301-1303.","Vidus Rosin A., Gilio N., Meriggi A., 2008. Introduced lagomorphs as a threat to \"native\" lagomorphs: the case of the Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) in northern Italy. In: Alves P.C., Ferrand N., Hackländer K. (Eds.) Lagomorph Biology. Springer, Berlin. 153-164.","Vidus-Rosin A., Meriggi A., Cardarelli E., Serrano-Perez S., Mariani M.C., Corradelli C., Barba A., 2011. Habitat overlap between sympatric European hares (Lepus europaeus) and Eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus) in northern Italy. Acta Theriol. 56(1): 53-61.","Weidman T., Litvaitis J.A., 2011. Can supplemental food increase winter survival of a threatened cottontail rabbit? Biol. Conserv. 144(7): 2054-2058.","Zanet S., Palese V., Trisciuoglio A., Alonso C.C., Ferroglio E., 2013. Encephalitozoon cuniculi, Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum infection in invasive Eastern Cottontail Rabbits Sylvilagus floridanus in Northwestern Italy. Vet. Parasitol. 197(3-4): 682-684."]}

A major problem worldwide is the rapid change in species abundance and distribution, which is rapidly restructuring the biological communities of many ecosystems under changing climates. Tracking these transformations in the marine environment is crucial but our understanding is often hampered by the absence of historical data and by the practical challenge of survey large geographical areas. Here we focus on the Mediterranean Sea, a region which is warming faster than the rest of the global ocean, tracing back the spatio-temporal dynamic of species, which are emerging the most in terms of increasing abundances and expanding distributions. To this aim, we accessed the Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) of small-scale and recreational fishers reconstructing the dynamics of fish perceived as ‘new’ or increasing in different fishing area. Over 500 fishers across 95 locations and 9 different countries were interviewed and semi-quantitative information on yearly changes in species abundance was collected. Overall, 75 species were mentioned by the respondents, being the most frequent citations related to warm-adapted species of both, native and exotic origin. Respondents belonging to the same biogeographic sectors described coherent spatio-temporal dynamics, and gradients along latitudinal and longitudinal axes were revealed. This information provides a more complete understanding of recent bio-geographical changes in the Mediterranean Sea and it also demonstrates that adequately structured LEK methodology might be applied successfully beyond the local scale, across national borders and jurisdictions. Acknowledging this potential through macro-regional coordination, could pave the ground for future large-scale aggregations of individual observations, increasing our potential for integrated monitoring and conservation planning at the regional or even global level., Preprint. The final version, after peer-reviewing, has been published as: "Azzurro, E., Sbragaglia, V., Cerri, J., Bariche, M., Bolognini, L., Souissi, J. B., ... & Gianni, F. (2019). Climate change, biological invasions, and the shifting distribution of Mediterranean fishes: A large‐scale survey based on local ecological knowledge. Global Change Biology. First published: 20 May 2019. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14670", {"references":["Albouy, C., Guilhaumon, F., Leprieur, F., Lasram, F. B. R., Somot, S., Aznar, R., . . . Mouillot, D. (2013) Projected climate change and the changing biogeography of coastal Mediterranean fishes. Journal of Biogeography, 40, 534-547.","Albouy, C., Leprieur, F., Le Loc'h, F., Mouquet, N., Meynard, C. N., Douzery, E. J., Mouillot, D. (2015) Projected impacts of climate warming on the functional and phylogenetic components of coastal Mediterranean fish biodiversity. Ecography, 38, 681-689.","Albouy, C., Velez, L., Coll, M., Colloca, F., Le Loc'h, F., Mouillot, D., Gravel, D. (2014) From projected species distribution to food-web structure under climate change. Global Change Biology, 20, 730-741.","Allen, C. R., Fontaine, J. J., Pope, K. L., Garmestani, A. S. (2011) Adaptive management for a turbulent future. Journal of Environmental Management, 92, 1339-1345.","Azzurro, E. (2008) The advance of thermophilic fishes in the Mediterranean sea: overview and methodological questions. In: CIESM workshop monographs. pp Page, CIESM, Monaco.","Azzurro, E., Bolognini, L., Dragičević, B., Drakulović, D., Dulčić, J., Fanelli, E., . . . Magaletti, E. (2018) Detecting the occurrence of indigenous and non-indigenous megafauna through fishermen knowledge: A complementary tool to coastal and port surveys. Marine Pollution Bulletin.","Azzurro, E., Moschella, P., Maynou, F. (2011) Tracking signals of change in Mediterranean fish diversity based on local ecological knowledge. PLOS ONE, 6, e24885.","Azzurro, E., Soto, S., Garofalo, G., Maynou, F. (2013) Fistularia commersonii in the Mediterranean Sea: invasion history and distribution modeling based on presence-only records. Biological Invasions, 15, 977-990.","Bastari, A., Beccacece, J., Ferretti, F., Micheli, F., Cerrano, C. (2017) Local ecological knowledge indicates temporal trends of benthic invertebrates species of the Adriatic Sea. Frontiers in Marine Science, 4, 157.","Beaudreau, A. H., Levin, P. S. (2014) Advancing the use of local ecological knowledge for assessing data‐poor species in coastal ecosystems. Ecological Applications, 24, 244-256.","Bélisle, A. C., Asselin, H., LeBlanc, P., Gauthier, S. (2018) Local knowledge in ecological modeling. Ecology and Society, 23, 14.","Bennett, N. J., Roth, R., Klain, S. C., Chan, K., Christie, P., Clark, D. A., . . . Epstein, G. (2017) Conservation social science: Understanding and integrating human dimensions to improve conservation. Biological Conservation, 205, 93-108.","Berkes, F. (2004) Rethinking Community-Based Conservation. Conservation Biology, 18, 621-630.","Bianchi, C. N. (2007). Biodiversity issues for the forthcoming tropical Mediterranean Sea. Hydrobiologia, 580, 7-21.","Bianchi, C. N., Morri, C., Chiantore, M., Montefalcone, M., Parravicini, V., Rovere, A. (2012) Mediterranean Sea biodiversity between the legacy from the past and a future of change. Life in the Mediterranean Sea: a look at habitat changes, 1-55.","Boero, F., Féral, J., Azzurro, E., Cardin, V., Riedel, B., Despalatovic, M., . . . Fonda Umani, S. (2008) I–Executive Summary of CIESM workshop climate warming and related changes in Mediterranean marine biota. In: CIESM workshop monographs, 50, 5-21.","Burrows, M. T., Schoeman, D. S., Buckley, L. B., Moore, P., Poloczanska, E. S., Brander, K. M., . . . Richardson, A. J. (2011) The pace of shifting climate in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Science, 334, 652-655.","Callihan, J. L., Takata, L. T., Woodland, R. J., Secor, D. H. (2008) Cohort splitting in bluefish, Pomatomus saltatrix, in the US mid‐Atlantic Bight. Fisheries Oceanography, 17, 191-205.","Coll, M., Carreras, M., Ciércoles, C., Cornax, M.-J., Gorelli, G., Morote, E., Sáez, R. (2014) Assessing fishing and marine biodiversity changes using fishers' perceptions: The Spanish Mediterranean and gulf of Cadiz case study. PLOS ONE, 9, e85670.","Coll, M., Piroddi, C., Steenbeek, J., Kaschner, K., Ben Rais Lasram, F., Aguzzi, J., . . . Voultsiadou, E. (2010) The biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea: estimates, patterns, and hreats. PLoS ONE, 5, e11842.","Coughlin, S. S. (1990) Recall bias in epidemiologic studies. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 43, 87-91.","Coulthard, S. (2012) Can we be both resilient and well, and what choices do people have? Incorporating agency into the resilience debate from a fisheries perspective. Ecology and Society, 17.","Creighton, C., Hobday, A. J., Lockwood, M., Pecl, G. T. (2016) Adapting management of marine environments to a changing climate: a checklist to guide reform and assess progress. Ecosystems, 19, 187-219.","Crozier, L. G., Hutchings, J. A. (2014) Plastic and evolutionary responses to climate change in fish. Evolutionary Applications, 7, 68-87.","Cheung, W. W., Watson, R., Pauly, D. (2013) Signature of ocean warming in global fisheries catch. Nature, 497, 365.","Cheung, W. W. L., Lam, V. W. Y., Sarmiento, J. L., Kearney, K., Watson, R., Pauly, D. (2009) Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios. Fish and Fisheries, 10, 235-251.","Damalas, D., Maravelias, C. D., Osio, G. C., Maynou, F., Sbrana, M., & Sartor, P. (2015). \"Once upon a Time in the Mediterranean\" long term trends of mediterranean fisheries resources based on fishers' traditional ecological knowledge. PloS one, 10, e0119330.","Dempster, T., Arechavala-Lopez, P., Barrett, L. T., Fleming, I. A., Sanchez-Jerez, P., Uglem, I. (2018) Recapturing escaped fish from marine aquaculture is largely unsuccessful: alternatives to reduce the number of escapees in the wild. Reviews in Aquaculture, 10, 153-167.","Di Sciara, G. N. (2016) Marine mammals in the Mediterranean Sea: An overview. In: Advances in Marine Biology. pp Page., Elsevier.","Edelist, D., Rilov, G., Golani, D., Carlton, J. T., Spanier, E. (2013) Restructuring the S ea: profound shifts in the world's most invaded marine ecosystem. Diversity and Distributions, 19, 69-77.","Elmendorf, S. C., Henry, G. H. R., Hollister, R. D., Fosaa, A. M., Gould, W. A., Hermanutz, L., . . . Walker, M. D. (2015) Experiment, monitoring, and gradient methods used to infer climate change effects on plant communities yield consistent patterns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112, 448-452.","Fogarty, H. E., Burrows, M. T., Pecl, G. T., Robinson, L. M., Poloczanska, E. S. (2017) Are fish outside their usual ranges early indicators of climate-driven range shifts? Global Change Biology, 23, 2047-2057.","Fossheim, M., Primicerio, R., Johannesen, E., Ingvaldsen, R. B., Aschan, M. M., Dolgov, A. V. (2015) Recent warming leads to a rapid borealization of fish communities in the Arctic. Nature Climate Change, 5, 673.","Francour, P., Boudouresque, C. F., Harmelin, J. G., Harmelin-Vivien, M. L., Quignard, J. P. (1994) Are the Mediterranean waters becoming warmer? Information from biological indicators. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 28, 523-526.","Galil, B., Marchini, A., Occhipinti-Ambrogi, A., Ojaveer, H. (2017) The enlargement of the Suez Canal—Erythraean introductions and management challenges. Management of Biological Invasions, 8, 141-152.","Givan, O., Parravicini, V., Kulbicki, M., Belmaker, J. (2017) Trait structure reveals the processes underlying fish establishment in the Mediterranean. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 26, 142-153","Golani, D., Orsi-Relini, L., Massuti, E., Quignard, J. P., Dulčić, J., Azzurro, E., 2018. (2018) CIESM atlas of exotic fishes in the Mediterranean. Check-list of exotic species. http://www.ciesm.org/atlas/appendix1.","Grafton, R. Q. (2010) Adaptation to climate change in marine capture fisheries. Marine Policy, 34, 606-615.","Guisan, A., Edwards, T. C., Hastie, T. (2002) Generalized linear and generalized additive models in studies of species distributions: setting the scene. Ecological Modelling, 157, 89-100.","Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R. (1990) Generalized additive models, Wiley Online Library.","Katsanevakis, S., Mackelworth, P., Coll, M., Fraschetti, S., Mačić, V., Giakoumi, S., . . . Badalamenti, F. (2017) Advancing marine conservation in European and contiguous seas with the MarCons Action. Research Ideas and Outcomes, 3, e11884.","Killick, R., Eckley, I. (2014) changepoint: An R package for changepoint analysis. Journal of statistical software, 58, 1-19.","Lasram, F. B. R., Mouillot, D. (2009) Increasing southern invasion enhances congruence between endemic and exotic Mediterranean fish fauna. Biological Invasions, 11, 697.","Latombe, G., Pyšek, P., Jeschke, J. M., Blackburn, T. M., Bacher, S., Capinha, C., . . . Hobern, D. (2017) A vision for global monitoring of biological invasions. Biological Conservation, 213, 295-308.","Lejeusne, C., Chevaldonné, P., Pergent-Martini, C., Boudouresque, C. F., Pérez, T. (2010) Climate change effects on a miniature ocean: the highly diverse, highly impacted Mediterranean Sea. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 25, 250-260.","Marbà, N., Jordà, G., Agustí, S., Girard, C., Duarte, C. M. (2015) Footprints of climate change on Mediterranean Sea biota. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2, 56.","Marras, S., Cucco, A., Antognarelli, F., Azzurro, E., Milazzo, M., Bariche, M., . . . Domenici, P. (2015) Predicting future thermal habitat suitability of competing native and invasive fish species: from metabolic scope to oceanographic modelling. Conservation Physiology, 3, cou059-cou059.","Mavruk, S., Saygu, İ., Bengil, F., Alan, V., Azzurro, E. (2018) Grouper fishery in the Northeastern Mediterranean: An assessment based on interviews on resource users. Marine Policy, 87, 141-148.","Mcgeoch, M. A., Genovesi, P., Bellingham, P. J., Costello, M. J., Mcgrannachan, C., Sheppard, A. (2016) Prioritizing species, pathways, and sites to achieve conservation targets for biological invasion. Biological Invasions, 18, 299-314.","Mcgeoch, M. A., Latombe, G. (2016) Characterizing common and range expanding species. Journal of Biogeography, 43, 217-228.","Nativi, S., Mazzetti, P., Santoro, M., Papeschi, F., Craglia, M., Ochiai, O. (2015) Big data challenges in building the global earth observation system of systems. Environmental Modelling & Software, 68, 1-26.","Oksanen, J., Blanchet, F. G., Kindt, R., Legendre, P., Minchin, P. R., O'hara, R., . . . Wagner, H. (2013) Package 'vegan'. Community ecology package, version, 2.","Papaconstantinou, C., Farrugio, H. (2016) Fisheries in the Mediterranean.","Parmesan, C., Yohe, G. (2003) A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature, 421, 37.","Parravicini, V., Azzurro, E., Kulbicki, M., Belmaker, J. (2015) Niche shift can impair the ability to predict invasion risk in the marine realm: an illustration using Mediterranean fish invaders. Ecology Letters, 18, 246-253.","Pauly, D., Zeller, D. (2016) Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining. Nat Commun, 7, 10244.","Pecl, G. T., Araújo, M. B., Bell, J. D., Blanchard, J., Bonebrake, T. C., Chen, I.-C., . . . Evengård, B. (2017) Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being. Science, 355, eaai9214.","Perry, A. L., Low, P. J., Ellis, J. R., Reynolds, J. D. (2005) Climate change and distribution shifts in marine fishes. science, 308, 1912-1915.","Pinsky, M. L., Worm, B., Fogarty, M. J., Sarmiento, J. L., Levin, S. A. (2013) Marine Taxa Track Local Climate Velocities. Science, 341, 1239-1242.","Poloczanska, E. S., Brown, C. J., Sydeman, W. J., Kiessling, W., Schoeman, D. S., Moore, P. J., . . . Richardson, A. J. (2013) Global imprint of climate change on marine life. Nature Climate Change, 3, 919.","Poloczanska, E. S., Burrows, M. T., Brown, C. J., García Molinos, J., Halpern, B. S., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., . . . Schoeman, D. S. (2016) Responses of marine organisms to climate change across oceans. Frontiers in Marine Science, 3, 62.","Pörtner, H. O., Knust, R. (2007) Climate change affects marine fishes through the oxygen limitation of thermal tolerance. science, 315, 95-97.","Reusch, T. B. H. (2014) Climate change in the oceans: evolutionary versus phenotypically plastic responses of marine animals and plants. Evolutionary Applications, 7, 104-122.","Sabatés, A., Martín, P., Raya, V. (2012) Changes in life-history traits in relation to climate change: bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) in the northwestern Mediterranean. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69, 1000-1009.","Sabatés, A., Paloma, M., Lloret, J., Raya, V. (2006) Sea warming and fish distribution: the case of the small pelagic fish, Sardinella aurita, in the western Mediterranean. Global Change Biology, 12, 2209-2219.","Schneck, F., Melo, A. S. (2010) Reliable sample sizes for estimating similarity among macroinvertebrate assemblages in tropical streams. In: Annales de Limnologie-International Journal of Limnology. pp Page, EDP Sciences.","Schroeder, K., Chiggiato, J., Bryden, H.L, Borghini, M., Ben Ismail, S. (2016) Abrupt climate shift in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Scientific Report 6, 23009.","Stergiou, K. I. (2002) Overfishing, tropicalization of fish stocks, uncertainty and ecosystem management: resharpening Ockham's razor. Fish. Res, 55, 1-9.","Tittensor, D. P., Walpole, M., Hill, S. L., Boyce, D. G., Britten, G. L., Burgess, N. D., . . . Alkemade, R. (2014) A mid-term analysis of progress toward international biodiversity targets. Science, 346, 241-244.","Vargas-Yáñez, M., García, M. J., Salat, J., García-Martínez, M., Pascual, J., Moya, F. (2008) Warming trends and decadal variability in the Western Mediterranean shelf. Global and Planetary Change, 63, 177-184.","Vaske, J. J. (2008) Survey research and analysis: Applications in parks, recreation and human dimensions, Venture Publ.","Vergés, A., Steinberg, P. D., Hay, M. E., Poore, A. G. B., Campbell, A. H., Ballesteros, E., . . . Wilson, S. K. (2014) The tropicalization of temperate marine ecosystems: climate-mediated changes in herbivory and community phase shifts. Proceedings. Biological sciences, 281, 20140846-20140846.","Walther, G.-R., Roques, A., Hulme, P. E., Sykes, M. T., Pyšek, P., Kühn, I., . . . Settele, J. (2009) Alien species in a warmer world: risks and opportunities. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 24, 686-693.","Wood, S. N. (2013) On p-values for smooth components of an extended generalized additive model. Biometrika, 100, 221-228.","Wood, S. N. (2017a) Generalized additive models: an introduction with R, CRC press.","Wood, S. N. (2017b) mgcv: Mixed GAM Computation Vehicle with Automatic Smoothness Estimation. Available at https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/mgcv/index.html. Accessed April 2018.","Wood, S. N., Pya, N., Säfken, B. (2016) Smoothing Parameter and Model Selection for General Smooth Models. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 111, 1548-1563.","Zenetos, A., Çinar, M. E., Crocetta, F., Golani, D., Rosso, A., Servello, G., . . . Verlaque, M. (2017) Uncertainties and validation of alien species catalogues: The Mediterranean as an example. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 191, 171-187."]}

During the last few decades native European hares (Lepus europaeus) have declined in Central and Northern Italy. Despite this trend having multiple causes, it was hypothesized that invasive Eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus) contributed to the decline through apparent competition and disease transmission. In this research we explored whether cottontails may act as carriers of EBHSV (European Brown Hare Syndrome Virus) and RHDV (Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease Virus), the viral agents of two major diseases affecting lagomorphs in Europe. We took biological samples from 267 cottontails that were shot between March and August 2015 in Tuscany, performing specific antigenic and serological ELISA tests for both viruses as well as molecular investigation for lagoviruses. Virologic tests were all negative and serological titers were below the threshold that could indicate the active circulation of either of the two pathogenic viruses. Our findings suggest that cottontails were not playing an active role as carriers or reservoirs for both known virulent lagoviruses and were also not infected with non-pathogenic lagoviruses - at least at that time in the study area.

Determining the distribution of invasive species and tracing back their spatio-temporal dynamics is crucial to feed early warning systems, risk assessments and to mitigate impacts through management actions. However, in the marine environment, this task can be particularly problematic because historical data are often missing and biological invasions can be neglected until they become sufficiently abundant and pose socio-economical concerns. Here, drawing on recent experiences on Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) and on its application through different Mediterranean countries, we report three different case studies to exemplify potential applications of eliciting LEK to retrace the dynamics of marine invaders. A growing interest of these methodologies is highlighted in either Mediterranean studies and worldwide, reflecting the need of broad ecological observations and by the LEK value as a mutually beneficial action to social and ecological systems. The application of standard LEK protocols across boundaries and jurisdictions can overcome some of the limits of bio-invasion research, providing a strategic and practical complement to traditional surveys and occasional species records. This practice is now being transferred to Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas and tested for the monitoring and management needs of small-scale fishery., The study was funded by the European Commission through the Interreg Med Programme (Grant number Pr MPA-Adapt 1MED15_3.2_m2_337), {"references":["Azzurro, E., Soto, S., Garofalo, G., & Maynou, F. (2013). Fistularia commersonii in the Mediterranean Sea: invasion history and distribution modeling based on presence-only records. Biological Invasions, 15(5), 977-990.","Chambers, R. (2006). Participatory mapping and geographic information systems: whose map? Who is empowered and who disempowered? Who gains and who loses?. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 25(1), 1-11.","Fagerholm, N., Käyhkö, N., Ndumbaro, F., & Khamis, M. (2012). Community stakeholders' knowledge in landscape assessments–Mapping indicators for landscape services. Ecological Indicators, 18, 421-433.","Hassan, E. (2006). Recall bias can be a threat to retrospective and prospective research designs. The Internet Journal of Epidemiology, 3(2), 339-412.","Raymond, C. M., Fazey, I., Reed, M. S., Stringer, L. C., Robinson, G. M., & Evely, A. C. (2010). Integrating local and scientific knowledge for environmental management. Journal of environmental management, 91(8), 1766-1777.","Zeileis, A., Leisch, F., Hornik, K., Kleiber, C., Hansen, B., Merkle, E. C., & Zeileis, M. A. (2015). Package 'strucchange'. Technical Report."]}

BACKGROUNDEradication of invasive alien species is a form of pest control linked to biodiversity conservation that usually involves killing animals. Squirrels are prominent among invasive alien species in Italy with four species introduced. Three of them are included within the list of alien species of European concern and their eradication and control is recommended. However, their local control is not an easy task, being highly appreciated by the general public. We propose a socio-ecological approach to evaluate the feasibility of eradicating Siberian chipmunks (Eutamias sibiricus) populations. We performed a structured questionnaire to assess the social perception of invasive Siberian chipmunks in urban parks where they occur and to identify groups of visitors who might oppose eradication. We also carried out geographic profiling to test for the spatial expansion of chipmunk populations.RESULTSOverall, park visitors regarded chipmunks positively and appreciated to see them, but human-chipmunk interactions were still rare. We did not identify any group of visitors with a strong attachment to chipmunks, who might oppose future control programs. Geographic profiling showed that chipmunks in Valeggio sul Mincio are starting to expand outside of their introduction site.CONCLUSIONSData from questionnaires show that chipmunks eradication, coupled with adequate communication initiatives, might be feasible. Moreover, geographic profiling indicates that time for a rapid removal is running out. Socio-ecological approaches, combining the analysis of structured questionnaires administered to stakeholders and statistical modeling of pest observations, could be a valuable tool to decide the feasibility and the urgency of invasive pest control.

PurposeSurveys measuring consumers’ preferences for sustainable food might suffer from socially desirable responding. Social desirability stems in part from social norms about sustainable lifestyles, when respondents need approval from others and when privacy is not guaranteed during survey completion. While various studies showed this phenomenon through laboratory experiments and by comparing different modes of survey administration, no research adopted factorial survey experiments (FSEs) to measure which factors are perceived by consumers as critical for socially desirable answering. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap, at least for young consumers in a case study with organic fruit.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 143 under-30 respondents were involved in an FSE. Each respondent evaluated six hypothetical scenarios (n=858) describing a consumer surveyed about his/her preferences for organic fruit. Respondents indicated whether they believed participants would have answered honestly or not to the survey described in each scenario. Generalized linear mixed models were used to model how scenario attributes were perceived to influence honest answering.FindingsRespondents believe that people are more prone to bias their answers the more they seek approval from others. Moreover, the presence of acquaintances during survey completion is another critical driver of survey misreporting.Originality/valueThis study, by using a novel robust quasi-experimental approach, confirms that social desirability could lead consumers to misreport their preferences when surveyed about an organic fruit. This confirms that well-designed surveys, adopting proper remedies for social desirability should be adopted even for those food products, like fruit, which are usually deemed to be less subjected to misreporting. It also introduces FSEs as a flexible tool for collecting insights from consumers about potential antecedents of their behavior.

Social desirability bias could affect the results of research using self-reports, like questionnaires, which are the dominant approach to explore sustainable food consumption and its drivers. Despite various methodological and statistical approaches have been suggested to counteract social desirability, their use in research about sustainable food has not been systematically reviewed before. Therefore, a systematic literature review was carried out covering 388 peer-reviewed studies. The number of papers mentioning social desirability bias steadily increased since the 1990s. However, our results indicates that the overall proportion of relevant papers discussing it is low, with most of those doing so giving no clear indication about its causes and/or consequences for data quality. Moreover, few studies provide information about the data collection process, despite well-known situational factors influencing social desirability bias. A few papers implemented methodological remedies, like anonymity or proper scaling. Statistical remedies, like social desirability scales, were found in two studies only. Our findings suggest three major improvements in survey research about sustainable food. First, a better description of the data collection process is recommended, to better identify the limitations and strengths of a specific study. Second, procedural remedies against social desirability, which are now the gold standard in other survey-based disciplines, should be used more consistently. Finally, more research is needed adopting social desirability scales, which are relatively common in other fields of research using surveys (e.g. dietary studies), as well as specialized questioning techniques for sensitive answers.

Invasive species are a growing driver of change across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems but spatially-explicit information is seldom available for supporting management actions and decision making. Here we conceived and tested a new participatory method to map the distribution of three invasive species (Callinectes sapidus, Procambarus clarkii and Oreochromis niloticus) in the coastal lagoon of Lesina (Italy). Local fishers were asked to draw the distribution of each species on pre-printed maps, indicating districts of the lagoon characterized by different abundance levels. Then, maps were converted to a lattice grid and a Bayesian hierarchical Generalized Additive Modeling was adopted to model species distribution in the lagoon, calculating the coefficient of variation for model fitted values to map fishers agreement about the distribution of each species. We conceived new metrics to evaluate the quality of LEK-based participatory mapping in terms of agreement and consistency among experts. The resulting information provides new insights for spatially informed management across aquatic realms in relation to the increasing ecological and socio-economical pressures posed by biological invaders.

The human-driven spread of Invasive Alien Species is a major concern for conservation biologists. Since hunters are spreading invasive Eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus) in Italy, we investigated their beliefs about the species through semi-qualitative questionnaires in Tuscany, an area where cottontails have been occurring since 2000. Most respondents regarded invasive cottontails as a subspecies of the native European wild rabbit. Native European hares were highly valued as a game and perceived as a declining species, whereas no clear reason explained the hunting of cottontails and their population trend. We found no relationship between perceiving hares as a declining game and supporting the introduction of cottontails, or hunting cottontails. Respondents supported or opposed the eradication of cottontails according to their beliefs about the negative impact of the species over native hares. Hunters seem to have unclear ideas about cottontails and their impact and hold stable and positive attitudes towards the conservation of native hares. Cottontails are unlikely to replace hares as a game in the short term but may become a substitute game in case of a severe reduction in the abundance of hares. Our results could enable wildlife managers to plan eradication schemes to counteract invasive cottontails without fearing any strong opposition by hunters, provided that effective conservation plans are available for native game species. Hunters could also be engaged in large-scale monitoring programs based on hunting bags, as an encouraging number of respondents record killed cottontails on their hunting card. Future studies should broaden the investigation of hunters’ and angler’s perception of invasive alien species, as these two leisure activities are responsible for their spread worldwide.

Rule violation is critical for biological conservation worldwide. Conventional questionnaires are not suitable to survey these violations and specialized questioning techniques that preserve respondents’ privacy, like the forced-response RRT, have been increasingly adopted by conservationists. However, most of these approaches do not measure multinomial answers and conservationists need a specialized questioning technique for real-world settings where non-compliance could occur in different forms. We developed a multidimensional, statistically-efficient, RRT which is suitable for multinomial answers (mRRT) and which allows researchers to test for respondents’ noncompliance during completion. Then, we applied it to measure the frequency of the various forms of illegal restocking of European catfish from specialized anglers in Italy, developing an operational code for the statistical software R. A total of 75 questionnaires were administered at a large fishing fair in Northern Italy, in winter 2018. Our questionnaires were easily compiled and the multinomial model revealed that around 6% of respondents had moved catfish across public freshwater bodies and private ponds. Future studies should better address their characteristics, and the mRRT could allow for modeling the effect of co-variates over restocking behavior. The multinomial mRRT could be adopted to measure many forms of rule violation in conservation that could take different forms, like various forms of fish restocking or different modes of wildlife persecution.

Rule violation is critical for biological conservation worldwide. Conventional questionnaires are not suitable to survey these violations and specialized questioning techniques that preserve respondents privacy, like the forced-response RRT, have been increasingly adopted by conservationists. However, most of these approaches do not measure multinomial answers and conservationists need a specialized questioning technique for real-world settings where noncompliance could occur in different forms. We developed a multidimensional, statistically-efficient, RRT which is suitable for multinomial answers (mRRT) and which allows researchers to test for respondents noncompliance during completion. Then, we applied it to measure the frequency of the various forms of illegal restocking of European catfish from specialized anglers in Italy, developing an operational code for the statistical software R. A total of 75 questionnaires were administered at a large fishing fair in Northern Italy, in winter 2018. Our questionnaires were easily compiled and the multinomial model revealed that around 6% of respondents had moved catfish across public freshwater bodies and private ponds. Future studies should better address their characteristics, and the mRRT could allow for modeling the effect of covariates over restocking behavior. The multinomial mRRT could be adopted to measure many forms of rule violation in conservation that could take different forms, like various forms of fish restocking or different modes of wildlife persecution.

Managing wildlife populations requires good data. Researchers and policy makers need reliable population estimates and, in case of commercial or recreational harvesting, also trustworthy information about the number of removed individuals. However, auditing schemes are often weak and political or economic pressure could lead to data fabrication or falsification. Time-series data and population models are crucial to detect anomalies, but they are not always available nor feasible. Therefore, researchers need other tools to identify suspicious patterns in ecological and environmental data, to prioritize their controls. We showed how the Benford’s law might be used to identify anomalies and potential manipulation in ecological data, by testing for the goodness-of-fit of the leading digits with the Benford’s distribution. For this task, we inspected two datasets that were found to be falsified, containing data about estimated large carnivore populations in Romania and Soviet commercial whale catches in the Pacific Ocean. In both the two datasets, the first and second digits numerical series deviated from the expected Benford’s distribution. In data about large carnivores, the first too digits, taken together, also deviated from the expected Benford’s distribution and were characterized by a high Mean Absolute Deviation. In Soviet whale catches, while the single digits deviated from the Benford’s distribution and the Mean Absolute Deviation was high, the first two digits were not anomalous. This controversy invites researchers to combine multiple measures of nonconformity and to be cautious in analyzing mixtures of data. Testing the distribution of the leading digits might be a very useful tool to inspect ecological datasets and to detect potential falsifications, with great implications for policymakers and researchers as well. For example, if policymakers revealed anomalies in harvesting data or population estimates, commercial or recreational harvesting could be suspended and controls strengthened. On the other hand, revealing falsification in ecological research would be crucial for evidence-based conservation, as well as for research evaluation.

Management schemes for invasive mammals that may involve direct shooting of animals must possess two fundamental attributes for working: being attractive for voluntary hunters, who often replace professional gamekeepers, and being accepted by the general public, which would otherwise delegitimize agencies. Traditionally, surveys are adopted to elicit the management preferences of these two stakeholders and to inform policy-makers. However, they suffer from social desirability bias and factorial surveys, where respondents evaluate hypothetical scenarios describing alternative management options, are supposed to be a more effective tool. We tested the effectiveness of factorial surveys to measure the preferences of citizens (n=144) and hunters (n=134) towards various control schemes for invasive Eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus) in Italy. Each factorial survey included a fixed number of management scenarios for cottontails, characterized by a fixed number of dimensions whose levels were assigned at random. Hunters declared whether they would have engaged in the various scenarios, while citizens rated their acceptability. Hunters were more prone to engage in control schemes for cottontails if these included shooting, rather than trapping, and if evidence of cottontail impacts over native wildlife or croplands was provided. Factorial surveys might be an effective tool to elicit their management preference for control schemes for invasive mammals in Europe. On the other hand, the attributes of the management scenarios did not affect their acceptability by citizens. This might underlie the existence of complex factors affecting the evaluation of wildlife management schemes by laymen, like Wildlife Value Orientations or negative emotions towards wildlife killing. Future research, combining qualitative in-depth research, structured questionnaires and experimental stimuli will be needed to provide further insights about them.

In the last few decades, hunters decreased in Italy, reshaping human-wildlife conflicts and constraining the budget of wildlife agencies. Socioeconomic dynamics connected with modernization reduced hunter recruitment in Northern America, by changing the value orientations of the younger generations, as well as social support towards hunting. Despite similar dynamics characterized Europe in the last few decades, no study addressed their effect over the decrease in hunting participation in Mediterranean European context. We modeled the effect of the percentage of urbanized soil, the average per capita income, the aging index of residents, the ratio between utilized agricultural area and the total agricultural area, the density of farmers per hectare of utilized agricultural area, the province, and the hunting district, over the observed variation in the proportion of hunters over the resident population between 2001 and 2011, at 258 municipalities in Tuscany, Central Italy. Both the proportion of urbanized surface and the average income at each municipality showed a nonlinear, negative, association with the variation in the proportion of hunters. Our findings agree with previous studies exploring the effect of the so-called “forces of modernization” over hunting decline in Northern America. Future studies could adopt socioeconomic variables reflecting modernization to model hunting variation at the Italian level. Policy makers can therefore use these estimates to better account for the numerical decrease of hunters in wildlife management policies, tailoring financing policies for wildlife agencies.