Empleo de análisis de datos a gran escala para evaluar rasgos de historia vital y de comportamiento: el caso de la población de cigüeñas blancas Ciconia ciconia reintroducidas en los Países Bajos

The White stork Ciconia ciconia has been the object of several successful reintroduction programmes in the last decades. As a consequence, populations have been monitored over large spatial scales. Despite these intense efforts, very few reliable estimates of life history traits are available for this species. Such general knowledge however constitutes a prerequisite for investigating the consequences of conservation measures. Using the large–scale and long–term ringing and resighting data set of White storks in the Netherlands, we investigated the variation of survival and resighting rates with age, time and previous individual resighting history, and in a second step supplementary feeding, using capture–recapture models. Providing food did not seem to affect survival directly, but may have an indirect effect via the alteration of migratory behaviour. Large–scale population monitoring is important in obtaining precise and reliable estimates of life history traits and assessing the consequences of conservation measures on these traits, which will prove useful for managers to take adequate measures in future conservation strategies.Durante las últimas décadas, la cigüeña blanca Ciconia ciconia ha sido objeto de diversos y satisfactorios programas de reintroducción, lo que ha permitido controlar poblaciones a grandes escalas espaciales. Pese a la intensidad de tales esfuerzos, se dispone de muy pocas estimaciones fiables acerca de los rasgos de la historia vital de esta especie. No obstante, estos conocimientos generales constituyen un requisito previo para investigar las consecuencias de las medidas de conservación. El empleo de datos de reavistaje y de anillamiento a largo plazo y a gran escala de las cigüeñas blancas de los Países Bajos nos ha permitido investigar la variación en las tasas de supervivencia y de reavistaje según la edad, el tiempo y la historia previa de reavistajes individuales. Asimismo, en una segunda fase, hemos analizado los efectos de la alimentación suplementaria a partir de modelos de captura–recaptura. Parece que la provisión de alimentos no incidió directamente en la supervivencia, pero es posible que tuviera un efecto indirecto como consecuencia de la alteración del comportamiento migratorio. El control de la población a gran escala es fundamental para obtener estimaciones precisas y fiables de rasgos de historia vital, así como para evaluar las consecuencias de las medidas de conservación de dichos rasgos, que resultarán de especial utilidad para los gestores a la hora de emprender iniciativas apropiadas con respecto a las estrategias de conservación futuras

A systematic analysis of enabling conditions for synergy between climate change mitigation and adaptation measures in developing countries

AbstractThere is a growing quest for synergy between mitigation and adaptation due to concerns of inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the compartmentalized approaches to climate change. However, little has been done to explore the necessary enabling conditions for synergistic design and implementation. This paper proposes an analytical framework to assess enabling conditions for synergies at the national level and applies it to developing countries to explore the potential move toward synergy. Four enabling conditions for integrating adaptation and mitigation, i.e. policies and strategies, programs and projects, institutional arrangements and financial mechanisms, were used to score developing countries relative to each other. We hypothesized that low income and vulnerable countries might more likely pursue synergy given the urgency for both adaptation and mitigation. Despite the relative infancy of the synergy concept, about half of countries studied exhibited good synergy potential, 80% of which were middle-income developing countries. The assumption of vulnerability as a precursor for pursuing synergy was supported by the fact that small island states possessed relatively high synergy potential. Income was weakly associated with the synergy potential with least developed countries having low synergy scores. Emerging economies possessed strong synergy potential which might be associated with better capacity available and/or potential for shaping their global images due to their growing emissions. In sum, the proposed analytical framework could be useful to identify areas of emphasis to promote holistic and efficient climate policies. As this study largely focused on the enabling conditions, further studies are needed to scrutinize and manage the mitigation-adaptation balances in countries possessing good synergy potentials

Orangutans have larger gestural repertoires in captivity than in the wild—A case of weak innovation?

Whether nonhuman species can change their communicative repertoire in response to socio-ecological environments has critical implications for communicative innovativeness prior to the emergence of human language, with its unparalleled productivity. Here, we use a comparative sample of wild and zoo-housed orangutans of two species (Pongo abelii, Pongo pygmaeus) to assess the effect of the wild-captive contrast on repertoires of gestures and facial expressions. We find that repertoires on both the individual and population levels are larger in captive than in wild settings, regardless of species, age class, or sampling effort. In the more sociable Sumatran species, dominant use of signals toward single outcomes was also higher in captive settings. We thus conclude that orangutans exposed to more sociable and terrestrial conditions evince behavioral plasticity, in that they produce additional innate or innovated signals that are highly functionally specific. These findings suggest a latent capacity for innovativeness in these apes' communicative repertoires

Reproductive success of Bornean orangutan males: scattered in time but clustered in space

The social and mating systems of orangutans, one of our closest relatives, remain poorly understood. Orangutans (Pongo spp.) are highly sexually dimorphic and females are philopatric and maintain individual, but overlapping home ranges, whereas males disperse, are non-territorial and wide-ranging, and show bimaturism, with many years between reaching sexual maturity and attaining full secondary sexual characteristics (including cheek pads (flanges) and emitting long calls). We report on 21 assigned paternities, among 35 flanged and 15 unflanged, genotyped male Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii), studied from 2003 to 2018 in Tuanan (Central Kalimantan, Indonesia). All 10 infants born since mid-2003 with an already identified sire were sired by flanged males. All adult males ranged well beyond the study area (c. 1000 ha), and their dominance relations fluctuated even within short periods. However, 5 of the 10 identified sires had multiple offspring within the monitored area. Several sired over a period of c. 10 years, which overlapped with siring periods of other males. The long-calling behavior of sires indicated they were not consistently dominant over other males in the area around the time of known conceptions. Instead, when they were seen in the area, the known sires spent most of their time within the home ranges of the females whose offspring they sired. Overall, successful sires were older and more often resident than others. Significance statement It is difficult to assess reproductive success for individuals of long-lived species, especially for dispersing males, who cannot be monitored throughout their lives. Due to extremely long interbirth intervals, orangutans have highly male-skewed operational sex ratios and thus intensive male-male competition for every conception. Paternity analyses matched 21 immature Bornean orangutans with their most likely sire (only 10 of 50 genotyped males) in a natural population. Half of these identified sires had multiple offspring in the study area spread over periods of at least 10 years, despite frequently ranging outside this area. Dominance was a poor predictor of success, but, consistent with female mating tactics to reduce the risk of infanticide, known “sires” tended to have relatively high local presence, which seems to contribute to the males’ siring success. The results highlight the importance of large protected areas to enable a natural pattern of dispersal and ranging