Species distribution models as a useful tool in conservation programs: the case of the Northern Bald Ibis

The Northern Bald Ibis (Geronticus eremita) is one of the most endangered species on the planet. Over the last century, the species had suffered an extreme decline in its population size, and is now considered to be critically endangered. Nowadays, the original distribution range of the species is restricted to the Agadir region in Morocco. In Europe the species is only present in Spain and Austria, and this is due to two different conservation projects with introduced animals born and raised in captivity. The aim of this project is to characterize those past and present areas used by the Northern Bald Ibis in their natural distribution in Morocco, identifying the most favorable areas for the assessment of the species in Morocco and also for making it possible to reintroduce this species to Europe. We used species distribution models with a presence/absence database obtained from bibliography and a set of environmental variables. Spatial variables were combined obtaining a trend surface variable, which is a purely spatial descriptor of the cohesion trend in the distribution of the species regarding its history and population dynamics. Another model was built using only environmental variables to identify those areas which are favorable for the species in relation to the environment, without the effects of the population's cohesion trend. Obtained models classified the areas into 'favorable', 'unfavorable' or 'uncertain'. In the case of Andalusia, introduced individuals have moved to favorable places in the North of Morocco, where the species was not present in the past. Moreover, for the first time there have been new records of this species on the occidental coast of Morocco, where the models also predict a maximum in the favorability. This methodology could be used to detect the best places to introduce new individuals or to create protected areas.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Climate change and distribution shift: the case of the Long-legged Buzzard at the range boundary

The distribution of many organisms is shifting in latitude and elevation in response to recent climate warming. In the Strait of Gibraltar, at the shortest distance between Africa and Europe, an expansion in species’ range constitutes, in the case of African species, a major step in biogeographical terms. Recently the Iberian Peninsula has been colonized by different African birds, such as the White-rumped Swift, Little Swift, Common Bulbul and Long-legged Buzzard. In the latter case, the species was first confirmed breeding in continental Europe in 2009, and the increasing number of records and recent studies based on distribution models suggest that it is finding new favorable areas to breed in southern Spain. To determine if the Long-legged Buzzard is shifting or increasing its range in latitude, we have modelled its distribution using the favourability function, a set of environmental variables and the IOMS features of the forecasted effect of climate change of the species favourability using fuzzy logic operations. Our results indicate that there will be fewer favorable areas for the species in Morocco, mostly confined in the Atlantic coast, regardless of the scenario we considered. Thus, the distribution area of the Long-legged Buzzard could be suffering a latitudinal movement towards the north, instead of an expansion of its northern distribution edge.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Modelos de lógica difusa en el estudio de interacciones bióticas y su efecto en la distribución parapátrica de las víboras de la Península Ibérica

Las condiciones ambientales tienen una fuerte influencia en el resultado de las interacciones interespecíficas que condicionan la distribución de las especies a lo largo de un territorio. En ausencia de barreras geográficas, la parapatría de especies ecológicamente similares podría explicarse por tres situaciones biogeográficas teniendo en cuenta la competencia y el ambiente en el que interaccionan: (1) la coexistencia simpátrica, cuando la alta abundancia de recursos en un área claramente favorable minimiza los efectos de la competencia, (2) la segregación autoecológica, cuando la presión de un ambiente desfavorable tiene más peso que las interacciones biológicas, y (3) la segregación sinecológica, cuando en áreas de favorabilidad intermedia una especie desplaza por exclusión competitiva a la otra. El objetivo de este estudio es explicar la distribución parapátrica de las tres especies del género Vipera en la Península Ibérica.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Wintering areas on the move in face of warmer winters

The recent climate change has an influence on the migration phenology of birds. With increasingly warmer winters, an increasing number of species are shortening their migration distance, and especially interesting are the cases of Trans-Sahara migrants, such as the Eurasian Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus), that choose the Iberian Peninsula as a new wintering area. This species is normally present in Spain from February (when it arrives to breed) to November (when autumn migration comes to an end), but the number of wintering records has increased in the last few decades. The aims of the present study are: to compile wintering records of the species in the Iberian Peninsula, to characterize those areas where the environmental conditions are favourable for the species in this period, when the species is supposed to be in Africa (south of Sahara desert) and to study the origin of wintering birds and their preferred wintering areas. Biogeographical favourability models were built and results show that the most favourable areas are coastal zones with mild temperatures, as it seems that minimum temperature is the environmental limitation for the presence of the species. The detailed analysis of the Eurasian Reed Warbler adjustments on migration, in the context of the current climate change, may facilitate to delve into the mechanisms affecting this phenomenon, and the extrapolation of the proposed methodology to other Trans-Sahara migrants with similar phenology shifts.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A return to the "Rules of Thumb" in Maritime Engineering for digital native students

Engineering and technical degrees are difficult to teach and, consequently, have always been characterized by a large number of academic failures. That is the reason why different methodologies have been applied to classes of similar content in different countries [1]. Among these methodologies, it is noteworthy to mention audio/visual resources as a useful tool to improve the teaching of coastal engineering [2], which means more students that pass the coastal engineering courses [3]. Moreover, use of GPS and Google Earth have also shown to be useful tools to improve the learning process [4]. Nevertheless, the authors have not found anything about the use of “rules of thumb” as a better way for students to improve their comprehension of the basic knowledge of an engineering subject. This paper shows the teaching experience on Maritime Engineering for undergraduate students of Civil Engineering in the School of Engineering at the University of Seville (Spain). The application of new information technologies in classrooms and advanced training in the use of finite element software tools and programming languages gives our students extremely powerful tools for solving very complex engineering problems with excellent results. However, the enormous effort invested by the students in acquiring this advanced knowledge and to be up to date in using and commanding on these technologies leads them to focus their main efforts, attention and skills just toward the numerical resolution of the problem, the efficiency of the implemented algorithm, and the programming language difficulties. This puts aside the essential and the critical sense of the accuracy of the results obtained by the algorithm. The students do not get the physical ‘feeling’ of what’s happening in the algorithm. We have included a teaching sequence in our lesson programs that always starts with an historical review of the different approaches used by engineers in their times in order to solve engineering problems from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century to today. This method makes the students to appreciate the importance and wits required by those men in the past in facing a difficult task when they didn’t have a PC or powerful software. The “rules of thumb” in engineering become a powerful tool for the digital native students which helps them make sense and enjoy the study and programming when they finally find out that their algorithm responds with reasonable accuracy and orders of magnitude to the result expected beforehand. Simply applying "rules of thumb" and well-known approximations of the past, perhaps obsolete from a technical point of view, will help the student learn the process. Some examples will be given in this paper in order to show the use of these “rules of thumb” or simplified models in class for teaching Maritime Engineering subject. Among them: the dimensionless stability number of Vicente Negro [5] for the design of the armour layer blocks in breakwaters, the Iribarren’s wave drawings [6], the US Army Corps of Engineers Shore Protection Manual Graphs and plates, etc

Modelo de procesos para la atención al cliente asistencial: caso de estudio

Este manual se encuentra descrito en el Sistema Único de Acreditación SUA el cual forma parte de los componentes del Sistema Obligatorio de Garantía de Calidad de Atención en Salud SOGC y pretende mediante la calificación de los estándares mostrar los niveles superiores considerados óptimos y factibles de alcanzar, que deben ser cumplidos por las entidades para alcanzar niveles superiores de calidad de la atención en salud_ La finalidad de este artículo es entregar una guía al Dispensario Norte perteneciente a la Dirección de Sanidad Ejército explicando de una manera secuencial y sencilla todos estos conceptos no solo a esta organización sino a cualquier Dispensario para que puedan alcanzar la acreditación cuya estrategia y metodología va enfocada a aumentar y mejorar la calidad de la prestación del servicio utilizando métodos específicos del sector salud orientado más hacia resultados de satisfacción del paciente que la conformidad en las especificaciones del proceso los cuales son prerrequisitos para la calidad, pero no son su finalidad_This manual is described in the Accreditation Unique System SUA which is part of one of the health attention quality guarantee obligatory system components SOGC that tries to show higher levels by means of standards qualifications considered optimus and reachable_ They must be followed by the organizations to reach higher levels of health attention quality_ The purpose of this article is to provide a guide to the Army´s North Dispensary that belongs to the Army´s Health Directions_ Explaining in a simple and sequential way all this concepts not only to this Dispensary but also to any other dispensary so they can reach accreditation and which its strategies and methodologies are focused on increase and improve the service quality using the specific methods of the health services directed to the results in patients satisfaction instead of the process itself that at the end are just quality requirements but they are not the mail goal

¿Qué factores afectan a las migradoras de larga distancia para que acorten sus desplazamientos? El caso de la invernada del Carricero Común en la Península Ibérica

El cambio reciente del clima está influyendo en la fenología de migración de las aves. Con unos inviernos cada vez más cálidos muchas especies responden acortando sus distancias de migración, lo que hace de la península ibérica una nueva área de invernada para especies típicamente transaharianas, como es el caso del carricero común (Acrocephalus scirpaceus). A pesar de estar presente en España desde finales de febrero (inicio de su migración prenupcial) hasta noviembre (final de la migración postnupcial), el número de registros estrictamente invernales (desde el 15 de noviembre al 31 de enero) es creciente. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo realizar una recopilación de registros invernales, obtenidos a través del anillamiento científico (cedidos por el CMA de SEO/ BirdLife, OAA, CEMPA y EURING) para el territorio de la península Ibérica y caracterizar las zonas que utiliza la especie durante el periodo del año en el que teóricamente deberían estar al sur del Sahara, analizando los factores que favorecen esta invernada. Además, se estudia el origen de las aves implicadas y sus zonas de invernada preferenciales. Para la caracterización biogeográfica se han usado modelos de favorabilidad ambiental con un conjunto de variables climáticas y topográficas en una red de cuadrículas UTM 10x10km de Iberia. Los resultados muestran que las áreas más favorables para la invernada de la especie son principalmente zonas costeras con temperaturas invernales suaves, donde se ha registrado la mayor concentración de anillamientos. Además se observa que el factor climático es el motor de este fenómeno. El análisis de este caso nos ayudará a entender el cambio fenológico que están sufriendo otras muchas especies y deja a la vista nuevas incógnitas sobre cómo será este proceso en el futuro si las previsiones del IPCC sobre el cambio climático se cumplen.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Análisis del impacto que ejerce la carga impositiva sobre la competitividad en las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYMES) en Colombia

El siguiente artículo de revisión presenta un análisis entorno al impacto que ejerce la carga impositiva sobre la competitividad en las pequeñas y medianas empresas (pymes) en Colombia, responde a la realidad actual de las PYME en el país, que tras la implementación de una reforma tributaria establecida en la ley 1819 de 2016,han tenido que plantear estrategias que les permitan ser realmente competitivas en un mercado donde la globalización, la innovación y el auge de las tecnologías de información y comunicación les exige estar a la par de las nuevas tendencias y no sólo ser productivas sino también ir adelante en la oferta de productos y servicios con calidad. Las pymes representan para el país un renglón importante en la economía por su aporte al PIB Nacional, por tanto es relevante tener en cuenta cómo la carga tributaria puede ver afectada sus operaciones tanto a nivel nacional como en el exterior. Para ello, el siguiente artículo de reflexión presenta como principal pregunta problémica, ¿Cuál es el impacto que ejerce la carga impositiva sobre la competitividad en las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYMES) en Colombia?, para intentar vislumbrar una reflexión clara sobre este aspecto se lleva a cabo una investigación cualitativa de tipo documental y se utilizan fuentes de información secundarias a través de una revisión bibliográfica que presente los diferentes enfoques teóricos que se han desarrollado alrededor de esta temática de importancia para todo tipo de organizaciones a nivel país