Petolintujen kannankehitykset Suomessa

Peer reviewe

Assessing the vulnerability of breeding bird populations to onshore wind-energy developments in Finland

Wind-energy expansion raises concerns over its potential impacts on bird populations. Birds may be affected directly via collision with turbines or indirectly via habitat loss or displacement due to disturbance. Species with long generation times, low reproductive output or high habitat specialisation are more likely to be impacted. Using national-scale breeding bird distributions, we applied a quantitative prioritisation method to assess the vulnerability of species to onshore wind-energy developments in Finland. We assessed 214 species that regularly breed in the country. Each species was assigned a priority score based on a combination of life-history traits, habitat specialisation, exposure to wind energy and conservation status. We found that the priority scores varied markedly between species, allowing a distinction between a minority of high-ranked species and a majority of low-ranked species. High-ranked species included terns (e.g., Sternula albifrons), raptors (e.g., Aquila chrysaetos), gulls (e.g., Larus fuscus), some forest-dwelling passerines (e.g., Poecile montanus) and ducks (e.g., Aythya ferina). Low-ranked species included woodpeckers (e.g., Picus canus) and many passerines. Our results indicate that the priority species are not limited to the more highly regarded large raptors, and that wind-energy impact assessments need to pay special attention to high-ranked species inhabiting coastal areas.Peer reviewe

Kunnallisten jätehuoltoyhtiöiden taloudellinen suoriutuminen: Tilinpäätösanalyyttinen vertailu yksityisiin jätehuoltoyrityksiin

Tämän tilinpäätösanalyyttisen tutkimuksen tavoitteena on arvioida ja vertailla, miten kannattavasti ja tehokkaasti jätehuoltoalan kuntaomisteiset osakeyhtiöt ja yksityisesti omistetut osakeyhtiöt ovat toimineet. Tutkimusotos sisältää 762 yritysvuosihavaintoa jätehuoltoyhtiöistä vuosilta 2019–2021. Tutkimuksen ensimmäisen hypoteesin mukaan kunnalliset jätehuoltoyhtiöt ovat vähemmän kannattavia kuin yksityisesti omistetut jätehuoltoyhtiöt, ja toisen hypoteesin mukaan kunnalliset yhtiöt toimivat yksityisiä tehottomammin. Logistisen regressiomallin tulokset osoittautuivat ristiriitaisiksi. Ensimmäinen hypoteesi hyväksytään, mikäli mittarina käytetään sijoitetun pääoman tuottoprosenttia, mutta hylätään, jos mittarina käytetään liiketulosprosenttia. Vastaavasti jälkimmäinen hypoteesi hyväksytään, jos mittarina käytetään pääoman kiertonopeutta, mutta joudutaan hylkäämään, jos mittarina pidetään henkilöstön käytön tehokkuutta. Saadut tulokset eivät anna yksiselitteistä tukea kansainvälisten vertailututkimusten pääviestille, jonka mukaan yksityiset yritykset ovat kannattavampia ja tehokkaampia kuin julkisomisteiset. Sen sijaan tulokset antavat viitteitä kuntaomisteisten ja yksityisesti omistetut jätehuoltoyhtiöiden erilaisista toimintastrategioista. Tulokset osoittavat myös, että kuntaomisteiset jätehuoltoyhtiöt ovat kooltaan suurempia, taserakenteeltaan vakavaraisempia ja niiden toimintahistoria on yksityisesti omistettuja pidempi

Apparent survival, territory turnover and site fidelity rates in Northern Goshawk Accipiter gentilis populations close to the northern range limit

Capsule: Mark-recapture data suggest low apparent survival and sex- and population-specific site fidelity and territory turnover in adult Northern Goshawks Accipiter gentilis breeding in northern Europe.Aims: To understand how species cope with global environmental change requires knowledge of variation in population demographic rates, especially from populations close to the species' northern range limit and from keystone species such as raptors. We analyse apparent survival and breeding dispersal propensity of adult Northern Goshawks breeding in northern Europe.Methods: We used long-term mark-recapture data from two populations in Finland, northern Europe, and Cormack-Jolly-Seber models and binomial generalized linear models to investigate sex- and population-specific variation in apparent survival, territory turnover and site fidelity.Results: We report low apparent survival (53-72%) of breeding adult Goshawks. Breeding dispersal propensity was higher in females than males, especially in northern Finland, contrasting with previous studies that suggest high site fidelity in both sexes.Conclusion: Low apparent survival in females may be mainly due to permanent emigration outside the study areas, whereas in males the survival rate may truly be low. Both demographic aspects may be driven by the combination of sex-specific roles related to breeding and difficult environmental conditions prevailing in northern latitudes during the non-breeding season.Peer reviewe

Promoting species protection with predictive modelling : Effects of habitat, predators and climate on the occurrence of the Siberian flying squirrel

Species distribution models (SDMs) can be used to predict species occurrence and to seek insight into the factors behind observed spatial patterns in occurrence, and thus can be a valuable tool in species conservation. In this study, we used MaxEnt software to explain the occurrence of a protected forest-dwelling species, the Siberian flying squirrel. We produce occurrence maps covering the main distribution area for the species in the European Union. Using an exceptionally extensive presence-absence dataset collected with a standardized method, we evaluated the relative role of predation pressure, climate, and amount of habitat affecting flying squirrel occurrence. We found that regional variation in mean winter temperature had relatively large predictive power for flying squirrel occurrence. In addition, the regional abundance of flying squirrels was partly explained by differences in predation pressure. The results also support the conclusion that areas with older forests and nearby agricultural areas are optimal for the species. Our study shows that multiple factors affect the species' occurrence in large spatial scales. We also conclude that climate is having a large effect on species occurrence, and thus the changing climate has to be taken into account in conservation planning. Our results help conservation managers in targeting surveys and protection measures on various spatial scales, and decision makers in focusing on the factors that drive the species' occurrence. Our results also indicate that we would need additional tools and measures in the EU for achieving a favourable conservation status of those species that occur in commercial forests.Peer reviewe

The Breeding Ranges of Central European and Arctic Bird Species Move Poleward

Background Climatic warming predicts that species move their entire distribution poleward. Poleward movement of the ‘cold’ side of the distribution of species is empirically supported, but evidence of poleward movement at the ‘warm’ distributional side is relatively scarce. Methodology/Principal Finding Finland has, as the first country in the world, completed three national atlas surveys of breeding birds, which we here use to calculate the sizes and weighted mean latitudes of the national range of 114 southern and 34 northern bird species during three periods (1974–1979; 1986–1989; 2006–2010), each denoting species presence in approximately 3 800 10×10 km2 squares. We find strong evidence that southern species (breeding predominantly in central Europe) showed a latitudinal shift of 1.1–1.3 km/year poleward during all three pairwise comparisons between these atlases (covering 11, 20.5 and 31.5 years respectively). We find evidence of a latitudinal shift of 0.7–0.8 km/year poleward of northern boreal and Arctic species, but this shift was not found in all study periods and may have been influenced by increased effort put into the more recent surveys. Species showed no significant correlation in changes in range size and weighted mean latitude between the first (11 year) and second (20.5 year) period covered by consecutive atlases, suggesting weak phylogenetic signal and little scope of species characteristics in explaining latitudinal avian range changes. Conclusions Extinction-driven avian range changes (at the ‘warm’ side) of a species' distribution occur at approximately half the rate of colonisation-driven range changes (at the ‘cold’ side), and its quantification therefore requires long-term monitoring data, possibly explaining why evidence for such changes is currently rare. A clear latitudinal shift in an assemblage of species may still harbour considerable temporal inconsistency in latitudinal movement on the species level. Understanding this inconsistency is important for predictive modelling of species composition in a changing world.Peer reviewe

5G New Radio Evolution Towards Sub-THz Communications

In this paper, the potential of extending 5G New Radio physical layer solutions to support communications in sub-THz frequencies is studied. More specifically, we introduce the status of third generation partnership project studies related to operation on frequencies beyond 52.6 GHz and note also the recent proposal on spectrum horizons provided by federal communications commission (FCC) related to experimental licenses on 95 GHz - 3 THz frequency band. Then, we review the power amplifier (PA) efficiency and output power challenge together with the increased phase noise (PN) distortion effect in terms of the supported waveforms. As a practical example on the waveform and numerology design from the perspective of the PN robustness, link performance results using 90 GHz carrier frequency are provided. The numerical results demonstrate that new, higher subcarrier spacings are required to support high throughput, which requires larger changes in the physical layer design. It is also observed that new phase-tracking reference signal designs are required to make the system robust against PN. The results illustrate that single-carrier frequency division multiple access is significantly more robust against PN and can provide clearly larger PA output power than cyclic-prefix orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, and is therefore a highly potential waveform for sub-THz communications.Comment: This manuscript has been accepted for publication to IEEE 6G Wireless Summit 2020, 6 pages, 4 figure

Promiscuous specialists : Host specificity patterns among generalist louse flies

Ectoparasites such as louse flies (Diptera: Hippoboscidae) have tendency for host specialization, which is driven by adaptation to host biology as well as competition avoidance between parasites of the same host. However, some louse fly species, especially in genera attacking birds, show wide range of suitable hosts. In the presented study, we have surveyed the current status of bird specific louse flies in Finland to provide comprehensive host association data to analyse the ecological requirements of the generalist species. A thorough sampling of 9342 birds, representing 134 species, recovered 576 specimens of louse flies, belonging to six species: Crataerina hirundinis, C. pallida, Ornithomya avicularia, O. chloropus, O. fringillina and Ornithophila metallica. Despite some overlapping hosts, the three Ornithomya species showed a notable pattern in their host preference, which was influenced not only by the host size but also by the habitat and host breeding strategy. We also provide DNA barcodes for ten Finnish species of Hippoboscidae, which can be used as a resource for species identification as well as metabarcoding studies in the future.Peer reviewe