A new efficient bait-trap model for Lepidoptera surveys – the “Oulu” model

To get reliable estimates of biodiversity or relative population sizes, it is important to develop and properly test new survey tools in comparison with previous methods. Here, we introduce a new, effective bait-trap model, viz. the “Oulu” model, for Lepidoptera surveys and monitoring schemes. An extensive field experiment showed that the new bait-trap model captures more individuals and more species than the widely-used “Jalas”model, while the species richness and species composition of the total catches did not differ between the trap models. The differences between the trap models were consistent over time and habitats. We suggest that the “Oulu” model yields high catches because few individuals can escape from the trap. It is thus an effective tool to be used in Lepidoptera surveys and studies

Ecological crossovers of sexual signaling in a migratory bird

Environmental shifts may induce sudden reversals in the relative quality or sexual attractiveness of mates (ecological crossovers) leading to non-directional sexual selection. Studies on such ecological crossovers induced by environmental shifts during the nonbreeding season are particularly rare. We studied the interactive effects between nonbreeding conditions and a male white wing patch on the breeding success of breeding pairs and the local survival of females in a migratory passerine population over a 32-year period. After dry winters, females paired with large-patched males were more likely to survive than those paired with small-patched males, and vice versa after moist winters. Moreover, after dry winters, large-patched males succeeded in attracting females that laid large clutches, while small-patched males bred with females that laid small clutches, and vice versa after moist winters. This phenomenon led to a difference in fledgling numbers only during years with dry winters and high precipitation during the breeding season. The selection on this male trait and its signaling value to females thus depended on a complex interaction between conditions both at the nonbreeding and breeding grounds. We show that it is important to consider conditions during the nonbreeding season when examining the effects of sexual ornaments on fitness.Peer reviewe

Kognitiivis-behavioraalisen STOP-kuntoutusohjelman vaikuttavuudesta suomalaisilla seksuaalirikosvangeilla

Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin suomalaisessa vankeinhoidossa seksuaalirikollisille kohdennetun STOP-ohjelman vaikuttavuutta. Ohjelman suorittaneille vangeille (n = 143) muodostettiin tapausverrokkiasetelmalla kontrolliryhmä (n = 143) laajemmasta seksuaalirikollisvankien otoksesta (n = 693) havaittujen seksuaalirikosten uusimista ennustavien muuttujien (aikaisemmat tuomiot seksuaalirikoksista, kontaktiton seksuaalirikos, vankeuden pituus ja seuranta-ajan pituus) perusteella. Ohjelman vaikuttavuutta mitattiin vapautumisen jälkeen tehdyillä uusilla seksuaalirikoksilla, jotka olivat johtaneet seuranta-ajan kuluessa vankeus- tai yhdyskuntaseuraamukseen. Keskimäärin 7.5 vuoden seuranta-aikana 8 ohjelman suorittanutta vankia (5.6 %) oli saanut uuden tuomion seksuaalirikoksesta; kontrolliryhmässä rikoksen uusiminen oli lähes kaksinkertaista (10.5 %). Ryhmien välinen ero ei kuitenkaan ollut tilastollisesti merkitsevä, mikä saattaa johtua seksuaalirikollisten pienestä määrästä sekä lähtökohtaisesti matalasta uusimistasosta eikä ohjelman tehottomuudesta sinänsä

Vesilintujen pari- ja poikuelaskennoilla tietoa vesilintukannoista

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Voluntary Nonmonetary Conservation Approaches on Private Land : A Review of Constraints, Risks, and Benefits for Raptor Nest Protection

Biodiversity conservation on private land of the developed world faces several challenges. The costs of land are often high, and the attitudes of landowners towards conservation are variable. Scientists and practitioners need to scan for and adopt cost-effective solutions that allow for the long-term sustainability of conservation measures on private land. In this study, we focus on one of such possible solutions: Working with landowners to implement voluntary nonmonetary conservation. We restrict our focus to protection of raptor nests, but the ideas can be applied to other taxa as well. Through a literature review, we show that a voluntary nonmonetary approach for protecting raptor nests has been so far largely neglected and/or rarely reported in the scientific literature. However, results of a questionnaire sent to BirdLife partners across Europe indicate that this approach is more widely used than it appears from the literature. We show that voluntary nonmonetary approaches may represent useful tools to protect raptor nests on private land. We provide a workflow for implementation of such an approach in raptor nest protection, highlighting benefits, potential risks, and constraints in the application of the strategy. We suggest that a voluntary nonmonetary approach may have great potential for cost-effective conservation, but the risks it may entail should be carefully assessed in each case. There is an urgent need to consider and evaluate novel approaches, such as the one described here, which may constitute missed opportunities for cost-effective conservation.Peer reviewe

Begging calls provide social cues for prospecting conspecifics in wild zebra finches

Social information can spread fast and help animals adapt in fluctuating environments. Prospecting on the breeding sites of others, a widespread behavior, can help to maximize reproduction by, for instance, settling in the same area as other successful breeders. Previous studies have shown that successful broods have the highest number of prospectors and that they are visited most when offspring in nesting sites are already old, making the information more reliable. In this field study, we experimentally tested how prospectors are attracted to successful nest sites. We presented wild Zebra Finches (Taeniopygia guttata) with different visual or acoustic cues in nest boxes, simulating the presence of small or large clutches or broods. More Zebra Finches visited experimental nests that were associated with playback recordings of begging calls of large broods (7 chicks) as opposed to begging calls of small broods (3 chicks) and controls (white noise and silence). On the other hand, visual cues (nests with different numbers of eggs or rocks), representing nests at early stages, did not influence either the probability of visits, nor number or duration of visits. We present the first evidence that begging calls of chicks in the nest, a signal intended for kin communication, can also provide social information to unrelated prospecting conspecifics. This information could potentially be used for a fast initial assessment of the quality of a breeding site

Nosy neighbours: large broods attract more visitors. A field experiment in the pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca

Life is uncertain. To reduce uncertainty and make adaptive decisions, individuals need to collect information. Individuals often visit the breeding sites of their conspecifics (i.e., “prospect”), likely to assess conspecifics’ reproductive success and to use such information to identify high-quality spots for future breeding. We investigated whether visitation rate by prospectors and success of visited sites are causally linked. We manipulated the reproductive success (enlarged, reduced, and control broods) in a nest-box population of migratory pied flycatchers, Ficedula hypoleuca, in Finland. We measured the visitation rates of prospectors at 87 nest-boxes continuously from manipulation (day 3 after hatching) to fledging. 302 adult pied flycatchers prospected 9194 times on these manipulated nests (at least 78% of detected prospectors were successful breeders). While the number of visitors and visits was not influenced by the relative change in brood size we induced, the resulting absolute brood size predicted the prospecting behaviour: the larger the brood size after manipulation, the more visitors and visits a nest had. The parental provisioning rate at a nest and brood size pre-manipulation did not predict the number of visitors or visits post-manipulation. More visitors, however, inspected early than late nests and broods in good condition. Our study suggests that individuals collect social information when visiting conspecific nests during breeding and provides evidence that large broods attract more visitors than small broods. We discuss the results in light of individual decision-making by animals in their natural environments

Predicting spatio-temporal distributions of migratory populations using Gaussian process modelling

1. Knowledge concerning spatio-temporal distributions of populations is a prerequisite for successful conservation and management of migratory animals. Achieving cost-effective monitoring of large-scale movements is often difficult due to lack of effective and inexpensive methods.2. Taiga bean goose Anser fabalis fabalis and tundra bean goose A. f. rossicus offer an excellent example of a challenging management situation with harvested migratory populations. The subspecies have different conservation statuses and population trends. However, their distribution overlaps during migration to anunknown extent, which, together with their similar appearance, has created a conservation–management dilemma.3. Gaussian process (GP) models are widely adopted in the field of statistics and machine learning, but have seldom been applied in ecology so far. We introduce the R package gplite f or G P m odelling and use it in our case study together with birdwatcher observation data to study spatio-temporal differences between bean goose subspecies during migration in Finland in 2011–2019.4. We demonstrate that GP modelling offers a flexible and effective tool for analysing heterogeneous data collected by citizens. The analysis reveals spatial and temporal distribution differences between the two bean goose subspecies in Finland. Taiga bean goose migrates through the entire country, whereas tundra bean goose occurs only in a small area in south-eastern Finland and migrates later than taiga bean goose.5. Synthesis and applications. Within the studied bean goose populations, harvest can be targeted at abundant tundra bean goose by restricting hunting to south-eastern Finland and to the end of the migration period. In general, our approach combining citizen science data with GP modelling can be applied to study spatio-temporal distributions of various populations and thus help in solving challenging management situations. The introduced R package gplite can be applied not only to ecological modelling, but to a wide range of analyses in other fields of science.</p

Birds of three worlds: moult migration to high Arctic expands a boreal-temperate flyway to a third biome

Background: Knowledge on migration patterns and flyways is a key for understanding the dynamics of migratory populations and evolution of migratory behaviour. Bird migration is usually considered to be movements between breeding and wintering areas, while less attention has been paid to other long-distance movements such as moult migration. Methods: We use high-resol:tion satellite-tracking data from 58 taiga bean geese Anser fabalis fabalis from the years 2019-2020, to study their moult migration during breeding season. We show the moulting sites, estimate the migratory connectivity between the breeding and the moulting sites, and estimate the utilization distributions during moult. We reveal migration routes and compare the length and timing of migration between moult migrants and successful breeders. Results: All satellite-tracked non-breeding and unsuccessfully breeding taiga bean geese migrated annually to the island of Novaya Zemlya in the high Arctic for wing moult, meaning that a large part of the population gathers at the moulting sites outside the breeding range annually for approximately three months. Migratory connectivity between breeding and moulting sites was very low (r(m) = - 0.001, 95% CI - 0.1562-0.2897), indicating that individuals from different breeding grounds mix with each other on the moulting sites. Moult migrants began fall migration later in autumn than successful breeders, and their overall annual migration distance was over twofold compared to the successful breeders. Conclusions: Regular moult migration makes the Arctic an equally relevant habitat for the taiga bean goose population as their boreal breeding and temperate wintering grounds, and links ecological communities in these biomes. Moult migration plays an important role in the movement patterns and spatio-temporal distribution of the population. Low migratory connectivity between breeding and moulting sites can potentially contribute to the gene flow within the population. Moult migration to the high Arctic exposes the population to the rapid impacts of global warming to Arctic ecosystems. Additionally, Novaya Zemlya holds radioactive contaminants from various sources, which might still pose a threat to moult migrants. Generally, these results show that moult migration may essentially contribute to the way we should consider bird migration and migratory flyways.</p

Assessing space use by pre-breeding white-tailed eagles in the context of wind-energy development in Finland

The expansion of wind energy over large areas may be accompanied by major conflicts with birds, including birds of prey. Hence, it is desirable that the space use of species known to be vulnerable to wind energy be assessed in light of current and future developments. Here, we report on the large-scale dispersal movements of pre-breeding white-tailed eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) in Finland, where a currently modest wind-energy capacity is expected to increase in the near future. We studied white-tailed eagle space use with a particular focus on the potential for annual power production (GWh) at specific locations, as estimated by the Finnish Wind Atlas. Also, we aimed to detect a potential human-wildlife conflict by assessing white-tailed eagle space use against the spatial distribution of existing and recently proposed wind farms. We found that, despite visiting a large proportion of the country, the eagles stayed primarily within coastal areas and islands, restricted to where human infrastructure was present only at very small amounts. Because of the distribution of wind resources, such areas were found to contain considerable potential for power production. The eagles visited most of the areas targeted for wind-energy development. However, these areas did not coincide with a higher-than-average eagle relocation frequency, suggesting that the existing and recently proposed wind farms do not represent an elevated threat to dispersing eagles. Caution should nevertheless be taken against interpreting that co-occurrence poses no threat at any given site, as site selection is paramount to avoid conflicts with avian conservation.Peer reviewe