Linking animal behaviour and tree recruitment: Caching decisions by a scatter-hoarder corvid determine seed fate in a Mediterranean agroforestry system

1. Seed dispersal by scatter-hoarder corvids is key for the establishment of important tree species from the Holarctic region such as the walnut (Juglans regia). However, the factors that drive animal decisions to cache seeds in specific locations and the consequences of these decisions on seed fate are poorly understood. 2. We experimentally created four distinct, replicated habitat types in a Mediterranean agricultural landscape where the Eurasian magpie (Pica pica) is a common scatter hoarder: soft bare soil; compacted bare soil; compacted soil with a dense herbaceous cover; and soft linear bare soil made up of the irrigation furrows that separated the rest of the treatments. We also experimentally placed visual landmarks (stones, sticks and bunches of dry plants) to test if magpies use them to place seed caches. Walnut dispersal from feeders to the habitats was monitored by radiotracking and camera traps. 3. A sowing experiment simulating natural caches tested the effect of caching type on seed germination and seedling emergence. Seed mass was controlled for the dispersal and sowing experiments. 4. Magpies selected the two habitats with soft soil, and avoided the one with compacted soil, to cache nuts. Seed mass did not affect dispersal distance, germination or emergence; however, heavier seeds were cached more often under litter and in the habitat with herbaceous cover, whereas lighter seeds were more often buried in the soft bare soil habitat. Seed burial under soil or litter determined seed fate, as there was virtually no emergence from unburied nuts. There was no evidence of any effect of the visual landmarks. 5. Synthesis. The consequences of seed caching for seedling early establishment are driven by a fine decision-making process of the disperser. Magpies seemed to ponder the characteristics of the habitat and the seed itself to determine where and how to cache each nut. By doing so, magpies reinforced the quality of seed dispersal effectiveness, as they cached walnuts in locations that enhanced both seed survival and seedling emergence.Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain (MICINN)Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government IJC2018-036411- Spanish Government PID2019-106806GB-I00RTI2018-096187-J-I00REMEDINAL S2018/EMT-4338SS2018/EMT-4338Spanish Government CGL2014-53308-PUniversidad de Alcala CCG2014/BIO-02 UAH-GP2019-

Effects of long-term ethanol storage of blood samples on the estimation of telomere length

Telomeres, DNA structures located at the end of eukaryotic chromosomes, shorten with each cellular cycle. The shortening rate is affected by factors associated with stress, and, thus telomere length has been used as a biomarker of ageing, disease, and different life history trade-offs. Telomere research has received much attention in the last decades, however there is still a wide variety of factors that may affect telomere measurements and to date no study has thoroughly evaluated the possible long-term effect of a storage medium on telomere measurements. In this study we evaluated the long-term effects of ethanol on relative telomere length (RTL) measured by qPCR, using blood samples of magpies collected over twelve years and stored in absolute ethanol at room temperature. We firstly tested whether storage time had an effect on RTL and secondly we modelled the effect of time of storage (from 1 to 12 years) in differences in RTL from DNA extracted twice in consecutive years from the same blood sample. We also tested whether individual amplification efficiencies were influenced by storage time, and whether this could affect our results. Our study provides evidence of an effect of storage time on telomere length measurements. Importantly, this effect shows a pattern of decreasing loss of telomere sequence with storage time that stops after approximate 4 years of storage, which suggests that telomeres may degrade in blood samples stored in ethanol. Our method to quantify the effect of storage time could be used to evaluate other storage buffers and methods. Our results highlight the need to evaluate the long-term effects of storage on telomere measurements, particularly in long-term studies.Spanish Government CGL201455362-P BES-2015-075675 IJC2018-036411-

Soft Skills assessment through virtual environments in the university sector : A narrative review

The paper presents a narrative on the state of the question about the teaching and assessment of generic soft skills through Virtual Environments (VEs) in universities, based on consultation of scientific journals in electronic and printed format published between 2000 and 2014, as well as research projects focused on the development of generic skills through VEs. The paper summarises the theoretical and empirical contributions as a way of providing a greater insight into a line of research that began barely a decade ago. Soft skills related to student training, when combined with specific skills, enable better performance in personal, academic, social and organisational settings. This premise implies the need to consider the development of new methodologies for teaching, learning and assessment of soft skills. Results include the value of soft skills in training university students, as well as the development of innovative projects focused on the provision of teaching and assessment procedures that are feasible and effective for the achievement of soft skills assessment in VEs

ANALÍTICAS EN LA CALIDAD DE LA GESTIÓN DEL POSTGRADO

The graduate as a higher education training goes through moments of interest in its study for its academic rigor and for its management. The overcrowding of the graduate in recent decades has led to inefficient management of this level of training. The objective of this research is to measure how the use of analytics in the graduate management contributes to their management quality. The quality of graduate management was assessed in the retention and titling rates as indicators of results of this level of training. A qualitative and quantitative mixed research was developed using scientific methods. Analytics were used in the management graduate of an Ecuadorian institution and the result was an increase in retention and titling rates as part of student satisfaction.El postgrado como formación de educación superior atraviesa momentos de interés en su estudio no solo por el rigor académico que amerita sino por su gestión. La masificación del postgrado en las últimas décadas ha originado una ineficiente gestión de este nivel de formación. El objetivo de esta investigación es medir cómo la utilización de analíticas en la dirección y manejo del postgrado contribuye en su calidad de gestión. Se evaluó la calidad de la gestión del postgrado en las tasas de retención y titulación como indicadores de resultado en este nivel de formación. Se desarrolló una investigación mixta cuali y cuantitativa utilizando métodos científicos. Se utilizó las analíticas en la gestión del postgrado de una institución ecuatoriana y el resultado fue el incremento de las tasas de retención y titulación como parte de la satisfacción de los estudiantes

Effectiveness of Diesel as a Mammal Repellent for Direct Seeding of Acorns

The assisted regeneration of oaks can be achieved through seeding or planting. Whereas direct seeding of acorns has several advantages over planting nursery-grown seedlings, the problem of seed predation by mammals precludes its widespread application. We investigated the potential of diesel as a mammal repellent to prevent the consumption of Holm oak acorns. We tested the effect of submerging acorns in diesel for 0, 6, 12, and 24 h on acorn predation in a field experiment in the Sierra Nevada Natural Park (Granada province, Spain), and the potential effect of the same treatments on seedling emergence and growth in a nursery experiment. The field experiment showed no reduction in acorn predation through diesel. On the other hand, submersion in diesel hindered the germination of one in every four sown acorns regardless of submersion time. Our results are in line with many failed attempts to protect acorns with chemical repellents and suggest that an effective, universally-abundant, inexpensive, and easy-to-apply acorn protector to enhance the success of seeding operations is yet to be found.AL acknowledges postdoctoral fellowship from Spanish MINECO (FJCI-2015-23687). This work was supported by project IFAPA PR.AVA.AVA01.19

Great spotted cuckoo disregard information on conspecific breeding success while parasitizing magpie

Supplementary data are available at Behavioral Ecology online.The study of mechanisms underlying host selection by brood parasites usually lays on selection by parasites of host traits that inform on host parental abilities or location. However, brood parasites might use information extracted from past reproductive performance of either their hosts or themselves, a possibility almost neglected. In this study, we use a long-term data set to analyze whether the probability of parasitism by great spotted cuckoos (Clamator glandarius) of a magpie (Pica pica) nest in a given year is related with the reproductive outcome of any of the 2 species in the surroundings of that nest the previous year. We found that probability of parasitism for a nest in a year was explained by previous year cuckoo reproductive outcome and parasitism rate in the area surrounding the focal nest, but not by host reproductive outcome. To discern between the effect of parasitism rate and that of parasite reproductive success on parasite choices, we carried out an experiment modifying the natural correlation found between parasitism status and host and parasite success in the patches. The results showed that neither host nor cuckoo reproductive outcome in a patch after the experiment explained probability of parasitism in the following year. Only parasitism rate in the surroundings of a nest before the experiment explained probability of parasitism for this nest in the following year. Hence, these results indicate that great spotted cuckoos disregard social information related to past parasitism outcome, probably because parasitism outcome is tightly correlated with parasitism itself.Programa Juan de la Cierva-Formación Fellowship (FJCI-2015–26257)Junta de Andalucía (Proyecto P06-RNM-01862)Ministerio de Economía (proyectos CGL2014-56769-P y CGL2017-83503-P)Junta de Extremadura (contrato TA13002

Brood parasitism, provisioning rates and breeding phenology of male and female magpie hosts

Parental care is a costly behaviour that raises the prospects of offspring survival. In species with biparental care these costs are shared by both parents, although there may be a conflict regarding the relative investment of each sex. Avian brood parasites leave all the costs of rearing offspring to their hosts. The magnitude of these costs and their consequences on the relative role of both sexes in parental care and future reproduction remain mostly unknown. Here, we investigate whether provisioning rate of nestlings by magpie hosts Pica pica differs between broods parasitized by the great spotted cuckoo Clamator glandarius and non-parasitized broods, and whether the relative contribution of each sex to provisioning is affected by parasitism. Furthermore, we explore the effect of parasitism on magpie’s future reproduction. We found that provisioning rate was similar in parasitized and non-parasitized broods, and that the relative contribution of males and females was also similar, irrespectively of the parasitism status. However, rearing parasitic offspring seems to have a negative long-term effect on magpie’s breeding phenology in the following breeding season. Our results suggest that, although brood parasitism by great spotted cuckoos does not seem to influence the relative contribution of both sexes to parental care, it may entail long-term extra costs in terms of breeding delay for magpies.Junta de Andalucía (Proyecto P06-RNM-01862)Ministerio de Ciencia (proyecto CGL2014-55362-P)Programa Juan de la Cierva –Incorporación (IJC2018-036411-I)German Research Foundation (SFB TRR 212 (NC3) – Projectos n. 316099922 y 396782608

Papel de los estudios comportamentales en Ecología

Editorial del número monográfico de Ecosistemas sobre Papel de los estudios comportamentales en EcologíaPeer reviewe

The Role of Intra-Clutch Variation of Magpie Clutches in Foreign Egg Rejection Depends on the Egg Trait Considered.

MM-M and JA conceived the idea and analyzed the data. MM-M led the writing of the manuscript. MP and JGM performed the experiment in the field work. JG and GL-C carried out the images processing and performed the analyzes related to fractal dimension. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.We thank Brian Peer for inviting us to contribute to this special issue. We are also indebted to Daniel Hanley and Vanina Dafne Fiorini for comments that greatly improved the manuscript.The existence of a coevolutionary process between avian brood parasites and their hosts predicts a lower intra-clutch variation in egg appearance of host eggs among rejecters as this would favor egg discrimination of parasite eggs by hosts once parasitic egg mimicry had evolved. So far empirical tests of this prediction have ignored the fact that different aspects of host egg phenotypes may differ in the relative role of environmental vs. genetic determination, and hence that the role of intra-clutch variation in egg rejection within a population cannot be invariant. Here, we estimated whether the intra-clutch variation in several aspects of host eggshell features is consistently associated to rejection of parasitic foreign eggs across years in a magpie host population parasitized by great spotted cuckoos. We innovatively estimated spottiness by means of the fractal dimension of eggs, which considers the homogeneity of spot pattern complexity in eggshells. Our results show that low intra-clutch variation in the blue-green coloration at the middle area of the eggs associated with a high chance of rejection, but only in one of the 3 years we conducted the study. In addition, females that rejected foreign eggs presented more homogenous spot patterns in their clutches as estimated by their fractal dimension than females that accepted experimental eggs, independently of the year of study. Finally, intra-clutch variation in egg volume of host eggs was not associated to rejection. Analyses at the individual level revealed that the relative role of genetic vs. environmental factors that determine egg phenotype would be feature-specific in magpies, females having a characteristic spottiness, but not color or volume, pattern. Our work stresses the importance of considering a holistic approach including several aspects of variation in host egg phenotype (size, color, and homogeneity of spot pattern), as some aspects might be more susceptible to selection through egg rejection than others, presumably because they are less influenced by variation in the environmental conditions. Moreover, our study highlights the importance of replication in studies on the adaptive value of host traits in egg rejection.This study was made possible through funding by the Spanish Ministry of Science through different projects (CGL2011-27561 and CGL2014-55362-P), a grant (BES-2015-075675), the Juan de la Cierva–Incorporación Fellowship (IJC2018-036411-I), and the Junta de Andalucía through a project (P06-RNM-01862)

Runs of homozygosity in a selected cattle population with extremely inbred bulls: Descriptive and functional analyses revealed highly variable patterns

The analysis of runs of homozygosity (ROH), using high throughput genomic data, has become a valuable and frequently used methodology to characterize the genomic and inbreeding variation of livestock and wildlife animal populations. However, this methodology has been scarcely used in highly inbred domestic animals. Here, we analyzed and characterized the occurrence of ROH fragments in highly inbred (HI; average pedigree-based inbreeding coefficient FPED = 0.164; 0.103 to 0.306) and outbred Retinta bulls (LI; average FPED = 0.008; 0 to 0.025). We studied the length of the fragments, their abundance, and genome distribution using high-density microarray data. The number of ROH was significantly higher in the HI group, especially for long fragments (>8Mb). In the LI group, the number of ROH continuously decreased with fragment length. Genome-wide distribution of ROH was highly variable between samples. Some chromosomes presented a larger number of fragments (BTA1, BTA19, BTA29), others had longer fragments (BTA4, BTA12, BTA17), while other ones showed an increased ROH accumulation over specific loci (BTA2, BTA7, BTA23, BTA29). Similar differences were observed in the analysis of 12 individuals produced by a similar inbred event (FPED3 = 0.125). The correlation between the fraction of the genome covered by ROH (FROH) and FPED was high (0.79), suggesting that ROH-based estimations are indicative of inbreeding levels. On the other hand, the correlation between FPED and the microsatellite-based inbreeding coefficient (FMIC) was only moderate (r = 0.44), suggesting that STR-based inbreeding estimations should be avoided. Similarly, we found a very low correlation (r = -0.0132) between recombination rate and ROH abundance across the genome. Finally, we performed functional annotation analyses of genome regions with significantly enriched ROH abundance. Results revealed gene clusters related to pregnancy-associated proteins and immune reaction. The same analysis performed for regions enriched with recently formed ROH (> 8 Mb) showed gene clusters related to flagellum assembly. In both cases, the processes were related to male and female reproductive functions, which may partially explain the reduced fertility associated with inbred populations.Facultad de Ciencias VeterinariasInstituto de Genética Veterinari