Ecology and behavior of lizards of the species Acanthodactylus schreiberi in a dune ecosystem in Cyprus

The aim of this thesis is to comprehensively study the ecology and behavior of the protected species Acanthodactylus schreiberi (subspecies A. s. schreiberi) in Cyprus and through it to assist filling the knowledge gaps that exist for the species. The acquired knowledge generated through this thesis can be used by the research community and the government departments in order to strengthen the conservation and protection of the studied species and the sensitive sand dune ecosystems that are the main habitats of its occurrence. For the implementation of this study, representatives of the species in a sand dune coastal ecosystem of the island (south of the Lady's mile shore in Limassol) were examined thoroughly. Sampling began in March 2007 and continued until June 2011. During the samplings, the study area was visited monthly, for 3-6 days each visit, during the activity periods of the lizards (spring, summer, autumn). Apart from the study carried out in the sand dune ecosystem, further samplings were made in a forest ecosystem of the Troodos mountain area (northwest of Platania forest station) during the spring season of 2009 and 2010, in order to compare the reproductive strategy between populations in sand dune and forest ecosystems. During field work, individuals of the species were captured (using the fishing method and pitfall traps) and marked (permanently and temporarily), while their morphometric characteristics and temperatures (of the individuals and the environment) were recorded and pictures were taken from various body parts. At the same time their movements were monitored in the field in order to estimate their home range, while through controlled encounters the territorial behavior of the species was studied. In addition to the field work, gravid females were moved in the laboratory where oviposition took place, in order to study the reproductive strategy of the species. The eggs hatched under controlled conditions and the growth rate and the alterations of hatchlings characteristics were examined in the laboratory before their release on the field. Through the present study we were able to extract detailed information regarding the morphology of the species, the population density and the percentage of tail autotomy in a relatively undisturbed sand dune ecosystem. At the same time the diet and foraging strategy were examined along with the thermal ecology of the species, the reproductive strategy, the growth rate and the lifespan of the individuals. Finally the home range of males and females was estimated and the territorial behavior against rivals was examined. […]Στόχος της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η σφαιρική μελέτη στοιχείων οικολογίας και συμπεριφοράς του προστατευόμενου είδους Acanthodactylus schreiberi (υποείδος A. s. schreiberi) στην Κύπρο και η πλήρωση των κενών γνώσης που υπάρχουν για το είδος αυτό. Η γνώση που θα προκύψει μέσα από την παρούσα διατριβή αναμένεται να αξιοποιηθεί από την ερευνητική κοινότητα και τα αρμόδια κυβερνητικά τμήματα για την αποτελεσματικότερη διαχείριση και προστασία, τόσο του ίδιου του είδους, όσο και των ευαίσθητων θινικών οικοσυστημάτων τα οποία αποτελούν το βασικό ενδιαίτημα στο οποίο απαντάται. Για την πραγματοποίηση της παρούσας μελέτης, εξετάστηκαν επισταμένα αντιπρόσωποι του είδους σε θινικό παράκτιο οικοσύστημα του νησιού (νότια της ακτής Lady’s mile στην επαρχία Λεμεσού). Οι δειγματοληψίες ξεκίνησαν τον Μάρτιο του 2007 και συνεχίστηκαν μέχρι και τον Ιούνιο του 2011. Κατά τη διάρκεια των δειγματοληψιών υλοποιούντο μηνιαίες επισκέψεις, διάρκειας 3-6 ημερών, στην περιοχή μελέτης, κατά τις περιόδους δραστηριότητας των σαυρών (άνοιξη, καλοκαίρι, φθινόπωρο). Πέραν της μελέτης που πραγματοποιήθηκε στο θινικό οικοσύστημα, πραγματοποιήθηκαν και δειγματοληψίες σε δασικό οικοσύστημα στην περιοχή του Τροόδους (βορειοδυτικά του δασικού σταθμού Πλατανιών) κατά τις εαρινές περιόδους του 2009 και 2010 για σκοπούς σύγκρισης της αναπαραγωγικής στρατηγικής ανάμεσα σε πληθυσμό θινικού και πληθυσμό δασικού οικοσυστήματος. Κατά τη διάρκεια των εργασιών πεδίου, άτομα του πληθυσμού συλλαμβάνονταν (με τη μέθοδο ψαρέματος αλλά και μέσω παγίδων παρεμβολής) και σημαίνονταν (μόνιμο και παροδικό μαρκάρισμα), ενώ καταγράφονταν τα μορφομετρικά τους χαρακτηριστικά και η θερμοκρασία (των ατόμων και του περιβάλλοντος), και γινόταν λήψη φωτογραφιών από διάφορα μέρη του σώματος τους. Παράλληλα πραγματοποιείτο και παρακολούθηση της κίνησης των ατόμων στο πεδίο για εντοπισμό στοιχείων που αφορούν την έκταση του ζωτικού χώρου ενώ μέσω ελεγχόμενων αντιπαραθέσεων λαμβάνονταν στοιχεία για την προάσπιση του χώρου αυτού. Πέραν των εργασιών πεδίου, για τις ανάγκες μελέτης της αναπαραγωγικής στρατηγική πραγματοποιήθηκε μεταφορά εγκυμονούντων θηλυκών ατόμων στο εργαστήριο όπου και ωοαπόθεσαν. Τα αυγά εκκολάφτηκαν υπό ελεγχόμενες συνθήκες και εξετάστηκε ο ρυθμός αύξησης και η μεταβολή των χαρακτηριστικών των νεογέννητων ατόμων στο εργαστήριο πριν την απελευθέρωσή τους. Μέσα από την παρούσα διατριβή μπόρεσαν να εξαχθούν λεπτομερείς πληροφορίες αναφορικά με την μορφολογία των ατόμων του είδους, την πυκνότητα που εμφανίζει ο μελετηθείς πληθυσμός και το ποσοστό αναγέννησης ουρών σε ένα σχετικά αδιατάρακτο θινικό οικοσύστημα. Παράλληλα εξετάστηκε η διατροφή και η στρατηγική θήρευσης του, αλλά και στοιχεία αναφορικά με την θερμική οικολογία του είδους, την αναπαραγωγική στρατηγική, τον ρυθμό αύξησης και το προσδόκιμο ζωής. Τέλος εκτιμήθηκε η έκταση που καταλαμβάνει ο ζωτικός χώρος των ατόμων του πληθυσμού και η παρουσία συμπεριφοράς προάσπισης αυτού έναντι ανταγωνιστών. […

CyROS: towards a common methodological framework for roadkills recording in Cyprus

Citizens’ science is on the increase in conservation biology and so are observation systems which attempt to provide data on the impact of roads on wildlife particularly as a result of vehicle collisions (roadkills). The island of Cyprus, a global biodiversity hotspot, has seen a fast increase in road length and extent in the last 20 years. However this has not been followed by studies looking at the impacts of roads on biodiversity. The paper presents the Cyprus Roadkill Observation System (CyROS) which aims at providing an evidence base for understanding the contribution of ecological parameters and wildlife behaviour, as well as the effects of the road network, on roadkills in Cyprus. The project has so far engaged four government departments and 95 volunteerscientists under a common goal. Preliminary results demonstrate that snakes are the most affected by roads, followed by hedgehogs while the number of observations is related to the frequency of road use and road type. Future steps including increasing recording effort and visibility of the system, assessing roadkills in protected areas and developing strategies and plans for mitigation measures, are discussed.Zotos Savvas, Vogiatzakis Ioannis N. CyROS: towards a common methodological framework for roadkills recording in Cyprus. In: Ecologia mediterranea, tome 44 n°1, 2018. pp. 109-114

The Cyprus Herp Atlas: An initiative for systematic recording of amphibian and reptile occurrences in Cyprus

Even though the reptiles and amphibians of Cyprus are of scientific and conservation importance, and although several books, guides and scientific reports have been published the past 30 years, there is a clear absence of a systematic recording and archiving scheme of all available data in a structural database. Towards this end, the Cyprus Herp (= reptiles and amphibians) Atlas has been developed. The Atlas constitutes the first effort to collect all existing locality data of the herpetofauna species of the island (i.e. scientific reports, books, journals, grey literature) in a single database and simultaneously promote a citizen science approach in order to collect and constantly update the database with new records.The website of the Atlas contains basic educational and informational material for the public, along with the visibility tool of the database in the form of occurrence maps, in 5 km x 5 km grid cells, openly available for download in kmz format. The Atlas is a powerful tool for citizens, scientists, and decision makers, aiming to contribute to the study and conservation of the reptile and amphibian species of Cyprus. In this short communication we give details on the structure of the Atlas

The importance of artificial wetlands for birds: A case study from Cyprus.

The degradation of natural wetlands has significant effects on the ecosystem services they provide and the biodiversity they sustain. Under certain conditions, these negative effects can be mitigated by the presence of artificial wetlands. However, the conservation value of artificial wetlands needs to be explored further. In addition, it is unclear how certain anthropogenic variables, such as road networks and hunting reserves (i.e., areas where hunting of birds is prohibited) affect biodiversity in both artificial and natural wetlands. Here, we use data from thirteen artificial and six natural wetlands in Cyprus, to assess their similarities in bird species diversity and composition, and to quantify the relationship between species diversity and the density of road networks, hunting reserves, wetland size, and wetland depth. We found that while on average natural wetlands have more species and support higher abundances, certain artificial wetlands have the potential to support similarly diverse communities. Overall, regardless of the type, larger wetlands, with shallower waters tend to be more biodiverse. The same is true for wetlands surrounded by a higher percentage of hunting reserves and a lower density of road networks, albeit the effect of road networks was weaker. We conclude, from our results, that although the conservation value of natural wetlands is higher, artificial wetlands have the potential to play a complimentary role in the conservation of bird communities, assuming those wetlands have the right characteristics (e.g., in terms of size and depth) and assuming that the disturbances resulting from high-impact human-activities (e.g., hunting) are minimized

The Cyprus Herp Atlas: An initiative for systematic recording of amphibian and reptile occurrences in Cyprus

Even though the reptiles and amphibians of Cyprus are of scientific and conservation importance and although several books, guides and scientific reports have been published the past 30 years, there is a clear absence of a systematic recording and archiving scheme of all available data in a structural database. Towards this end, the Cyprus Herp (= reptiles and amphibians) Atlas has been developed. The Atlas constitutes the first effort to collect all existing locality data of the herpetofauna species of the island (i.e. scientific reports, books, journals, grey literature) in a single database and simultaneously promote a citizen-science approach in order to collect and constantly update the database with new records.The website of the Atlas contains basic educational and informational material for the public, along with the visibility tool of the database in the form of occurrence maps, in 5 km x 5 km grid cells, openly available for download in kmz format. The Atlas is a powerful tool for citizens, scientists and decision-makers, aiming to contribute to the study and conservation of the reptile and amphibian species of Cyprus. In this short communication, we give details on the structure of the Atlas

Results of the NMDS analyses for the three years, showing the dissimilarity in species composition between artificial and natural wetlands, based on the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index, when presence/absence (left column) and abundances (right column) are used.

<p>Blue circles (●) correspond to artificial wetlands and red triangles (▲) to natural wetlands.</p

Partial residual plots illustrating the relationship between each of the four explanatory variables and species diversity (Fisher’s alpha diversity) in year 2011.

<p>Blue circles (●) correspond to artificial wetlands and red triangles (▲) to natural wetlands. Boxplots are based on the median and the 1^st and 3^rd quartiles.</p

Dataset for: "The importance of artificial wetlands for birds: A case study from Cyprus"

<div>Giosa E, Mammides C, Zotos S (2018) The importance of artificial wetlands for birds: A case study from Cyprus. PLOS ONE 13(5): e0197286. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197286<br></div><div><br></div><div>Dataset consists of two excel files: </div><div>a. Bird Checklist, and </div><div>b. Wetland Data<br></div><div><br></div><div>The checklist contains the list of species recorded in all artificial and natural wetlands (n=19) during the years 2009-2011. For each species it includes the following information:</div><div>1. Scientific name</div><div>2. Common name</div><div>3. IUCN status</div><div>4. Abundance in natural wetlands</div><div>5. Abundance in artificial wetlands</div><div>6. Abundance in year 2009 </div><div>7. Abundance in year 2011 <br></div><div>8. Abundance in year 2011 <br></div><div><br></div>The wetland data include the following information:<div>1. Site Number</div><div>2. Site Name</div><div>3. Type (i.e., whether artificial or natural)</div><div>4. Description (e.g., whether dam, salt lake, etc.)</div><div>5. Conservation status (e.g., whether an Important Bird Area or a Ramsar Wetland)</div><div>6. X coordinate of the centroid (GCS_WGS_1984)</div><div>7. Y coordinate of the centroid (GCS_WGS_1984)</div><div>8. Bird species richness in 2009</div><div>9. Bird species richness in 2010<br></div><div>10. Bird species richness in 2011</div><div>11. Bird diversity (Fisher's alpha diversity index) in 2009</div><div>12. Bird diversity (Fisher's alpha diversity index) in 2010</div><div>13. Bird diversity (Fisher's alpha diversity index) in 2011</div><div>14. Maximum depth (in meters)</div><div>15. Salinity (in practical salinity unit)</div><div>16. Salinity (categories)</div><div>17. Total area (in km2)</div><div>18. Total area of the surrounding "250 meter buffer" (in km2)</div><div>19. Total length of roads within the buffer (in km)</div><div>20. Total road density (in km/km2)</div><div>21. Total area of hunting reserves (i.e., areas where hunting is prohibited) within the buffer (in km2)</div><div>22. Percentage of the buffer area covered by hunting reserves</div><div><br></div><div>For any questions regarding the dataset please contact Christos Mammides at [email protected]</div

The list of species accounting for 90% of the dissimilarity in species composition between artificial and natural wetlands in 2011, when abundances are used.

<p>For each species, the average and the relative average abundances in each wetland type are shown, along with the cumulative contribution to the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index.</p

Boxplots showing the extent to which bird communities in each of the thirteen artificial wetlands are nested subsets of the communities in natural wetlands, as measured using the Sorensen index for each of the three years separately.

<p>The numbers on the x-axis correspond to the numbers of the artificial wetlands in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0197286#pone.0197286.t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>. Each boxplot is made using six data points, representing the nestedness between each artificial wetland and the six natural wetlands. The higher the value the higher the degree of nestedness. Boxplots are based on the median and the 1^st and 3^rd quartiles. Outliers represent the points that extend beyond 1.5 times the interquartile range.</p