Bird and bat mortality at wind farms in South America: Lessons from monitoring and mitigation practices in Chile Wind energy can help mitigate global CO2 emissions; however, it also has adverse effects on biodiversity, particularly through collision-related morta…

Here is the link to the full paper. Thank you so much for your interes in our research and apologies for the delayed reply.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti....

Extinction Debt Paid Off: The Demise of the European Polecat (Mustela putorius) in NE Iberia We studied a vanishing polecat population for a decade, until its ultimate demise, using camera trap and roadkill data, landscape descriptors and dietary and toxicological analyses.Polecat favoured f....

New, and sad, OA paper
We describe how the European polecat has recently vanished from its last stronghold in Catalonia
First chapter of Salvador Salvador's PhD, with Roger Puig-Gironés et al
Short thread below
@ebdonana.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

1/ Domestic cats are among the most common pets but when allowed to roam freely, they can pose serious risks to biodiversity, especially in protected natural areas: predation, disease transmission, and even hybridization with closely related species like the European wildcat.

Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with agriculture Human activities might have accelerated declines of population abundance, but this acceleration remains underexplored. Using 1033 North American Breeding Bird Survey routes, we analyze abundance chang...

Thrilled to share our new paper out in @science.org, led by François Leroy and Petr Keil! Using the Breeding Bird Survey, we document not only a continent-wide decline in bird abundance since the 1980s — but, crucially, the acceleration of these declines over time. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Human-induced climate change amplification on storm dynamics in Valencia’s 2024 catastrophic flash flood - Nature Communications This study reveals how climate change altered storm dynamics during the 2024 Valencia floods. Warmer seas fueled stronger updrafts, increasing rainfall intensity by 20% and significantly amplifying flood severity.

Human‑induced climate change may have intensified the mechanisms behind the 2024 flash floods in Valencia, Spain, according to a modelling study published in Nature Communications. 🧪

Grazing and climate interact to regulate greening trends in Mediterranean grasslands Our results show that traditional grazing systems can maintain grassland stability without causing degradation, but they can also increase the ecosystem's vulnerability to climate change. We provide ...

I am ecstatic to share our recently published paper and brilliantly led by Marina Rincón where we analysed the impacts of Grazing🐄 and climate🌀🌡️ on Mediterranean grasslands productivity 🌱🏞️⛰️
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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💡 Our recommendations:

Standardize monitoring protocols NOW
Mandate high-frequency surveys during migration
Use trained detection dogs in forested areas
Test mitigation effectiveness experimentally
Create transboundary conservation strategies

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🔬 Critical gap we identified: no mitigation measures were tested on Chilean species. What works for European raptors may not work for Andean condors or Variable hawks. We urgently need species-specific, evidence-based solutions.

🚫 Mitigation measures? 45% of wind farms had NONE. Of those with measures, 90% were passive (painted blades, lights)—which may lose effectiveness as birds habituate. Active measures like on-demand shutdowns were rare due to costs.

📊 Our models showed mortality increased with distance from coast and turbine height. Chilean Matorral and Valdivian forests showed highest rates. But detection bias in dense vegetation means southern forests may have hidden, uncounted casualties.

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❗ Major problem we found: monitoring is inconsistent and lacks standardization. 62% of facilities didn't report sampling schedules. Only 6.4% conducted carcass persistence trials. Without proper bias correction, true mortality is vastly underestimated.

🦇 We found clear seasonal mortality peaks in spring and autumn, coinciding with increased bat activity and range expansion. The Brazilian free-tailed bat accounted for 58% of all bat fatalities—a major conservation concern.

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🦅 The most concerning finding: 9 Andean condors (Vulnerable status) killed at 3 wind farms in north-central Chile. Even low mortality rates can devastate populations of these long-lived, slow-breeding species. Every individual counts.

📍 Chile leads Latin America in wind energy investment, with ~1,360 turbines generating 4.6 GW. But this rapid expansion is happening in biodiversity hotspots—home to threatened species like the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus).

New paper out!! 🚨🥳
We here evaluated for the first time, the impact of wind energy on birds and bats in Chile, which represents, to our knowledge the first assessment of wind energy infrastructures on these two vulnerable groups in South America🌎
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Muchísimas gracias Tano! Un abrazote!

Muchas gracias Miguel Ángel! La verdad es que es un trabajo en el cual hemos puesto mucha ilusión y ganas.

Gran iniciativa Carlos!

Sequential Thresholds Shape Drylands' Multitrophic Response to Aridification We analyzed biodiversity responses across 290 global dryland ecoregions and found that all taxonomic and trophic groups, from microbes to mammals, showed abrupt threshold declines with increasing ari...

🚨New paper out!🚨
We here analysed how different organisms (from #microbes to #mammals🦠🐝🪱🦅🦎🐸🦒🐟) react to #aridity in #drylands #ecoregions🌡️🌄, and how #biodiversity, #humandisturbance, #climatechange and #landusechange modulate richness loss in drylands

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Animal niches in the airspace For flying animals, including many birds, bats, and insects, the air is a crucial arena for a range of behaviors. Technological advances, such as year-round tracking of flight altitudes and expanded use of radar, increasingly show how flying animals use the aerial habitat. This enables us to answer questions about the environmental patterns and ecological processes that shape aerial niches, including energetics, biotic interactions, and risk due to growing anthropogenic conflicts. In this review, we identify environmental conditions and biological interactions influencing where animals occur in the airspace throughout their life cycles. We outline an ecological framework to advance understanding of how different properties of the airspace shape fundamental aerial habitat niches and how biotic interactions influence the realized niches.

Online now: Animal niches in the airspace

The Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude heat keeps blowing my mind.

The North Atlantic was not as extreme as the past two years, but the other oceans were even more extreme than the North Atlantic summers of both 2023 and 2024!

También la plantaron en Bilbao en el paseo donde se ubican una zona de nuevas construcciones. Lo mismo que la Hierba de la pampa, la cual he visto plantada en algunas localidades de CyL como Palencia.

Amazing mega collaborative GPS tracking paper. #ungulates #GPS #telemetry

Low human disturbance levels alter movement patterns and induce behavioural changes in an apex predator Understanding how animals adapt to human-altered landscapes is critical for conserving large carnivores. Establishing thresholds for behavioural plast…

It seems that the previous link did not work. Here is one that does.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

NEW PAPER collates #telemetry data of >100 marine vertebrate species including #seabirds and finds that protecting only 30% of the global ocean is not enough - because marine animals live everywhere: buff.ly/mYrtoAN

🚨New paper altert! 🚨
We here evaluate #humandisturbance impact on #GPS tagged #Jaguars across #SouthAmerica. Spoiler: Even low human disturbance levels alter jaguar #movement, increase #nocturnality
and decrease time invested in #foraging
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Un mapa identifica las zonas donde las aves son más vulnerables a las instalaciones eólicas Un estudio liderado por investigadores de la Universidad de Alicante, la Miguel Hernández de Elche y la Estación Biológica de Doñana ha identificado las zonas más

Pequeño resumen de nuestro último artículo sobre el impacto de las eólicas en #aves y #murcielagos en @lavanguardia.com 🦅🦇

Un mapa identifica las zonas donde las aves son más vulnerables a las instalaciones eólicas www.lavanguardia.com/local/valenc...

Our study ‘The #global #human impact on #biodiversity’ is out in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌍🌐🐟🌿🪲

Unprecedented synthesis of >2000 studies led by @francoiskeck.bsky.social shows humans are not only shrinking species numbers—but reshaping entire communities across the planet.
🧵1/5

Our datapaper "Global Roadkill Data: a dataset on terrestrial vertebrate mortality caused by collision with vehicles" is now online on #ScientificData: nature.com/articles/s41... #RoadEcology @ebdonana.bsky.social