1. Report of the Third General Meeting (GM3) & Cross-Working Group Meeting : ERBFacility - European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility, COST ACTION 16224Al Vrezec, Guy Duke, Rafael Mateo, Rui Lourenço, Antonio J. Garcia-Fernandez, Richard Shore, Paola Movalli, Chris Wernham, Pablo Sánchez Virosta, 2020, other monographs and other completed works Abstract: This is a report from the Third General Meeting (GM3) and Cross-Working Group Meeting of the COST Action European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility (ERBFacility, CA 16224). The Fourth Management Committee Meeting (MC4) took place back-to-back with the General Meeting. The Minutes of the Management Committee Meeting are published separately. GM3 brought together the ERBFacility community of Management Committee (MC) members, STSM holders and additional key resource persons active in the analysis, collections and field arenas in relation to the monitoring of contaminants in raptors. 55 participants attended GM3 from 24 COST Member Countries, of which 43 MC members and substitutes who also attended the Fourth Management Committee Meeting (MC4). This includes a multidisciplinary community of field ornithologists and ecologists, curators (from natural history museums, environmental specimen banks and others) and ecotoxicologists (Fig. 1). Around 30 participants attended the Cross-Working Group meeting. The full list of participants is annexed to this report. On Day 1, Tuesday 4th February, the morning session provided a recap of the objectives and rationale for the Action, an overview of the state of play from the three Working Groups in the Analysis, Collections and Field Arenas and presentations from mission holders. This was followed by an outline of plans for the remainder of the current Grant Period (GP3, to end April 2020) and for GP4 (1/5/20-30/4/21) and through to end of Action (October 2021). This was followed by break-out discussion on key cross-Arena issues for the remainder of the Action focussing on three topics: the ERBFacility proof of concept study (led by Rafael Mateo, Rui Lourenço), capacity building and training schools (led by Chris Wernham, Paola Movalli), and action communication and dissemination (led by Guy Duke, Chris Wernham, Al Vrezec).
Published in DiRROS: 04.09.2024; Views: 948; Downloads: 559
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2. Overview of raptor monitoring activities in EuropeAl Vrezec, Guy Duke, András Kovács, Pertti Saurola, Chris Wernham, Ian Burfield, Paola Movalli, Irena Bertoncelj, 2012, review article Abstract: Despite the key role of raptors (including birds of prey Falconiformes and owls Strigiformes) in ecosystems and their sensitivity to environmental change, a well coordinated, Europe-wide monitoring of raptors is lacking. EURAPMON, a Research Networking Programme of the European Science Foundation, was launched with the aim of establishing a sustainable Europewide network for monitoring of raptors. An overview of current monitoring schemes for raptor populations in 28 European countries, as reported by EURAPMON National Coordinators at the workshop in Murcia (Spain) in 2012, showed existing monitoring schemes to be limited to a restricted number of species (mostly diurnal and rare raptor species). The most widely monitored species are the Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos amongst diurnal raptors and the Eagle Owl Bubo bubo amongst owls. Broad coverage of a species range across Europe is reached only for restricted-range species. The key driver for monitoring, which is mostly coordinated by NGOs, is conservation, and the main end users are governmental institutions. International collaboration in the field of monitoring of raptors is mainly regional and not yet pan-European in scale. The involvement of volunteers in raptor monitoring was perceived as the main strength of many schemes, but insufficient manpower and a focus on rare species were recognised as the main weaknesses across Europe as a whole. Among priorities identified for the future development of monitoring schemes are: improvements to national coordination; support to increase the number of volunteers; and assurances of stable funding. Further analysis of EURAPMON questionnaires will identify knowledge gaps, which will steer good practice guidance on survey methodologies; the need for the latter was identified as the main benefit that National Coordinators expect to gain from international networking
Keywords: Europe, raptor monitoring scheme, birds of prey, owls, monitoring inventory
Published in DiRROS: 06.08.2024; Views: 1249; Downloads: 728
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3. The importance of population contextual data for large-scale biomonitoring using an apex predator : the Tawny Owl (Strix aluco)Urška Ratajc, Rui Lourenço, Silvia Espín, Pablo Sánchez Virosta, Simon Birrer, Dani Studler, Chris Wernham, Al Vrezec, 2023, review article Abstract: Top predators are often used as sentinel species in contaminant monitoring due to their exposure and vulnerability to persistent, bioaccumulative and, in some cases, biomagnificable contaminants. Some of their ecological traits can vary in space and time, and are known to influence the contamination levels and therefore information on ecological traits should be used as contextual data for correct interpretation of large-scale contaminant spatial patterns. These traits can explain spatiotemporal variation in contaminant exposure (traits such as diet and dispersal distances) or contaminant impacts (traits such as population trend and clutch size). The aim of our research was to review the spatial variation in selected contextual parameters in the Tawny Owl (Strix aluco), a species identified by the COST Action European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility as one of the most suitable candidates for pan-European biomonitoring. A considerable variation in availability of published and unpublished contextual data across Europe was found, with diet being the most extensively studied trait. We demonstrate that the Tawny Owl is a suitable biomonitor at local scale but also that taking spatial variation of other contextual data (e.g. diet) into account is necessary. We found spatial gaps in knowledge about the species ecology and biology in Southern Europe, along with gaps in certain population parameters (e.g. population trends) in several countries. Based on our findings, we proposed a minimal recommended scheme for monitoring of population contextual data as one of the first steps towards a pan-European monitoring scheme using the Tawny Owl.
Keywords: raptors, sentinel species, contamination exposure, contamination impact, diet, minimal recommended monitoring scheme
Published in DiRROS: 05.08.2024; Views: 1235; Downloads: 720
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