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: 984; Downloads: 587
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2. 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: 1287; Downloads: 755
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