Yellow-legged gull 2022 campaign !

Photo: M. Gomilla

 The Yellow-Legged gull 2022 campaign just began. Marked birds are already preparing to breed at the colony. We are warming up the engines to record the demographic parameters for this year.

 

 

Eidechsen on the news!

Jonas Martiny has pubblished on Mallorcan Magazine an extensive article on the Balearic lizards. It includes information on the natural history of Podarcis pityusensis and Podarcis lilfordi, and an interesting section on the early studies, carried out in the middle of the last century, on lizard taxonomy and evolution. It also refers to the work by GEDA on photo-recognition and on the study of life-history tactics of the Balearic Wall lizard.

New Publication on Lapped-faced vulture !

Santangeli A., Pakanen, V-M, Bridgeford, P., Boorman, M., Kolberg, H., and Sanz-Aguilar, A. 2020. The relative contribution of camera trap technology and citizen science for estimating survival of an endangered African vulture. Biological Conservation, vol, 246 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108593

Photo:wikipedia.org

Abstract: Technological advances such as camera traps, and citizen science, coupled with advanced quantitative approaches, can help fill existing knowledge gaps and aid effective conservation. We combine citizen and camera trap observations to estimate survival of the Endangered lappet-faced vulture, assess the relative contribution of data from camera traps and citizens, as well as impact of loss of individual marks (wing tags), on survival estimates.  We used data from 762 lappet-faced vultures wing tagged as nestlings during 2006-2017 in western Namibia. Observations of wing tagged individuals were provided by citizens or via camera traps.
We formulated a multievent capture-mark-recapture model to estimate survival while accounting for probabilities of resighting by citizens and/or camera traps, recovery of dead individuals, and loss of the wing tag.  Survival was relatively high for juveniles (0.79), and increased with age to 0.95. Citizen observations of live and dead birds were low in number. However, when combined with camera trap resightings of live individuals, citizen observations increased the precision of survival estimates of birds older than one year compared to using data from either sources separately. Wing tag loss was high after 5–6 years of tag age. If neglected, tag loss can result in severe underestimation of survival of the older age classes. Overall, we show that filling ecological knowledge gaps is possible through the efficient use of data provided by different sources, and by applying state-of the art approaches that minimise potential biases, such as those due to tag loss.

Caught on camera !

This year we planned camera-trapping (left) and photos by trigger-happy photographs (below) to increase recapture rate. 
Both methods resulted in additional readings to those made by telescope alone. After these encouraging results we will be probably using these techniques regularly. A special thanks to Miguel, Javi y Paco for the nice images.

News: APHIS and snakes in Ibiza

The research by A. Rotger Vallespir had make the news here and here. Andreu showed how the scale pattern on the head of the snake Hemorrhois hippocrepis changes across individuals and it can be used as a fingerprint to track individual and assess their life-history. The free available software APHIS, developped by the GEDA in 2015, can be used to process the images. Andreu's research was first presented at the VII Conference on Balearic Environment early this month.
You can find the IMEDEA press release here