GEDAi and the Balearic Sheawater on the news!

From https://www.ultimahora.es

 The monitoring of the Blaearic Shearwater by the GEDAi in collaboration with a team from the Oxford University at the Natural Park of Sa Dragonera found an increase of the breeding population.

A good news for this endangered species that hit the news this week here and here.

Monk seal on the News!

The Monk Seal hit the news! An interview about the findings from the study by Valsecchi et al. on the local News (here).

 

 

Storm Petrels on the news !

The work by A Sanz-Aguilar and A. Rotger on the first tracks of Storm Petrels breeding in the Balearic Archipelago hit the news! here

 

New press release on Griffon vulture arrival!

The project by A. Cortés-Avizanda was on the news today. An article by E. Soto (here) describes Ainara's research into the possible changes that the arrival of the Griffon vulture in Mallorca can generate. In 2008, pushed by an unusual storm, a group of Griffon vultures arrived in Mallorca and established a new colony.

Natural colonizations of islands are rare and offer an important opportunity to gain information on dispersal, settlement and competition among species.  

Will it compete with the Black vulture ?  

Will framers change their perception on scavangers ?   

Will this natural arrival create a new wildlife-human conflict? 

Stay in touch for the answers.

Ticks on the news!

The work by A. Sanz-Aguilar et al. (here) on ticks and Storm Petrel chick survival made the news today. Here a press note by E. Soto (which became rapidly a hit). 

GEDA on the news!

Here a press release by E. Soto on the use of APHIS to identify individuals from digital image. Photo-identification techniques are becoming more and more popular in monitoring individual behaviour and life-history tactics. They allow an economic and not invasive method of indiviudal recongnition, particularly useful to study small species or for those that cannot be marked without potentially harm individuals or change their behaviour. The software, APHIS developped by the GEDA and the "Fundación Bit" in 2015 (here), is freely available (here) and it is increasingly being used in may taxa such as invertebrates, mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians.

New research into the Mallorcan Midwife Toad

The work by S. Pinya, in collaboration with the GEDA, is under the spotlight. A new press release by E. Soto appeared yesterday on the Spanish news (here). The work describing the first population model for the species (only one population, helas!) can be found here.

Photo: Samuel Pinya

ABSTRACT: Amphibian populations are declining worldwide, but for many taxa, robust estimates of demographic parameters to assess population state or trends are scarce or absent. We provide robust estimates of adult apparent survival of the endemic Mallorcan midwife toad Alytes muletensis using individual capture-recapture data collected over 4 yr in a 60 m² cistern. Moreover, we combined the vital rates into a stage-structured population model to estimate the expected long-term growth rate of the population. Apparent survival estimates of males and females were similar (0.737 ± 0.042 and 0.726 ± 0.045, respectively) indicating that the egg-carrying behavior of males, typical of this species, does not reduce its survival probability. We found evidence of a low local survival of juveniles compared with adults, most likely due to permanent dispersal. Adult population size estimation provided higher tadpole:adult ratios than previously reported for this endangered species, suggesting an overestimation of the previous adult population size. Model projections suggested a stable population, since λ, the expected asymptotic growth rate of the population, was close to 1.00.

APHIS under the spotlight !

The software APHIS for individual photo-identification developed by the GEDA in collaboration with Dr. Ó. Moya (Fundacion IBIT) was on IB3 news today! 
APHIS builds on an existing approach (I3S) adding the possibility to process photos in batches and the original ITM procedure which minimizes pre-processing time.

You can see the interview here.
A press release from IMEDEA here

The software can be downloaded for free here.