Domestic, wondering and feral cats. A debate based on scarce information.

This week cats are on the news. Many volunteers maintain colonies of cats around the villages or in city parks. The issue is controversial because cats are a potential problem for the island biodiversity. They are known to have caused extinction and to be a serious threat to the local biodiversity in many countries. Some have adopted strict laws to reduce or confine the cat population. Surprisingly, we have Little information on cat movements, their ecology and on the size of their populations. A recent press note here

 

Fledged 2! Ph.D. Thesis defense at the US !

Alvaro Luna successfully defended his Ph.D. research at the University of Sevilla today. Alvaro did a work on the movement and life-history strategy of the burrowing owl supervised by M. Carrete, J.L. Tella and A. Sanz-Aguilar. When not in Argentinga, Alvaro spent some part of his PhD at the GEDA, sharing with us his work on urban ecology. Congratulations Alvaro!

Urban Ecology on the air, each saturday at BFC

Each Saturday morning at "Balear Fa Ciencia", Alvaro Luna will share his experience on the study the ecology of those animals that live in the urban enviornment. Here his last interview of Saturday 20th of July 2019 (at 32'45'') about the decrease of once common species.

Urban ecology on Air!

Álvaro Luna at "Balears Fa Ciència" (here, min 27) speaking on Urban Ecology and Urban Evolution. Álvaro is finishing his PhD at the University of Sevilla, co-supervised by M. Carrete from the University of Sevilla and A. Sanz-Aguilar from the GEDA (IMEDEA -CSIC/UIB). 
His research is focussing on the adaptation and the ecology of urban fauna. Here is a previous post on Alvaro's book, with an interview by E. Soto.

New Publication on urban vs rural birds!

Luna, A., Palma, A., Sanz-Aguilar, A., Tella, J. L and Carrete, M., 2019 Personality-dependent breeding dispersal in rural but not urban burrowing owls. Scientific Report, 9, Article number: 2886 (2019)

Abstract: Dispersal propensity has been correlated with personality traits, conspecific density and predation risk in a variety of species. Thus, changes in the relative frequency of behavioural phenotypes or in the ecological pressures faced by individuals in contrasting habitats can have unexpected effects on their dispersal strategies. Here, using the burrowing owl Athene cunicularia as a study model, we test whether changes in the behavioural profile of individuals and changes in conspecific density and predation pressure associated with urban life influence their breeding dispersal decisions compared to rural conspecifics. Our results show that breeding dispersal behaviour differs between rural and urban individuals. Site fidelity was lower among rural than among urban birds, and primarily related to an individual’s behaviours (fear of humans), which has been reported to reflect individual personality. In contrast, the main determinant of site fidelity among urban owls was conspecific density. After taking the decision of dispersing, urban owls moved shorter distances than rural ones, with females dispersing farther than males. Our results support a personality-dependent dispersal pattern that might vary with predation risk. However, as multiple individuals of two populations (one urban, one rural) were used for this research, differences can thus also be caused by other factors differing between the two populations. Further research is needed to properly understand the ecological and evolutionary consequences of changes in dispersal behaviours, especially in terms of population structuring and gene flow between urban and rural populations.

From: wikipedia.org

News on urban ecology!

A new press release by E. Soto at B@leópolis on Urban Ecology, inspired by the work of Alvaro Luna. Alvaro is a Ph.D student supervised by A. Sanz-Aguilar (from the GEDA) and M. Carrete (from the EBD-CSIC). In his book (available here and here) Alvaro compiles the most incredible cases of wild animals living in the urban enviornment, the new colonizations and the adaptations. The book identifies our cities as a new ecosystem to study and to explore.