The concept of refugee species provides a theoretical framework towards increasing the predictive power of the ‘declining population paradigm’ through identifying species which are expected to suffer from a declining population syndrome. Using a simple habitat model as a framework, refugee species are defined as those that can no longer access optimal habitat, but are confined to suboptimal habitats, with consequences of decreased fitness and density, and attendant conservation risks. Refugee species may be difficult to detect in the absence of information on prior habitat use and fitness and their observed ecology will be constrained by the habitat limits forced on them. Identification of refugee species, characterisation of pre‐refugee ecology and the restoration of such species to optimal habitat is critical to their successful conservation. The concept is showcased by addressing the conundrum of a large grazing bovid, the European bison Bison bonasus , being managed as a forest specialist, despite its evolutionary background, dental morphology, neonatal behaviour, diet and microhabitat selection being characteristic of a grazing species inhabiting open, grass‐rich habitats. It is hypothesized that a combination of increasing replacement of open steppe by forest cover after the last postglacial period and increasing human pressure forced bison into forests as a refuge habitat. This process was then reinforced through active management of bison in forests as managers committed themselves to the ‘bison as forest species’ paradigm. A research agenda to test this hypothesis using an experimental approach in the conservation management of European bison by introducing populations into diverse habitat types is suggested.
We performed spatially explicit, process-explicit simulations of the range collapse of the European bison (Bison bonasus) from 21,000 years ago to 1500 CE, validating our models against observed patterns of fossil occurrence and population persistence. We examined the top 25 models to find the cause of extinction in each grid cell where the European bison became extinct in our simulations. These raster data provide a map of these causes of extinction at a 86 by 75 km resolution. The spatial projection of the raster is Albers equal area, with a central meridian at 25E, and standard parallels at 42.5 and 72.5N. The values in the raster are dummy variables, which correspond to the following categories: 0 - Range of the European bison in 1500 CE. These cells do not become extinct in the simulation. 1 - Local extinction due to climate change. These cells became climatically unsuitable for the European bison between 21,000 years BP and 1500 CE. 2 - Local extinction due to human drivers. European bison became extinct in these grid cells due to human hunting or land use change. 3 - No occupancy. European bison never occupied these grid cells at any point in the simulation.
We investigated how do environmental and climatic factors, but also management, affect the carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope composition in bone collagen of the two largest contemporary herbivores: European bison (Bison bonasus) and moose (Alces alces) across Europe. We also analysed how different scenarios of population recovery- reintroduction in bison and natural recovery in moose influenced feeding habitats and diet of these two species and compared isotopic signatures of modern populations of bison and moose (living in human-altered landscapes) with those occurring in early Holocene. We found that δ13C of modern bison and moose decreased with increasing forest cover. Decreasing forest cover, increasing mean annual temperature and feeding on farm crops caused an increase in δ15N in bison, while no factor significantly affected δ15N in moose. We showed significant differences in δ13C and δ15N among modern bison populations, in contrast to moose populations. Variation in both isotopes in bison resulted from inter-population differences, while in moose it was mainly an effect of intra-population variation. Almost all modern bison populations differed in δ13C and δ15N from early Holocene bison. Such differences were not observed in moose. It indicates refugee status of European bison. Our results yielded evidence that habitat structure, management and a different history of population recovery have a strong influence on foraging behaviour of large herbivores reflected in stable isotope signatures. Influence of forest structure on carbon isotope signatures of studied herbivores supports the "canopy effect" hypothesis.
Książka oferowana Czytelnikowi jest na rodzimym rynku wydawniczym pozycją szczególną. Przygotowana przez międzynarodowy zespół autorów – dwóch polskich historyków z Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego i ukraińską uczoną ze Wschodnioeuropejskiego Narodowego Uniwersytetu w Łucku – składa się z trzech części: opowieści o burzliwych dziejach Ukrainy i Ukraińców od czasów najdawniejszych do współczesności, osobistych relacji z dramatycznych wydarzeń z przełomu lat 2013 i 2014 na kijowskim Placu Niepodległości i lwowskim Euromajdanie oraz obszernego działu albumowego, zawierającego opracowane, niepublikowane do tej pory zdjęcia z Kijowa, Lwowa i Łucka, ilustrujące historię ukraińskiej rewolty sprzed dwóch lat. Wyjątkowy charakter wydawnictwa wynika jednak nie tylko z niecodziennego połączenia w nim naukowej narracji, spisanych wspomnień i świadectw źródłowych o charakterze ikonograficznym, ale także z intencji, deklarowanych i realizowanych przez autorów – przyczynienia się do upowszechnienia w Polsce wiedzy o historii Ukraińców, zrozumienia ich mentalności, narodowych mitów i cywilizacyjnych aspiracji oraz podkreślenia wspólnoty politycznych celów Rzeczypospolitej i Ukrainy w regionie i Europie.
Abstract Wildlife tagging provides critical insights into animal movement ecology, physiology, and behavior amid global ecosystem changes. However, the stress induced by capture, handling, and tagging can impact post-release locomotion and activity and, consequently, the interpretation of study results. We analyzed post-tagging effects on 1585 individuals of 42 terrestrial mammal species using collar-collected GPS and accelerometer data. Species-specific displacements and overall dynamic body acceleration, as a proxy for activity, were assessed over 20 days post-release to quantify disturbance intensity, recovery duration, and speed. Differences were evaluated, considering species-specific traits and the human footprint of the study region. Over 70% of the analyzed species exhibited significant behavioral changes following collaring events. Herbivores traveled farther with variable activity reactions, while omnivores and carnivores were initially less active and mobile. Recovery duration proved brief, with alterations diminishing within 4-7 tracking days for most species. Herbivores, particularly males, showed quicker displacement recovery (4 days) but slower activity recovery (7 days). Individuals in high human footprint areas displayed faster recovery, indicating adaptation to human disturbance. Our findings emphasize the necessity of extending tracking periods beyond one week and particular caution in remote study areas or herbivore-focused research, specifically in smaller mammals.
Abstract Regular assessments of species’ status are an essential component of conservation planning and adaptive management. They allow the progress of past or ongoing conservation actions to be evaluated and can be used to redirect and prioritize future conservation actions. Most countries perform periodic assessments for their own national adaptive management procedures or national red lists. Furthermore, the countries of the European Union have to report on the status of all species listed on the directives of the Habitats Directive every 6 years as part of their obligations under Article 17. However, these national level assessments are often made using non-standardized procedures and do not always adequately reflect the biological units (i.e., the populations) which are needed for ecologically meaningful assessments. Since the early 2000’s the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (a Specialist Group of the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission) has been coordinating periodic surveys of the status of large carnivores across Europe (e.g., von Arx et al. 2004; Salvatori & Linnell 2005, Kaczensky et al. 2013). These have covered the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), the wolf (Canis lupus), the brown bear (Ursus arctos) and the wolverine (Gulo gulo). The golden jackal (Canis aureus) has been added to the LCIE prerogatives in 2014. The species is rapidly expanding in Europe (Trouwborst et al. 2015; Männil & Ranc 2022), a large-scale phenomenon that resembles that of the other large carnivores. Golden jackals are thriving in human-dominated landscapes (Ćirović et al. 2016; Lanszki et al. 2018; Fenton et al. 2021), where they are often functioning as the top predators, despite having smaller body size that is typical for large carnivores. The expansion of the species triggers many questions among scientists, stakeholders, and policy makers (Trouwborst et al. 2015; Hatlauf et al. 2021), that are closely connected to those raised by the other large carnivores (e.g., potential conflicts with livestock or hunting). In this context, monitoring the species’ expansion, delineating populations, assessing the species' legal and protection status, and addressing the concerns raised by this rapidly expanding carnivore requires a high level of coordination among regional experts. These surveys involve the contributions of the best available experts and sources of information. While the underlying data quality and field methodology varies widely across Europe, these coordinated assessments do their best to integrate the diverse data in a comparable manner and make the differences transparent. They also endeavor to conduct the assessments on the most important scales. This includes the continental scale (all countries except for Russia, Belarus, Moldova and the parts of Ukraine outside the Carpathian Mountain range), the scale of the EU 28 (where the Habitats Directive operates) and of the biological populations which reflect the scale at which ecological processes occur (Linnell et al. 2008). In this way, the independent LCIE assessments provide a valuable complement to the ongoing national processes. Our last assessments covered the period 2006-2011 (Kaczensky et al. 2013; Chapron et al. 2014) but, at the time, did not include golden jackals. The current assessment is based on the period 2012-2016 and broadly follows the same methodology. Explicit distinctions are made between classification based on empirical data and expert opinion. The population definitions used in this report follow those proposed in (Ranc et al. 2018); areas whose presence category was defined by expert opinion were not assigned to a specific population, though. Methods The mapping approach follows the methods described in Chapron et al. (2014) and Kaczensky et al. (2013). It updates the published Species Online Layers (SPOIS) to the period 2012-2016. In short, large carnivore presence was mapped at a 10x10 km ETRS89-LAEA Europe grid scale. This grid is widely used for the Flora-Fauna-Habitat reporting by the European Union (EU) and can be downloaded at: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/eea-reference-grids-2 The map encompasses the EU countries plus the non-EU Balkan states, Switzerland, Norway, and the Carpathian region of Ukraine. Presence in a grid cell was ideally mapped based on carnivore presence and frequency in a cell resulting in: 1 = Permanent (presence confirmed in >= 3 years in the last 5 years OR in >50% of the time OR reproduction confirmed within the last 3 years) 3 = Sporadic (highly fluctuating presence) (presence confirmed in <3 years in the last 5 years OR in <50% of the time) 5 = Expert-based presence (high confidence) (expert-based opinion; very suitable habitat near permanent presence areas) 6 = Expert-based presence (low confidence or unconfirmed records) (expert-based opinion; suitable habitat near presence areas or unconfirmed C3 records of jackal presence) 7 = Expert-based absence (high confidence) (jackal presence according to coarse-resolution hunting bag data but experts think, with high confidence, the species is not present) 8 = Expert-based absence (low confidence) (jackal presence according to coarse-resolution hunting bag data but experts think the species is not present) Where grid cells were assigned different values between neighboring countries; the “disputed” cells were given the “higher” presence values e.g., a cell categorized as “sporadic” by one country and “permanent” by another was categorized as “permanent”. Data-based categories (1,3) were given priority over expert-based categories (5 through 8). To assess the quality of carnivore signs we used the SCALP criteria developed for the standardized monitoring of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in the Alps (Molinari-Jobin et al. 2012): Category 1 (C1): “Hard facts”, verified and unchallenged large carnivore presence signs (e.g., dead animals, DNA, verified camera trap images); Category 2 (C2): Large carnivore presence signs controlled and confirmed by a large carnivore expert (e.g., trained member of the network), which requires documentation of large carnivore signs; and Category 3 (C3): Unconfirmed category 2 large carnivore presence signs and all presence signs such as sightings and calls which, if not additionally documented, cannot be verified. See Hatlauf and Böcker (2022) for best practices regarding golden jackal records. Usage Notes The data available consists of a shapefile at a 10 x 10 km resolution compiled for the period 2012-2016 for the Large Carnivore Initiative of Europe IUCN Specialist Group and for the IUCN Red List Assessment. References Boitani, L., F. Alvarez, O. Anders, H. Andren, E. Avanzinelli, V. Balys, J. C. Blanco, U. Breitenmoser, G. Chapron, P. Ciucci, A. Dutsov, C. Groff, D. Huber, O. Ionescu, F. Knauer, I. Kojola, J. Kubala, M. Kutal, J. Linnell, A. Majic, P. Mannil, R. Manz, F. Marucco, D. Melovski, A. Molinari, H. Norberg, S. Nowak, J. Ozolins, S. Palazon, H. Potocnik, P.-Y. Quenette, I. Reinhardt, R. Rigg, N. Selva, A. Sergiel, M. Shkvyria, J. Swenson, A. Trajce, M. Von Arx, M. Wolfl, U. Wotschikowsky and D. Zlatanova. 2015. Key actions for Large Carnivore populations in Europe. Institute of Applied Ecology (Rome, Italy). Report to DG Environment, European Commission, Bruxelles. Contract no. 07.0307/2013/654446/SER/B3 Ćirović, D., A. Penezić and M. Krofel. 2016. Jackals as cleaners: Ecosystem services provided by a mesocarnivore in human-dominated landscapes. Biological Conservation, 199: 51–55. Chapron, G., Kaczensky, P., Linnell, J.D.C., von Arx, M., Huber, D., Andrén, H., López-Bao, J.V., Adamec, M., Álvares, F., Anders, O., Balčiauskas, L., Balys, V., Bedő, P., Bego, F., Blanco, J.C., Breitenmoser, U., Brøseth, H., Bufka, L., Bunikyte, R., Ciucci, P., Dutsov, A., Engleder, T., Fuxjäger, C., Groff, C., Holmala, K., Hoxha, B., Iliopoulos, Y., Ionescu, O., Jeremić, J., Jerina, K., Kluth, G., Knauer, F., Kojola, I., Kos, I., Krofel, M., Kubala, J., Kunovac, S., Kusak, J., Kutal, M., Liberg, O., Majić, A., Männil, P., Manz, R., Marboutin, E., Marucco, F., Melovski, D., Mersini, K., Mertzanis, Y., Mysłajek, R.W., Nowak, S., Odden, J., Ozolins, J., Palomero, G., Paunović, M., Persson, J., Potočnik, H., Quenette, P.-Y., Rauer, G., Reinhardt, I., Rigg, R., Ryser, A., Salvatori, V., Skrbinšek, T., Stojanov, A., Swenson, J.E., Szemethy, L., Trajçe, A., Tsingarska[1]Sedefcheva, E., Váňa, M., Veeroja, R., Wabakken, P., Wölfl, M., Wölfl, S., Zimmermann, F., Zlatanova, D. and Boitani, L. 2014. Recovery of large carnivores in Europe’s modern human-dominated landscapes. Science 346: 1517-1519. Fenton, S., Moorcroft, P.R., Ćirović, D., Lanszki, J., Heltai, M., Cagnacci, F., Breck, S., Bogdanović, N., Pantelić, I., Ács, K. and Ranc, N. 2021. Movement, space-use and resource preferences of European golden jackals in human-dominated landscapes: insights from a telemetry study. Mammalian Biology, 101: 619–630. Hatlauf, J. and Böcker, F. 2022. Recommendations for the documentation and assessment of golden jackal (Canis aureus) records in Europe. BOKU reports on wildlife research and willdife management 27. Ed: Institute of Wildlife Biology and Game Management (IWJ), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. ISBN: 978-3-900932-94-7 Hatlauf, J., Bayer, K., Trouwborst, A. and Hackländer, K. 2021. New rules or old concepts? The golden jackal (Canis aureus) and its legal status in Central Europe. European Journal of Wildlife Research, 67, 25. Kaczensky, P., Chapron, G., Von Arx, M., Huber, D., Andrén, H. and Linnell, J. 2013. Status, management and distribution of large carnivores - bear, lynx, wolf and wolverine - in Europe. Istituto di Ecologia Applicata, Rome, Italy. Lanszki, J., Schally, G., Heltai, M. and Ranc, N. 2018. Golden jackal expansion in Europe: first telemetry evidence of a natal dispersal. Mammalian Biology, 88: 81–84. Linnell, J.D.C., Salvatori, V. and Boitani, L. 2008. Guidelines for population level management plans for large carnivores in Europe. A Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe report prepared for the European Commission (contract 070501/2005/424162/MAR/B2). Männil, P. and Ranc, N. 2022. Golden jackal (Canis aureus) in Estonia: development of a thriving population in the boreal ecoregion. Mammalian Research, 67: 245-250. Molinari-Jobin, A., Kéry, M., Marboutin, E., Molinari, P., Koren, I., Fuxjäger, C., Breitenmoser-Würsten, C., Wölfl, S., Fasel, M., Kos, I., Wölfl, M. and Breitenmoser, U. 2012. Monitoring in the presence of species misidentification: the case of the Eurasian lynx in the Alps. Animal Conservation 15: 266-273. Ranc, N., Krofel, M. and Cirovic, D. 2018. IUCN Red List Mapping for the regional assessment of the Golden Jackal (Canis aureus) in Europe. IUCN Red List Threatened Species, 13. Salvatori, V. and Linnell, J.D.C. 2005. Report on the conservation status and threats for wolf (Canis lupus) in Europe. Council of Europe Report T-PVS/Inf (2005) 16. Trouwborst, A., Krofel, M. and Linnell, J.D.C. 2015. Legal implications of range expansions in a terrestrial carnivore: the case of the golden jackal (Canis aureus) in Europe. Biodiversity Conservation, 24: 2593–2610. von Arx, M., Breitenmoser-Würsten, C., Zimmermann, F. and Breitenmoser, U. 2004. Status and conservation of the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in Europe in 2001. KORA Report 19e: 1-330. Contact information Nathan Ranc, nathan.ranc@inrae.fr
'/%3e%3c/defs%3e%3cpath fill='%23012169' d='M0 0h10080v5040H0z'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23fff' stroke-width='.6' d='m0 0 6 3m0-3L0 3' clip-path='url(%23b)' transform='scale(840)'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23e4002b' stroke-width='.4' d='m0 0 6 3m0-3L0 3' clip-path='url(%23c)' transform='scale(840)'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23fff' stroke-width='840' d='M2520 0v2520M0 1260h5040'/%3e%3cpath stroke='%23e4002b' stroke-width='504' d='M2520 0v2520M0 1260h5040'/%3e%3cg fill='%23fff'%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23d' x='2520' y='3780'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' x='7560' y='4200'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' x='6300' y='2205'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' x='7560' y='840'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' x='8680' y='1869'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23e' x='8064' y='2730'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e)
