The wood mouse
is common in woodlands and open areas of the Western Palearctic. Despite extensive research, little is known about its population ecology in fields in the Mediterranean area, where the ...climate involves great seasonal changes in environmental features. Here, we investigated wood mice seasonal fluctuations in the number of captures and population structure by sampling long-fallow fields and woodlands, i.e., oak forest and conifer plantation, in a heterogeneous landscape of central Italy. Mice were live-trapped every two months for three years (23.814 trap-days). The number of captures, mice body weight, and proportion of adult, residents and breeding individuals were analyzed. Mice dynamics changed across seasons and habitats. In fields, we recorded more captures, more reproductive individuals, and fewer non-adults and resident individuals in the warmer months compared to the colder months; mice were heavier in warmer months. During the cold season, the captures and adult proportion in fields were lower than in resource-rich woodlands. Breeding and non-resident mice were more abundant in fields than in woodlands in warmer months. Overall, the seasonal demographic variations we recorded provide evidence that fields can represent a suboptimal habitat in Mediterranean heterogeneous landscapes, acting nonetheless as a source of food resources, cover, and mates for mice in spring-summer.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The European wildcat is an elusive small carnivore species whose distribution, behavioural ecology and interactions with domestic cats are scantly known. However, the use of camera-trapping is ...steadily increasing in wildlife studies as well as citizen science, with the latter setting the basis for a large source of robust data. Here we provide an overview of our efforts to create an independent network, named Piccoli Fototrappolatori Indipendenti (Little Independent Camera-trappers, hereafter PFI), of citizen scientists who are contributing with the goal of a deeper understanding of wildcat ecology. We engaged 31 volunteers who collected domestic cats, putative hybrids (hereafter hybrids) and wildcats’ detections at 503 locations throughout Italy from 11/04/2006 to 24/10/2022. So far, this dataset hosts 312 images and 1015 videos (1327 detections) which were morphological examined and standardised, leading to 123, 137 and 1016 detections of domestic cats, hybrids and wildcats, respectively. We documented the expansion of the wildcat towards Northern Italy, with the first camera-trapping records from the Western Alps (Val D’Aosta) and from the Northern Apennines (Liguria), as well as the detection of kink-tailed wildcats in new regions. Moreover, we observed behavioural differences among cat types, with domestic cats marking at a lower rate and with hybrids being less elusive than wildcats at night. Further research and efforts are needed to better explore the conservation consequences of our findings, as well as to investigate the full potential of citizen science combined with camera trapping which are promising tools in wildcat conservation.
During the last years several remote monitoring systems have been introduced in everyday clinical practice, because of the development of new computer and information technologies. Therefore, ...clinical and technical data of implanted devices can be transmitted by patients directly to the cardiology department through a transtelephonic web-based connection, without undergoing traditional outpatient evaluation. Home monitoring systems are effective in identifying device malfunctioning and clinical instability in patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators. Their efficacy does not significantly differ from that of traditional outpatient device interrogation, but with significant advantages in terms of quality of life and reduction in clinic visits for device follow-up.
