There is compelling evidence that Afro‐Palaearctic (A‐P) migrant bird populations have declined in Europe in recent decades, often to a greater degree than resident or short‐distance migrants. There ...appear to have been two phases of decline. The first in the 1960s–1970s, and in some cases into the early 1980s, largely affected species wintering predominantly in the arid Sahelian zone, and the second since the 1980s has mostly affected species wintering in the humid tropics and Guinea forest zone. Potential drivers of these declines are diverse and are spread across and interact within the migratory cycle. Our knowledge of declining species is generally better for the breeding than the non‐breeding parts of their life cycles, but there are significant gaps in both for many species. On the breeding grounds, degradation of breeding habitats is the factor affecting the demography of the largest number of species, particularly within agricultural systems and woodland and forests. In the non‐breeding areas, the interacting factors of anthropogenic habitat degradation and climatic conditions, particularly drought in the Sahel zone, appear to be the most important factors. Based on our synthesis of existing information, we suggest four priorities for further research: (1) use of new and emerging tracking technologies to identify migratory pathways and strategies, understand migratory connectivity and enable field research to be targeted more effectively; (2) undertake detailed field studies in sub‐Saharan Africa and at staging sites, where we understand little about distribution patterns, habitat use and foraging ecology; (3) make better use of the wealth of data from the European breeding grounds to explore spatial and temporal patterns in demographic parameters and relate these to migratory pathways and large‐scale patterns of habitat change and climatic factors; and (4) make better use of remote sensing to improve our understanding of how and where land cover is changing across these extensive areas and how this impacts A‐P migrants. This research needs to inform and underpin a flyway approach to conservation, evaluating a suite of drivers across the migratory cycle and combining this with an understanding of land management practices that integrate the needs of birds and people in these areas.
Maximizing the area under biodiversity‐related conservation measures is a main target of the European Union (EU) Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. We analyzed whether agrienvironmental schemes (AES) ...within EU common agricultural policy, special protected areas for birds (SPAs), and Annex I designation within EU Birds Directive had an effect on bird population changes using monitoring data from 39 farmland bird species from 1981 to 2012 at EU scale. Populations of resident and short‐distance migrants were larger with increasing SPAs and AES coverage, while Annex I species had higher population growth rates with increasing SPAs, indicating that SPAs may contribute to the protection of mainly target species and species spending most of their life cycle in the EU. Because farmland birds are in decline and the negative relationship of agricultural intensification with their population growth rates was evident during the implementation of AES and SPAs, EU policies seem to generally attenuate the declines of farmland bird populations, but not to reverse them.
Around fifteen thousand fieldworkers annually count breeding birds using standardized protocols in 28 European countries. The observations are collected by using country-specific and standardized ...protocols, validated, summarized and finally used for the production of continent-wide annual and long-term indices of population size changes of 170 species. Here, we present the database and provide a detailed summary of the methodology used for fieldwork and calculation of the relative population size change estimates. We also provide a brief overview of how the data are used in research, conservation and policy. We believe this unique database, based on decades of bird monitoring alongside the comprehensive summary of its methodology, will facilitate and encourage further use of the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme results.
Wildlife conservation policies directed at common and widespread, but declining, species are difficult to design and implement effectively, as multiple environmental changes are likely to contribute ...to population declines. Conservation actions ultimately aim to influence demographic rates, but targeting actions towards feasible improvements in these is challenging in widespread species with ranges that encompass a wide range of environmental conditions. Across Europe, sharp declines in the abundance of migratory landbirds have driven international calls for action, but actions that could feasibly contribute to population recovery have yet to be identified. Targeted actions to improve conditions on poor-quality sites could be an effective approach, but only if local conditions consistently influence local demography and hence population trends. Using long-term measures of abundance and demography of breeding birds at survey sites across Europe, we show that co-occurring species with differing migration behaviours have similar directions of local population trends and magnitudes of productivity, but not survival rates. Targeted actions to boost local productivity within Europe, alongside large-scale (non-targeted) environmental protection across non-breeding ranges, could therefore help address the urgent need to halt migrant landbird declines. Such demographic routes to recovery are likely to be increasingly needed to address global wildlife declines.
Conditions experienced in early life have been shown to affect the development or programming of physiological processes. While animals may recover from earlier periods of adversity, this process can ...carry long-term costs. Such long-term effects are likely to be most evident when individuals are placed in demanding situations that require high performance. Escape flight speed in passerine birds is crucial to predator evasion and requires very rapid take-off. Here, we examine whether the ability to maintain escape flight performance during the immediate post-breeding period is influenced by conditions in early life. We manipulated the early life conditions experienced by zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) by rearing them on either low or high quality food through the growth period, or by changing conditions halfway through the nestling period, moving from high to low or vice versa. While there was no difference amongst the treatment groups in body size attained by adulthood, amongst the birds that experienced low quality food, the body size of those that were switched to a high quality diet halfway through the nestling growth period recovered faster than those that had low quality food until fledging. We found no differences amongst the dietary groups in flight performance at adulthood prior to breeding, and all groups showed a decline in average escape flight performance over the breeding period. However, the magnitude of the post-breeding decline in flight performance for a given level of reproductive output was significantly greater for those females that had experienced a switch from a low to a high quality diet during the nestling phase. These results suggest that this diet-induced rapid recovery of body size, which may have immediate competitive advantages, nonetheless carries locomotory costs in later life manifest in the capacity to sustain the high performance escape response during the post-reproductive recovery phase.
•We recommend methods for indicator analysis, presentation and species selection.•Inclusion of individual species within indices has limited leverage on the indices.•Altering the benchmark year ...affects index characteristics and ease of interpretation.•We find stability in common European forest bird populations 1980–2015.•We find severe declines in common European farmland bird populations 1980–2015.
1.Composite, multispecies biodiversity indices are increasingly used to report against international and national environmental commitments and targets, the Wild Bird Index being a prominent example in Europe, but methods to assess trends, error and species selection for such indices are poorly developed.2.In this study, we compare methods to compute multispecies supranational indices and explore different approaches to trend and error estimation, the presentation of indices, and species selection. We do so using population trend data on forest and farmland birds from 28 European countries, 1980–2015.3.We find relative stability in common European forest bird populations over this period, but a severe decline in farmland bird populations. Altering the benchmark year affects index characteristics and ease of interpretation. We show that using annual species’ indices and their SEs to calculate confidence intervals delivers greater precision in index estimates than bootstrapping across species. The inclusion of individual species within indices has limited leverage on index characteristics, but subjective selection of species based on specialisation has the potential to generate bias.4.Multispecies indices are valuable policy-relevant tools for describing biodiversity health. Their calculation and presentation need to be tailored to meet specific policy objectives, and they must be supported by clear interpretative information. We recommend methods for indicator analysis, forms of presentation, and the adoption of an objective species selection protocol to ensure indicators are representative and sensitive to environmental change.
The greatest loss of biodiversity in the EU has occurred on agricultural land. The Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is one of the many numerous and widespread European farmland breeding bird ...species showing major population declines linked to European agricultural intensification. Here we present results based on monitoring data collected since 1975 in 24 countries to examine the influence of changing extent of grassland and cattle abundance (based on results of earlier studies showing the importance of lowland cattle grazed grassland for the species), wintering provenance and temperature on national breeding population trends of Starlings across Europe. Positive Starling population trends in Central-East Europe contrast with negative trends in North and West Europe. Based on this indicative approach, we found some support for the importance of cattle stock and no support for grassland, temperature or wintering provenance to explain Starling population trends in Europe. However, we acknowledge such a European-wide analysis may conceal regional differences in responses and suggest that currently accessible national land use data might be insufficient to describe the detailed current changes in animal husbandry and grassland management that may be responsible for changes in food availability and hence breeding Starling abundance and their differences across Europe. Reviewing results from local studies relating Starling population trends to local agricultural change offer contradictory results, suggesting complex interacting processes at work. We recommend combining national datasets on demography, land-use/agricultural practices and from autecological research to better explain the reasons for contrasting Starling trends across Europe, to enable us to predict how changing agriculture will affect Starlings and potentially suggest mitigation measures to restore local populations where possible.
There is compelling evidence that
A
fro‐
P
alaearctic (
A
‐
P
) migrant bird populations have declined in
E
urope in recent decades, often to a greater degree than resident or short‐distance ...migrants. There appear to have been two phases of decline. The first in the 1960s–1970s, and in some cases into the early 1980s, largely affected species wintering predominantly in the arid
S
ahelian zone, and the second since the 1980s has mostly affected species wintering in the humid tropics and
G
uinea forest zone. Potential drivers of these declines are diverse and are spread across and interact within the migratory cycle. Our knowledge of declining species is generally better for the breeding than the non‐breeding parts of their life cycles, but there are significant gaps in both for many species. On the breeding grounds, degradation of breeding habitats is the factor affecting the demography of the largest number of species, particularly within agricultural systems and woodland and forests. In the non‐breeding areas, the interacting factors of anthropogenic habitat degradation and climatic conditions, particularly drought in the Sahel zone, appear to be the most important factors. Based on our synthesis of existing information, we suggest four priorities for further research: (1) use of new and emerging tracking technologies to identify migratory pathways and strategies, understand migratory connectivity and enable field research to be targeted more effectively; (2) undertake detailed field studies in sub‐
S
aharan
A
frica and at staging sites, where we understand little about distribution patterns, habitat use and foraging ecology; (3) make better use of the wealth of data from the
E
uropean breeding grounds to explore spatial and temporal patterns in demographic parameters and relate these to migratory pathways and large‐scale patterns of habitat change and climatic factors; and (4) make better use of remote sensing to improve our understanding of how and where land cover is changing across these extensive areas and how this impacts
A
‐
P
migrants. This research needs to inform and underpin a flyway approach to conservation, evaluating a suite of drivers across the migratory cycle and combining this with an understanding of land management practices that integrate the needs of birds and people in these areas.
Like thapsigargin, which is undergoing clinical trials, trilobolide is a natural product with promising anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties. Similar to thapsigargin, it has limited aqueous ...solubility that strongly reduces its potential medicinal applications. The targeted delivery of hydrophobic drugs can be achieved using liposome-based carriers. Therefore, we designed a traceable liposomal drug delivery system for trilobolide. The fluorescent green-emitting dye BODIPY, cholesterol and trilobolide were used to create construct
. The liposomes were composed of dipalmitoyl-3-trimethylammoniumpropane and phosphatidylethanolamine. The whole system was characterized by atomic force microscopy, the average size of the liposomes was 150 nm in width and 30 nm in height. We evaluated the biological activity of construct
and its liposomal formulation, both of which showed immunomodulatory properties in primary rat macrophages. The uptake and intracellular distribution of construct
and its liposomal formulation was monitored by means of live-cell fluorescence microscopy in two cancer cell lines. The encapsulation of construct
into the liposomes improved the drug distribution in cancer cells and was followed by cell death. This new liposomal trilobolide derivative not only retains the biological properties of pure trilobolide, but also enhances the bioavailability, and thus has potential for the use in theranostic applications.
Cacao and cocoa products are worldwide important commodities, which are often a subject of adulteration. Therefore, a sufficient and reliable analytical technique is required to provide fast ...screening results, which will accommodate the need to reveal adulteration and evaluate the quality of selected cocoa products in real time. The goal of this paper is to validate and optimise settings of the DART (direct analysis in real time) technique coupled with TOF-MS. The ionisation mode, ionisation temperature and type of solvent for sample extraction were optimised. Characteristic compounds of cocoa products (theobromine, caffeine, phenolic and flavonoid compounds) were determined and quantified in a set of 17 and 12 samples of cocoa powders and instant cocoa beverages, respectively. Quantitative analysis of theobromine and caffeine applying DART was evaluated as well and obtained data sets were compared with those obtained from HPLC measurements. The correlation equation between these two methods, for each compound and product, is as follows: theobromine: cocoa powders: DART = 1.6394 × HPLC – 1.4353; cocoa drinks: DART = 1.0385 × HPLC – 0.019 and caffeine: cocoa powders: DART = 1.0234 × HPLC – 0.0195; cocoa drinks: DART = 0.7909 × HPLC +0.0054. Mass spectra data was statistically processed applying PCA (principal component analysis). In conclusion, the fast DART/TOF-MS screening technique displays a great potential to evaluate the quality and authenticity, i.e. identify and quantify characteristic compounds of cocoa products.
Display omitted
•Set of cocoa products was analysed by DART-TOF-MS and HPLC.•The characteristic compounds of cocoa were detected.•The possibility to use DART/TOF-MS for quantitative analyse of theobromine and caffeine was confirmed.•DART/TOF-MS has a great potential for the evaluation of cocoa products quality and authenticity.
PDF
