0000000001332300
AUTHOR
Jesús Olivero
The Legal International Wildlife Trade Favours Invasive Species Establishment: The Monk and Ring-Necked Parakeets in Spain
The international wildlife trade is a lucrative business. Although a huge variety of animal groups are trafficked, the Psittaciformes (parrots) are amongst the most traded avian groups. Deliberate or accidental releases of imported parrots have led to the establishment of feral populations in many countries. Far from their native habitats, parrots may cause economic and ecological damage, and may even favour the transmission of zoonotic diseases. Despite this, the links between numbers of imported individuals and the establishment of non-native populations is not well known. In this study, we analysed data on imports of two well-known invasive parrots, the Monk Parakeet Myiopsitamonachus an…
Environmental factors determining the establishment of the African Long-legged BuzzardButeo rufinus cirtensisin Western Europe
Winters have become warmer under the impact of climate change, which has modified the phenology of birds and also their distribution ranges. The African Long-legged Buzzard Buteo rufinus cirtensis has recently colonized Europe via the Strait of Gibraltar. We aim to explain the native distribution of this species and to predict favourable areas in newly colonized parts of Europe using geospatial modelling to identify the most influential factors in this process. We applied the favourability function, a generalized linear model describing environmental favourability, for the presence/absence of breeding areas in northern Morocco and the southern Iberian Peninsula, according to a set of variab…
Documenting Biogeographical and Socio-Economic Patterns of Illegal Wildlife Trade worldwide
Currently, illegal wildlife trade is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation. Understanding the causes that make some countries participate as wildlife suppliers or consumers is crucial to fight this criminal business in a more effective way. Using data provided by TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, the World Bank, the Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Migration Policy Institute, we identified 34 supplier countries (exporters) and 44 consumer countries (importers). Our objective was to determine which socio-economic factors could explain the geographical patterns of 42 vertebrate taxonomic groups that are involved in illegal wildlife trade. We us…