Search results for "Lesser kestrel"
showing 10 items of 13 documents
Genetic structure of a patchily distributed philopatric migrant: implications for management and conservation
2017
Significant demographic fluctuations can have major genetic consequences in wild populations. The lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) has suffered both population declines and range fragmentation during the second half of the 20th century. In this study we analysed multilocus microsatellite data to assess the genetic structure of the species. Our analysis revealed significant genetic structuring of lesser kestrel populations, not only at the cross-continental scale, but also regionally within the Central and Eastern (CE) Mediterranean region. We detected signs of genetic bottlenecks in some of the peripheral populations coupled with small effective population sizes. Values of genetic differenti…
Habitat- and density-dependent demography of a colonial raptor in Mediterranean agro-ecosystems
2016
Agricultural intensification is considered the major cause of decline in farmland bird populations, especially in the Mediterranean region. Food shortage increased by the interaction between agricultural intensification and density-dependent mechanisms could influence the population dynamics of colonial birds.Weused demographic data on lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni), a key species of Mediterranean pseudo-steppes, to understand the importance of land-use changes and density-dependent mechanisms in the light of its fluctuating conservation status in the Western Palearctic. Our analysis indicated an important influence of land uses (artichokes, arable and grassland fields) and colony size on…
Lesser kestrel diet and agricultural intensification in the Mediterranean: An unexpected win-win solution?
2018
Abstract Farmland bird species have suffered dramatic declines in recent decades, especially in Mediterranean areas. The intensification of agricultural practices has led to reduced invertebrate prey, which represent the bulk of the diet of many farmland birds. In this study, we investigated the spatial and temporal variation in the diet of the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) during the breeding season, monitored over a five-year period between 2006 and 2013 in the Gela Plain (Sicily). Our aim was to understand whether, and to what extent, farming practices affected the reproductive outputs of this predominantly insectivore bird in order to find a profitable compromise between conservation …
Barrier crossings and winds shape daily travel schedules and speeds of a flight generalist
2021
External factors such as geography and weather strongly affect bird migration influencing daily travel schedules and flight speeds. For strictly thermal-soaring migrants, weather explains most seasonal and regional differences in speed. Flight generalists, which alternate between soaring and flapping flight, are expected to be less dependent on weather, and daily travel schedules are likely to be strongly influenced by geography and internal factors such as sex. We GPS-tracked the migration of 70 lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni) to estimate the relative importance of external factors (wind, geography), internal factors (sex) and season, and the extent to which they explain variation in trav…
Effects of Nest and Colony Features on Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni) Reproductive Success
2012
The Lesser Kestrel is a facultative colonial raptor mostly breeding in man-made structures. During 2009-2011 we checked the fate of 545 nests found in 18 colonies located in south-eastern Sicily. We determined the reproductive success of breeding pairs by analysing the survival time of each egg to hatching ( n = 2,495) and each nestling to fledging ( n = 1,849) with the linear hazard model of survival times. We determined whether egg and nestling survival differed between years with a Gehan–Wilcoxon test. By Cox regressions, we related the survival times with nest and colony features. Egg and nestling survival times showed a strong annual effect. The two reproductive stages of the Lesser K…
Using genetic markers to unravel the origin of birds converging towards pre-migratory sites
2018
AbstractIdentifying patterns of individual movements in spatial and temporal scales can provide valuable insight into the structure of populations and the dynamics of communities and ecosystems. Especially for migrating birds, that can face a variety of unfavorable conditions along their journey, resolving movements of individuals across their annual cycle is necessary in order to design better targeted conservation strategies. Here, we studied the movements of a small migratory falcon, the Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni), by genetically assigning feathers from individuals of unknown origin that concentrate in large roosts during the pre-migratory period. Our findings suggest that birds fro…
Chapter 24. Lesser kestrel Falco naumanni
2021
The lesser kestrel is a small colonial falcon with a broad breeding distribution range, extending from the Iberian Peninsula to eastern China. Most of the biological and ecological knowledge concerning this species, including migration, has been obtained from European populations. After the end of each breeding season, these populations move preferentially northward, showing pre-migratory movements (of 100–1,000 km) that are necessary to reach rich foraging grounds where they can fuel before commencing the true migration towards Africa. European lesser kestrels migrate on a broad front across the Mediterranean Sea. There is a strong connectivity between European breeding and African non-bre…
Climate and land-use changes as determinants of lesser kestrel Falco naumanni abundance in Mediterranean cereal steppes (Sicily)
2010
Monitoring of lesser kestrels Falco naumanni is necessary to promote conservation of this vulnerable species. To this end, 35 colonies of this species located in the NNW and SE of Sicily were monitored from 2003 to 2009. Counts of the active colonies and resident pairs were modelled by loglinear Poisson regressions to assess population trends over the study period. Afterwards, a GLM with an analysis of covariance design and a backward removal stepwise regression was performed to relate the observed trend to local- or global-scale climatic variation and to local land-use changes. Colony counts provided a better fit to the loglinear models than pair counts. Loglinear models separated the incr…
Spatial segregation of home ranges between neighbouring colonies in a diurnal raptor
2018
AbstractEnhancement of information transfer has been proposed as a key driver of the evolution of coloniality. Transfer of information on location of food resources implies that individuals from the same colony share foraging areas and that each colony can be associated to a specific foraging area. In colonial breeding vertebrates, colony-specific foraging areas are often spatially segregated, mitigating intercolony intraspecific competition. By means of simultaneous GPS tracking of lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni) from neighbouring colonies, we showed a clear segregation of space use between individuals from different colonies. Foraging birds from different neighbouring colonies had home r…
Social phenotype extended to communities: expanded multilevel social selection analysis reveals fitness consequences of interspecific interactions.
2014
In social species, fitness consequences are associated with both individual and social phenotypes. Social selection analysis has quantified the contribution of conspecific social traits to individual fitness. There has been no attempt, however, to apply a social selection approach to quantify the fitness implications of heterospecific social phenotypes. Here, we propose a novel social selection based approach integrating the role of all social interactions at the community level. We extended multilevel selection analysis by including a term accounting for the group phenotype of heterospecifics. We analyzed nest activity as a model social trait common to two species, the lesser kestrel (Falc…