Andrea Santangeli

Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMEDEA), CSIC-UIB

Protected areas are considered fundamental to counter biodiversity loss. However, evidence for their effectiveness in averting local extinctions remains scarce and taxonomically biased. We employ a robust counterfactual multi- taxon approach to compare occupancy patterns of 638 species, including birds (150), mammals (23), plants (39) and phytoplan...

Aim Climate change affects ecological communities via impacts on species. The community's response to climate change can be represented as the temporal trend in a climate‐related functional property that is quantified using a relevant functional trait. Noteworthy, some species influence this response in the community more strongly than others. Inn...

Conservation of biodiversity relies heavily on protected areas but their role and effectiveness under warming climate is still debated. Here, we estimated the climate‐driven changes in the temperature niche compositions of bird communities inside and outside protected areas in southern Canada. We expected that communities inside protected areas inc...

Species' range shifts and local extinctions caused by climate change lead to community composition changes. At large spatial scales, ecological barriers, such as biome boundaries, coastlines, and elevation, can influence a community's ability to shift in response to climate change. Yet, ecological barriers are rarely considered in climate change st...

Amidst a global biodiversity crisis, shedding light on the factors that make us like a species can help us understand human’s nature-related attitudes and inform conservation actions, e.g. by leveraging flagship potential and helping identify threats. Despite scattered attempts to quantify birds’ aesthetic attractiveness to humans, there is no larg...

Farmland biodiversity is declining worldwide, and especially in Western countries largely owing to the large-scale intensification of agricultural practices. The Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax is a steppe bird adapted to agro-pastoral ecosystems in Western Europe, and is one of those many farmland species declining due to changes in agricultural prod...

Climate change alters ecological communities by affecting individual species and interactions between species. However, the impacts of climate change may be buffered by community diversity: diverse communities may be more resistant to climate-driven perturbations than simple communities. Here, we assess how diversity influences long-term thermal ni...

Nature’s contribution to people (i.e. ecosystem services) is becoming integral to conservation science and policy, yet our knowledge is restricted to only a few services and taxa. Vultures (family: Accipitridae and Cathartidae), most of which are threatened with extinction, have been touted for delivering regulation and maintenance services via the...

There is broad consensus that increasing the use of renewable energies is effective to mitigate the global climate crisis. However, the development of renewables may carry environmental impacts, and their expansion could accelerate biodiversity loss (1). However, Dunnett et al. (2) have recently estimated a minimal overlap between renewable energy...

Protected areas are a cornerstone for biodiversity conservation, and typically support more natural and undisturbed habitats compared to unprotected lands. The effect of protected areas on intra-specific ecological niche has been rarely investigated. Here, we explore potential differences in ecological niche properties of birds and mammals across p...

Subterranean ecosystems are among the most widespread environments on Earth, yet we still have poor knowledge of their biodiversity. To raise awareness of subterranean ecosystems, the essential services they provide, and their unique conservation challenges, 2021 and 2022 were designated International Years of Caves and Karst. As these ecosystems h...

The use of technology in ecology and conservation offers unprecedented opportunities to survey and monitor wildlife remotely, for example by using camera traps. However, such solutions typically cause challenges stemming from the big data sets gathered, such as millions of camera trap images. Artificial intelligence is a proven, powerful tool to au...

Proactive approaches are typically more cost-effective than reactive ones, and this is clearly the case for biodiversity conservation. Research and conservation actions for Old World vultures typically followed large population declines, particularly in Asia and Africa. These are clear examples of reactive intensive conservation management. We here...

Climate change alters ecological communities through effects on individual species and interactions between species. The impacts of climate change may be buffered by community diversity: diverse communities may be more resistant to climate-driven perturbations than simple communities. Here, we assess how diversity influences long-term thermal niche...

Climate change is pushing species ranges and abundances towards the poles and mountain tops. Although many studies have documented local altitudinal shifts, knowledge of general patterns at a large spatial scale, such as a whole mountain range, is scarce. From a conservation perspective, studying altitudinal shifts in wildlife is relevant because m...

Species’ range shifts and local extinctions caused by global change lead to community composition changes. At large spatial scales, ecological barriers, such as biome boundaries, coastlines, elevation, and temperature gradients, can influence a community's ability to shift. Yet, ecological barriers are rarely considered in global change studies, po...

Species’ range shifts and local extinctions caused by climate change lead to community composition changes. At large spatial scales, ecological barriers, such as biome boundaries, coastlines, and elevation, can influence a community's ability to shift in response to climate change. Yet, ecological barriers are rarely considered in climate change st...

Illegal wildlife crime is a global phenomenon, accelerating the ongoing biodiversity crisis. In the Old World, and particularly in Africa, illegal use of poisons to eliminate carnivores is the main driver of the continental vulture crisis. Knowledge about the underlying source and drivers of this threat is lacking for most areas, including Kenya, a...

Vulture populations are in severe decline across Africa and prioritization of geographic areas for their conservation is urgently needed. To do so, we compiled three independent datasets on vulture occurrence from road-surveys, GPS-tracking, and citizen science (eBird), and used maximum entropy to build ensemble species distribution models (SDMs)....

Vultures and condors are among the most threatened avian species in the world due to the impacts of human activities. Negative perceptions can contribute to these threats as some vulture species have been historically blamed for killing livestock. This perception of conflict has increased in recent years, associated with a viral spread of partial a...

Stemming from a pervasive lack of knowledge on biodiversity, important areas for conservation are typically identified using a subset of well known species, commonly termed surrogate or indicator groups. Birds have been commonly used as biodiversity surrogates due to the good level of knowledge on their taxonomy, ecology and distribution. Raptors i...

Climate change is pushing species ranges towards poles and mountain tops. Although many studies have documented local altitudinal shifts, knowledge of general patterns at a large spatial scale, such as a whole mountain range, is very limited. From a conservation perspective, studying altitudinal shifts is particularly important as mountain regions...

Global climate change is driving species' distributions towards the poles and mountain tops during both non‐breeding and breeding seasons, leading to changes in the composition of natural communities. However, the degree of season differences in climate‐driven community shifts has not been thoroughly investigated at large spatial scales. We compare...

The use of poison to eliminate predators is causing African vulture populations to collapse. To understand the prevalence and motivations of this practice we conducted an extensive survey with South African commercial farmers. Using a specialised questioning technique and ad hoc quantitative methods we found that an estimated 22% and 31% of farmers...

Climate change has ubiquitous impacts on ecosystems and threatens biodiversity globally. One of the most recognized impacts are redistributions of species, a process which can be hindered by habitat degradation. Protected areas (PAs) have been shown to be beneficial for preserving and reallocating species occurrences under climate change. Yet, stud...

In conservation, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) carrying various sensors and the use of deep learning are increasing, but they are typically used independently of each other. Untapping their large potential requires integrating these tools. We combine drone-borne thermal imaging with artificial intelligence to locate ground-nests of b...

Under the current African vulture crisis, supplementary feeding sites (SFS), which provide carrion resources, have become a popular conservation tool to address vulture declines. In South Africa, this practice is unregulated and the context in which SFS operate and their adherence to best management practices is currently unknown. In this study, we...

Technological advances such as camera traps, and citizen science, coupled with advanced quantitative approaches, can help fill existing knowledge gaps and aid effective conservation. We combine citizen and camera trap observations to estimate survival of the Endangered lappet-faced vulture, assess the relative contribution of data from camera traps...

Migratory waterbirds require an effectively conserved cohesive network of wetland areas throughout their range and life-cycle. Under rapid climate change, protected area (PA) networks need to be able to accommodate climate driven range shifts in wildlife if they are to continue to be effective in the future. Thus, we investigated geographical varia...

Bats utilize forests as roosting sites and feeding areas. However, it has not been documented how bats utilize these habitats in the boreal zone with methods afforded by recent technological advances. Forest structure and management practices can create a variety of three‐dimensional habitats for organisms capable of flight, such as bats. Here, we...

Old world vultures are the most threatened group of raptors globally. Supplementary feeding sites (SFS) are a popular conservation tool, widely used to assist vulture populations. Despite their popularity, the impact of SFS on vultures remains largely unstudied. A lack of knowledge on the number, distribution and management of SFS is a key factor h...

The Sardinian population of griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) has been continuously monitored from 1986 to 2018, and the longest series of breeding parameters (33 years, 1034 breeding records) at national and European level are available. Every year field work started at the end of December with the identification of the nests occupied by territorial...

The Global South harbors a large share of imperiled biodiversity. Effective research and conservation in the Global South are negatively affected by weak or turbulent socio-political contexts, such as poor governance and/or high violence levels. There is a need to understand how priorities for research and conservation relate to different levels of...

Species distribution data are crucial for assessing the conservation status of species (red listing, IUCN) and implementing international conservation targets, such as those set by the International Convention on Biological Diversity. Although there have been a number of efforts aimed at aggregating biodiversity data, information on the distributio...

Intact ecosystems are being lost or modified worldwide, and many animal species are now forced to live in altered landscapes. A large amount of scientific studies have focused on understanding direct effects of habitat alterations on species occurrence, abundance, breeding success, and other life history aspects. Much less attention has been placed...

Agriculture is a primary driver of biodiversity loss worldwide, and several expensive schemes have been designed to make modern farming landscapes more hospitable for wildlife. One such market-based mechanisms is the agri-environment-climate schemes (AES) in the European Union (EU). AES compensate farmers for reducing land-use intensity and maintai...

Ensuring the persistence of biodiversity and ecosystem services represents a global challenge that need to be addressed with high urgency. Global priority areas can only be identified by means of an integrated prioritization approach that would not only preserve species numbers and ecosystem services, but also the evolutionary and functional compon...

Aim Raptors serve critical ecological functions, are particularly extinction‐prone and are often used as environmental indicators and flagship species. Yet, there is no global framework to prioritize research and conservation actions on them. We identify for the first time the factors driving extinction risk and scientific attention on raptors and...

The prosperity and well-being of human societies relies on healthy ecosystems and the services they provide. However, the biodiversity crisis is undermining ecosystems services and functions. Vultures are among the most imperiled taxonomic groups on Earth, yet they have a fundamental ecosystem function. These obligate scavengers rapidly consume lar...

The use of poison by farmers to control livestock predators is a major threat to vulture populations across Eurasia and Africa. While there is now some understanding of poison use on freehold farmland regions in southern Africa, the prevalence and drivers of this practice are still unknown in communal farmlands. We surveyed 353 communal farmers in...

The most common rodent control method worldwide is anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs), which cause death by internal bleeding. ARs can transfer to non-target predators via secondary exposure, i.e. by consuming contaminated rodents. Here we quantify the prevalence of seven AR substances in the liver tissues of altogether 17 mammalian or avian predator...

The evidence of negative impacts of agricultural pesticides on non-target organisms is constantly growing. One of the most widely used group of pesticides are neonicotinoids, used in treatments of various plants, e.g. oilseed crops, corn and apples, to prevent crop damage by agricultural insect pests. Treatment effects have been found to spill over...

Climate change is driving species to shift their distributions toward high altitudes and latitudes, while habitat loss and fragmentation may hamper species ability to follow their climatic envelope. These two drivers of change may act in synergy, with particularly disastrous impacts on biodiversity. Protected areas, PAs, may thus represent crucial...

Climate-driven environmental change and land-use change often interact in their impact on biodiversity, but these interactions have received little scientific attention. Here we study the effects of climate-driven environmental variation (i.e. vegetation greenness) and land-use (protected versus unprotected areas) on body condition of vulture nestl...

Unsustainable use of forest resources poses a serious threat to biodiversity worldwide. This threat is particularly important in boreal biomes, where intensive production-oriented forestry is widely applied. Legislation is one of the key tools for preserving nature from anthropogenic damage. Designation of environmental legislation should be ground...

https://peerageofscience.org/conference/eccb2018/107491/

Biodiversity conservation lacks sufficient funding and the evidence-base on what works and where efforts should be focused. Vultures are the sole obligate vertebrate scavengers and play a key role in maintaining the ecosystem in balance, e.g. by rapidly removing decomposing organic matter, aiding in sanitation and prevention in the spread of diseas...

Ecosystem services are cited as one of the many reasons for conserving declining vulture populations in Africa. We aimed to explore how communal farmers in Namibia perceive vultures and the ecosystem services they provide, with special focus on cultural and regulating ecosystem services. We surveyed 361 households across Namibia’s communal farmland...

Climate change is triggering adaptation by people and wildlife. The speed and magnitude of these responses may disrupt ecological equilibria and potentially cause further biodiversity losses, but this has rarely been studied. Species inhabiting human-dominated landscapes may be particularly negatively affected by human adaptations to climate change...

The wind energy sector is steadily growing, and the number of wind turbines is expected to expand across large areas of the globe in the near future. While the development of wind energy can contribute tomitigating climate change, it also poses challenges towildlife, particularly birds, due to increased collision risk with wind turbines. Here we qu...

Across Africa, the illegal use of poison is triggering a continent-wide scavenger crisis, with vultures suffering the most severe negative consequences. Vultures may die as indirect victims of the conflict between livestock farmers and predators, or they may be directly targeted by poachers with the aim to reduce the role of vultures as sentinels t...