Antonio Rolando

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• Professor (Full) at University of Turin

Dung beetles mostly feed on mammal dung. Throughout the European Alps, the dung produced by local domestic ungulates attracts many species of dung beetles, giving rise to rich and diversified communities that play an important role in the Alpine agricultural ecosystem. There is, therefore, understandable concern about the introduction of exotic liv...

The study of temperament and behavioural syndromes in insects is still in its early stage, and research conducted to date has mainly focused on locomotor activity and thanatosis. Dung beetles have been the subject of extensive behavioural studies; however, very few studies have addressed the expression of temperament. Those doing so only looked at...

In alpine environments, open habitats alternate with wood to create a habitat mosaic that shapes insect community composition and diversity. Dung beetles are an important group of insects specialized in feeding on vertebrate dung whose availability also depends on habitat type. Although the habitat preferences of dung beetles have been extensively...

The bright colors of Alpine leaf beetles (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae) are thought to act as aposematic signals against predation. Within the European Alps, at least six species display a basal color of either blue or green, likely configuring a classic case of müllerian mimicry. In this context, intra-population color polymorphism is paradoxical as...

Citizen science has become a crucial tool in biodiversity monitoring, often facilitated by the diffusion of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. High costs of professional equipment often limit large-scale monitoring, particularly in bat monitoring programmes based on acoustic surveys. Here we present the potential of using mobile devic...

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is a major form of anthropogenic pollution, disrupting nocturnal wildlife behaviour and ecosystem function. Large construction sites are typically located at the intersection of urban and natural areas, introducing intense lighting into previously dark natural habitats. This study examines the responses of bats to i...

The gut microbiota of dung beetles includes bacteria, archaea, and fungi. Most studies have considered the bacterial element only and focused on differences between species reared in the lab. This study considered microorganisms from the gut of Trypocopris pyrenaeus and concentrated on differences among wild individuals of an alpine Italian populat...

Dung removal by macrofauna such as dung beetles is an important process for nutrient cycling in pasturelands. Intensification of farming practices generally reduces species and functional diversity of terrestrial invertebrates, which may negatively affect ecosystem services. Here, we investigate the effects of cattle-grazing intensification on dung...

Climate change is affecting the alpine ecosystem at an unprecedented rate, with marked changes in spring phenology and the elevation distribution of birds. Changes in the European Alps are happening rapidly, and it is possible behaviours stand to change from one year to the next. The year 2022 was characterised by climatic extremes: Italy experienc...

High mountain habitats are globally important for biodiversity. At least 12% of birds worldwide breed at or above the treeline, many of which are endemic species or species of conservation concern. However, due to the challenges of studying mountain birds in difficult-to-access habitats, little is known about their status and trends. This book prov...

Simple Summary Not only vertebrates but also invertebrates can display personalities and behavioural syndromes. Here, three multiple behaviours (activity, thanatosis and distress call emission) were investigated in Copris umbilicatus. Moderate to excellent levels of repeatability were found in all behavioural traits considered. Results suggest the...

The potential sex-specific differences in animal personality traits (i.e., consistent inter-individual variation in observed behavior) are an active field of inquiry in behavioral ecology. Sexual horn dimorphism, a special type of trait divergence where males develop large and elaborate horns, presents an opportunity to test whether sex-specific mo...

Animal species living in highly seasonal environments developed different strategies to cope with the periodical drastic change of environmental conditions. Hibernating mammals survive the winter season by reducing their activity and metabolism, and by centring their activities during the favourable season. Thus, the demography of these species dep...

Many dung beetle species show male horn polyphenism, the ability of males to develop into distinct phenotypes without intermediate forms as a response to the larval growth environment. While males with long (majors) and rudimentary (minor) horn have been widely reported in literature, little is known about the existence of individuals with intermed...

Dung beetle functional ecology has traditionally focused on studying the relation between traits and ecosystem functions in multispecies assemblages, often ignoring the contribution of behavioral interactions and trait variability within species. Here we focus on the factors that affect dung removal at an intraspecific level in two horned dung beet...

Extrinsic and intrinsic factors may influence the activity budget of wild animals, resulting in a variation in the time spent in different activities among populations or individuals of the same species. In this study, we examined how extrinsic and intrinsic factors affect the behaviour of the alpine marmot (Marmota marmota), a hibernating social r...

Age‐specific survival trajectories can vary significantly among wild populations. Identifying the environmental conditions associated with such variability is of primary importance to understand the dynamics of free‐ranging populations. In this study, we investigated survival variations among alpine marmot ( Marmota marmota ) families living in are...

Background Increasing temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns threaten the existence of many organisms. It is therefore informative to identify the functional traits that underlie differences in desiccation resistance to understand the response of different species to changes in water availability resulting from climate change. We used a...

The impacts of extreme and rising mean temperatures due to climate change can pose significant physiological challenges for insects. An integrated approach that focuses on mechanisms of body temperature regulation, water balance and morphology may help to unravel the functional traits underpinning thermoregulation strategies and the most relevant t...

Methods and devices specifically created for remote animal surveys and monitoring are becoming increasingly popular and effective. However, remote devices are also widely used in our societies for different, not scientific, goals. Ski resorts in the European Alps, for instance, use webcams to share panoramic views and promote themselves in the indu...

The study of desiccation resistance and its underlying traits is key to understanding species responses to changes in water availability, especially in the context of predicted increases in the frequency and severity of droughts due to climate change. We performed laboratory experiments using dung beetles, important ecosystem service providers, to...

Insect sounds are predominantly produced by stridulations, where specialised body parts contact repeatedly to induce acoustic pulse trains. We studied the stridulatory organ and sound emissions in Copris lunaris, by focussing separately on females, and on major and minor males. Results highlighted an isometric growth of pars stridens in response to...

Mountain ecosystems are subject to many pressures, including changes in land use, rising temperatures and increasing recreational activities. These factors may disrupt food webs, threatening the survival of organisms and, ultimately, ecosystem functioning. However, few studies focus on the trends of different groups joined by trophic links in alpin...

Predictions derived from species distribution models (SDMs) are strongly influenced by the spatial scale at which species and environmental data (e.g. climate) are gathered. SDMs of mountain birds usually build on large-scale temperature estimates. However, the topographic complexity of mountain areas could create microclimatic refuges which may al...

Aim To assess how species traits modulate the responses of carabids to elevational gradients, and how consistent these relationships are across different Alpine regions. Location Italian Alps. Taxon Coleoptera, Carabidae (ground beetles). Methods Carabid communities were sampled using pitfall traps along elevational gradients (697–2,840 m) in 41...

1. Species abundance, biomass, and identity are the main factors that influence ecosystem functioning. Previous studies have shown that community attributes and species identity help to maintain natural ecosystem functioning. 2. This study examined how species identity, biomass, and abundance in dung pats (i.e. density) of dung beetles affect multi...

Organic farming systems have been proposed to support higher biodiversity than conventional ones, and higher diversity might make ecosystems more resilient against environmental change. We investigated how dung beetle communities and associated ecological functions (dung removal) vary at two hierarchical levels among Swedish dairy farms: between fa...

Mountain habitats are threatened by several factors, including human activities at high elevation, although the negative impacts can sometimes be balanced by positive effects related to human presence. However, knowledge of such interactions is limited in alpine ecosystems. In the study reported here, we assessed the extent of behavioural responses...

The relationship between the physical structure of the habitat and biodiversity has been investigated from different viewpoints in recent years. It has been documented that as the environment gets more complex in structure, the number of species in many animal groups increases. Focusing on birds, this correlation has been well described by MacArthu...

Male horn dimorphism is a rather common phenomenon in dung beetles, where some adult individuals have well-developed head horns (i.e., major males), while others exhibit diminished horn length (i.e., minor males). We focused on horn dimorphism and associated head and pronotum shape variations in Copris lunaris. We examined the allometric relationsh...

In a mountain context, the forest-shrub ecotone is an area of high biodiversity. Relatively little is known about the habitat requirements of birds in this habitat, yet it is facing potential threats from changes in grazing practices and climate change. Moreover, it is not clear at which scale habitat associations should be assessed in Alpine birds...

Abstract Beech forests are important for biodiversity conservation in Europe and studies to identify sustainable forest management practices are therefore required. The ground beetle Carabus olympiae Sella, 1855, is a large steno-endemic endangered alpine species with very restricted ranges. Its known range is only delimited in two beech forests in...

Rapid biodiversity loss has emphasized the need to understand how biodiversity affects the provisioning of ecological functions. Of particular interest are species and communities with versatile impacts on multiple parts of the environment, linking processes in the biosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere to human interests in the anthroposphere (in...

Cattle farming is a major source of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Recent research suggests that GHG fluxes from dung pats could be affected by biotic interactions involving dung beetles. Whether and how these effects vary among beetle species and with assemblage composition is yet to be established. To examine the link between GHGs and different dung be...

The current intensification of agriculture is leading to growing concern about the sustainability of modern farming systems, since farmland biodiversity has severely declined. While several studies have shown that vineyard management systems (i.e. organic vs. conventional) are important factors determining biodiversity and influencing population tr...

Aim: Human-induced climate change requires conservation strategies incorporating its potential effects on species and communities. Key components of population persistence can be attributed to resistance (the capacity to remain unaffected) or resilience (capacity to absorb and recover) to climate change. In situ climatic refugia can act as resistan...

Maintaining multiple ecological functions (‘multifunctionality’) is crucial to sustain viable ecosystems. To date most studies on biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) have focused on single or few ecological functions and services. However, there is a critical need to evaluate how species and species assemblages affect multiple processes at the...

ABSTRACTCapsule: Restoration of grasslands on ski-pistes caused a recovery in the bird community, but not to the extent that it was equivalent to a natural Alpine grassland community.Aim: To test whether revegetation of ski-pistes in open habitat areas results in bird community recovery.Methods: The bird communities in two ski resorts in the Italia...

Many species have shown recent shifts in their distributions in response to climate change. Patterns in species occurrence or abundance along altitudinal gradients often serve as the basis for detecting such changes and assessing future sensitivity. Quantifying the distribution of species along altitudinal gradients acts as a fundamental basis for...

Capsule: Predation rates of artificial nests along elevational gradients were higher closer to the treeline in the European Alps. Aims: Alpine grassland birds tend to show an avoidance of mature trees, possibly due to an edge effect, such as higher predation pressure close to the treeline. This study aimed to estimate potential predation pressure i...

Aim To assess the extent of the possible future conflict between skiing and biodiversity driven by climate change, human adaptation and species’ distribution shifts. Location Italian Alps. Methods We assessed the extent of the possible future conflict between skiing and biodiversity by predicting locations likely to be suitable for both skiing and...

Alpine biodiversity is subject to a range of increasing threats, but the scarcity of data for many taxa means that it is difficult to assess the level and likely future impact of a given threat. Expert opinion can be a useful tool to address knowledge gaps in the absence of adequate data. Experts with experience in Alpine ecology were approached to...

Expert responses to questionnaire survey

Follow-up Survey Follow-up survey form and experts’ definitions of threat levels.

A list of all species considered in the questionnaire, and the ecological group assigned to each species Tmean is the arithmetic mean of the threat score across the 19 experts who completed the survey correctly. Groups were defined according to (i) taxonomic order, which comprised Galliformes, Raptors (Accipitriformes), other non-passerines (Picifo...

Consensus threat scores used in the NMDS analysis The analysis included the 39 bird species with at least one non-zero mode of threat score.

Questionnaire instructions

Ground nesting birds of alpine grasslands are threatened by climate change in many ways. One is the advancement of treelines, resulting in a loss of suitable nesting habitats. Several alpine grassland birds avoid the proximity of the treeline, which could be related to predation pressure if forests are reservoirs for predators. We tried to estimate...

Abstract Farming systems and management regimes of vineyards may affect local biodiversity of plants and invertebrates. While most studies have focused on the overall biodiversity of vineyards, there has been little consideration of the response of different ecological guilds to vineyard management, or to how vineyard management affects communities...

1. Dung beetles are key contributors to a suite of ecosystem services. Understanding the factors that dictate their distributions is a necessary step towards preventing negative impacts of biodiversity loss. 2. Alpine dung beetle communities were analysed along altitudinal gradients to assess how different components of the community, defined in te...

Understanding of the role of body mass in structural-functional relationships is pressing, particularly because species losses often occur non-randomly with respect to body size. Our study examined the effects of dung beetle body mass on dung removal at two levels. First, we used the lab experiment to evaluate the efficiency of eight dung beetle sp...

European beech forests are of particular importance for biodiversity, although relatively little is known about how beech forest management impacts on invertebrate communities. In this paper we investigated the influence of beech forest management history [i.e. over-mature coppices (OC) and coppices in conversion to high forests (CCHF)], climatic,...

In the Alps, the skiing industry holds a prominent role as a factor impacting the natural environment because of the large-­‐scale changes it causes. Since the beginning of the 1900s, ski tourism has greatly altered parts of the Alpine environment, where the only human activities were previously low-­‐ intensity agriculture and grazing. The most dr...

Capsule The effect of a settling-down period (SDP) on estimates of species richness, and on the presence of 12 species, was considered on point counts along altitudinal transects in the Alps. For the individual species, Water Pipit was the only species which showed evidence that a SDP increased detectability. Species richness was higher when a poin...

In recent decades, pastoral abandonment has produced profound ecological changes in the Alps. In particular, the reduction in grazing has led to extensive shrub encroachment of semi-natural grasslands, which may represent a threat to open habitat biodiversity. To reverse shrub encroachment, we assessed short-term effects of two different pastoral p...

Climate change has resulted in upward elevational shifts in the distribution of animals and plants in many areas. The potential consequences of such changes for alpine bird communities were assessed by modelling data on breeding bird distributions along altitudinal gradients in the European Alps in relation to habitat, topography and temperature. M...

The construction of ski-pistes can cause serious damage to all the components of an ecosystem and may therefore be considered as one of the main causes of human-driven environmental changes in mountain habitats. This study was aimed at assessing the responses of different ground dwelling arthropod assemblages (i.e. ground beetles, spiders and grass...

The factors influencing the selection of Black Grouse Tetrao tetrix winter roost sites and choice of roosting strategy (open-air roosts vs. snow burrows, or ‘igloos’) were assessed in the Alps, including the influence of winter diet, snow conditions and habitat at different scales. Of 337 roosts detected, 31 % were igloos and 69 % were open-air roo...

Traditional agro-pastoral practices are in decline over much of the Alps, resulting in the complete elimination of livestock grazing in some areas. Natural reforestation following pastoral abandonment may represent a significant threat to alpine biodiversity, especially that associated with open habitats. This study presents the first assessment of...

From the beginning of the last century, the expansion of the ski industry has significantly altered alpine environments. The aim of this research was to study the impacts of forest ski-pistes on small mammals by assessing (1) whether ski-pistes were used or avoided and (2) whether they acted as ecological barriers to local movements. Two ski-develo...

The worldwide loss of biodiversity is of great concern, and this has lead to strong policy frameworks to promote the maintenance of biodiversity through protecting species and habitats in many countries. Often however, rare species with legal protection provide a conservation focus, and therefore may dictate management policy. Co-occurring species,...

The full book is available online for free: http://ebooks.benthamscience.com/book/9781608054886/

The focus of this chapter is on the effect of ski-pistes on birds and small mammals. We present the results of previous research carried out in the north-western Italian Alps both below and above the tree line. Data from other mountain areas are also incorporated. Ski-pistes below the tree line produce a negative edge effect: forest plots at their...

The Black Grouse Tetrao tetrix is primarily a lekking species, although in some populations solitary display is also common. We analysed data from a 25-year-long survey of an increasing Black Grouse population in the western Italian Alps in order to test whether the numbers of males adopting different tactics conformed to patterns expected, based o...

In this study we focused on deciduous managed forests in north-western Italy and investigated relationships between bird diversity and forest descriptors both at the habitat and landscape level through a seasonal, guild-based approach. Birds were censused by point counts in randomly selected plots of 50 m radius. Each census plot was described in h...

Ground beetles include many species of rather recent evolutionary origin that are extremely similar in their external morphology.We used geometric morphometrics to quantify the relative degree of morphological divergence in three closely related polytypic alpine species of the genus Nebria, subgenus Nebriola (Nebria cordicollis, N. laticollis and N...

1. The abandonment of man-made pastures below the tree line is favouring natural reforestation in the European Alps. As such, the creation of forest ski-pistes might, paradoxically, be beneficial to butterflies. This study is the first to focus on the effects of forest ski-pistes on butterfly assemblages (Lepidoptera, Rhopalocera). 2. We sampled b...

Alpine pastures are typical examples of ''high nature value farmlands'', representing important habitats harbouring unique biological communities. Disturbance induced by overgrazing influences significantly ecosystem processes, in which invertebrates play a major role. To develop new models of sustainable management of pastures, more knowledge is n...

Genitalia are among the fastest evolving morphological traits in arthropods. Among the many hypotheses aimed at explaining this observation, some explicitly or implicitly predict concomitant male and female changes of genital traits that interact during copulation (i.e., lock and key, sexual conflict, cryptic female choice and pleiotropy). Testing...

There is a paucity of research on the wider landscape-level effects of ski-piste construction on alpine fauna. In this study, the response of alpine bird communities to the landscape changes induced by the construction of ski-pistes was investigated in the western Italian Alps. The aims were: (i) to test the hypothesis that ski-pistes have a detrim...

Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) are undoubtedly the most typical and ecologically relevant insects of grazed alpine habitats because they provide valuable ecological services such as biological pest control and soil fertilization. Despite the great ecological contribution of these insects to pasture ecosystem functioning, little is known ab...

The present study deals with the phenomenon of insular speciation and discusses, as a case study, the debated taxonomical issue of the status of Onthophagus massai (Coleoptera, Sarabaeidae) as an endemic species vicarious to Onthophagus fracticornis in Sicily. The authors investigated the differentiation patterns between an insular population belon...

Polyphenism has been suggested as an accelerator for morphological evolution and speciation. In the dung beetles of the genus Onthophagus, horn expression is polyphenic: large males develop horns whereas smaller males express greatly reduced or no horns. Horn static allometries seem to diverge rapidly amongst extant taxa, a process which might trig...

The dung beetles Amidorus obscurus and A. immaturus are nearly indistinguishable, being characterized by a marked constancy in external morphological traits and little sexual dimorphism in adults. We studied two syntopic populations from the Italian Alps by means of geometric morphometric analyses. To identify possible undetected shape differences...

The relative effects of two components of mountain environmental heterogeneity, altitude (1500, 1700 and 2000 m a.s.l.) and habitat (pastures, coniferous forests, wet meadows, scrub and anthropogenic woods) on the diversity of dung beetles in an Italian alpine valley were determined. The additive gamma diversity analysis indicated that differences...

Biogeographia vol. XXX - 2011 (Pubblicato il 23 dicembre 2011) La Biogeografia della Sicilia Pattern filogeografici a confronto in specie paleartiche di Coleotteri Scarabaeoidea ASTRID PIZZO, DANIELE SILVESTRO, MASSIMILIANO DELPERO, PIERO CERVELLA, CLAUDLA PALESTRINI, ANTONIO ROLANDO Dzjmrtimento di Biologia Animale e a’e[[’U0m0, Universita‘ degli stu...

The development of winter sport resorts above the timberline may affect every ecosystem component. We analyzed the effect of ski-pistes on the abundance and species richness of arthropods (namely carabids, spiders, opilionids, and grasshoppers) trapped in grasslands adjacent to the ski-run, on ski-pistes and at the edge between these two habitat ty...

Aims To investigate the relationships among vocal and morphological variation in two corvids: Chough and Alpine Chough. Methods We used data from 11 populations of Chough and seven populations of Alpine Chough spanning the Palearctic distribution of the two species. Three data sets (morphometry, spectrotemporal parameters of trill calls and acousti...

Open Archive: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1439609209000178 We evaluated the potential of the adult epipharynx to reveal interspecific differentiation patterns in closely related Onthophagus species. Although easy to analyse, this structure has received little attention in Scarabaeidae taxonomy, probably because a qualitative...

Abstract In this study we focused on deciduous managed forests in northwest Italy and investigated relationships between bird diversity and forest descriptors both at the habitat and landscape level through a seasonal, guild-based approach. Birds were censused by point counts in randomly selected plots of 50 m radius. Each census plot was described...

Forest clearing for winter sport activities is the major force driving loss and fragmentation of the alpine forests. The establishment of ski-pistes involves impacts on every ecosystem component. To assess the extent of this threat we studied ground-dwelling arthropods (namely ground beetles and spiders) and small mammals (shrews and voles) at two...

Abstract Horns of Onthophagus beetles are typical examples of phenotypically plastic traits: they are expressed as a function of environmental (nutritional) stimuli, and their reaction norm (i.e. the full set of horn lengths expressed as a response to different degrees of nutritional states) can be either linear or threshold-dependent. Horned males...