Carlos Rodríguez

Estación Biológica de Doñana · Department of Conservation Biology

The overall aim of the present document is to avoid, reduce or minimise edge effects and other environmental effects along verges caused by transport infrastructure. This general aim is divided into the following specific objectives: 1. To review current scientific information about edge and other related effects of transport infrastructure, in par...

El objetivo de este documento es proveer las herramientas necesarias para que el diseño de los seguimientos ambientales, la toma de datos y su posterior gestión garanticen la extracción de conclusiones robustas sobre la efectividad de las medidas de mitigación del efecto fragmentador de las vías de transporte. El uso de esas herramientas hará posib...

Understanding spatio-temporal patterns of cycling mobility can serve as a reference for planning and management cycling infrastructure. Recently, open data initiatives enable planners to analyze and explore real-time information. However, this information is only available at locations where bike-counters are installed, and it is essential to know...

Wildlife crossing structures are used to mitigate barrier effects and to reduce mortality. Many factors affect their effectivity, including typology, location and maintenance. The monitoring of the use of these structures is frequently legally binding, often by the environmental impact assessments (EIAs) in the form of environmental monitoring or w...

Global warming and direct anthropogenic impacts, such as water extraction, largely affect water budgets in Mediterranean wetlands, thereby increasing wetland salinities and isolation, and decreasing water depths and hydroperiods (duration of the inundation period). These wetland features are key elements structuring waterbird communities. However,...

Habitat associations from an independent dataset. Analyses on habitat associations for the waterbird community using an independent, coarser, but longer time series on monthly surveys within the same study area and for four consecutive annual cycles (2004–2009). These analyses were used to validate the general results and the robustness of model ou...

Model outputs (GAMs). Estimates for the main environmental predictors obtained from species-specific (69 spp) Generalized Additive Models. (PDF)

Changes in habitat suitability. Estimated change in habitat suitability predicted per each species, scenario (CC10, CC30 and CC50) and modelling technique (GAMs and BRTs). (PDF)

Model outputs (BRTs). Relative importance of the main environmental predictors obtained from species-specific (69 spp) Boosted Regression Trees. (PDF)

Tri-axial accelerometry has proved to be a useful technique to study animal behavior with little direct observation, and also an effective way to measure energy expenditure, allowing a refreshing revisit to optimal foraging theory. This theory predicts that individuals should gain the most energy for the lowest cost in terms of time and energy when...

Position of the tracking device on the lesser kestrel’s back and direction of the three axes in which acceleration was measured. (TIF)

Partial effect of hour-of-day in the model fitted to foraging trip energy expenditure per behavior. Flapping flight (upper left panel), soaring-gliding flight (upper right panel), hovering flight (bottom left panel) and perching (bottom right panel). Penalized smoothing splines of 6.29, 6.64, 4.67 and 4.20 degrees of freedom were adjusted to hour-o...

Partial effect of hour-of-day in the model fitted to lesser kestrel commuting flight ODBA. A penalized smoothing spline of 3.34 degrees of freedom was adjusted to hour-of-day. Grey shading represents the standard error of the mean effect. Sample size = 888 commuting flights. (TIF)

Estimates (β) and standard error (S.E.) of predictors included in the GLMM fitted to daily energy expenditure in different behaviors of the lesser kestrel. Statistically significant predictors are shown in bold: * p < 0.5, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. Sample size = 35 complete days of tracking. (DOCX)

Estimates (β), standard error (S.E.) and statistical significance of predictors included in the GLMM fitted to foraging trip ODBA. Statistically significant predictors are shown in bold. Sample size = 444 foraging trips. (DOCX)

Estimate (β) ± standard error (S.E.) predicted for sex, phenological period, and commuting flight type included in the GAMMs fitted to variables analyzed at the foraging trip or segment levels. Predictors included in the best model fitted to each variable as response are shown in bold.–indicates predictor not considered in the model. Sample Size =...

Evaluation of the importance of each predictor separately in the GAMMs fitted to response variables of lesser kestrel foraging trips. ΔAIC indicated the difference between the best model and the same model adding (negative values) or removing (positive values) the target predictor (depending on the predictors included in the best model). The higher...

Estimates (β), standard error (S.E.) and statistical significance of predictors included in the GLMM fitted to foraging event ODBA. Statistically significant predictors are shown in bold. Sample size = 444 foraging trips. (DOCX)

Daily trend of solar radiation, air temperature and wind speed obtained by adjusting a smoothing spline with five degrees of freedom. Sample size = 1,056 weather data samples from 22 days (3rd– 24th June). (TIF)

Mean confusion matrix for the three classification model obtained from the jack-knife procedure. We built this matrix adding the results of the confusion matrix of each of the three models, which were built with the data of two of the three kestrels to classify behaviors of the third. Soaring-gliding and incubating/brooding are indicated as Gliding...

Background In species with biparental care both members of the breeding pair cooperate to raise the offspring either by assisting each other in every reproductive task or by specializing in different ones. The latter case is known as reproductive role specialization. Raptors are considered one of the most role-specialized groups, but little is know...

The goal of this deliverable is to provide recommendations and strategies for building and sustaining a network of EU BON sites. Thus, a guide is proposed to set up, operate and continuously develop a biodiversity observation network. It is subdivided into three sections. A) Biodiversity observation: sites and schemes: This section addresses differ...

This deliverable fits under EU BON Work Package (WP) 5 “EU BON testing and validation of concepts, tools, and services” led by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). This deliverable provides the main results from task 5.3 “Testing EU BON services for management, decision makers and stakeholders: applications across different s...

Dataset as supporting information to the article entitled Combined use of tri-axial accelerometers and GPS reveals the flexible foraging strategy of a bird in relation to weather conditions (2017). PLoS ONE 12(6): e0177892. Dataset doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.20350/digitalCSIC/8502

The number of biodiversity information platforms have recently expanded as means to improve decision making processes through a linkage with envirionmental information. These platforms are expected to work as information hubs that facilitate the integration and use of information gathered from different sources. Such integration is being done by tw...

Tri-axial accelerometers were used to identify wild-ranging lesser kestrel behaviors and to study daily energy and time budget.

Individuals allocate considerable amounts of energy to movement, which ultimately affects their ability to survive and reproduce. Birds fly by flapping their wings, which is dependent on the chemical energy produced by muscle work, or use soaring-gliding flight, in which chemical energy is replaced with energy harvested from moving air masses, such...

To resolve with high spatial and temporal resolution the post-­‐breeding dispersal, migration and wintering movements of Lesser Kestrels Falco naumanni breeding in southern Spain we have started using high-­‐ frequency solar GPS-­‐dataloggers from the company Technosmart (Rome, Italy). The aim is to relate these movements to temporal changes in env...

This report summarises the cumulative effort of the biodiversity monitoring community of the EU-funded project EU BON (European Biodiversity Observation Network) on the principles and guidelines for the establishment and operation of relevant test sites mainly in Europe. The report focuses on the requirement to meet the challenges of the biodiversi...

We studied foraging habitat selection by Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni throughout the breeding period in south-west Spain by means of transects on which foraging observations were recorded. We focused on the effects of habitat and crop type, but also on the effect of vegetation structure and the presence of agricultural activities in the field on L...

Until now, the best way to obtain relevant information about the behaviour of animals is capturing them. However, the procedure to capture individuals cause them stress and introduces an effect on the measurement that can affect the behaviour of the animals. To solve this problems this paper describes a novel intelligent motoring system for birds b...

Lesser kestrels Falco naumanni are migratory central-place foragers that breed in dynamic arable landscapes. After arriving from migration, kestrels have no knowledge of the distribution of crops, and consequently prey, around their colony. The energy demand of pairs increases as breeding season progresses, but at the same time prey abundance, and...

Biodiversity is threatened on a global scale and the losses are ongoing. In order to stop further losses and maintain important ecosystem services, programmes have been put into place to reduce and ideally halt these processes. A whole suite of different approaches is needed to meet these goals. One major scientific contribution is to collate, inte...

El cernícalo primilla es un pequeño halcón que cría en colonias a lo largo de la región Mediterránea y que ha sufrido un gran declive poblacional derivado de la intensificación agrícola. Durante una temporada de cría, 19 individuos de una colonia de cernícalo primilla fueron seguidos mediante GPS-datalogger configurados a alta frecuencia. Nuestros...

This paper proposes a novel and autonomous weighing system for wild animals. It allows evaluating changes in the body weight of animals in their natural environment without causing stress. The proposed system comprises a smart scale designed to estimate individual body weights and their temporal evolution in a bird colony. The system is based on co...

Technological advances for wildlife monitoring have expanded our ability to study behavior and space use of many species. But biotelemetry is limited by size, weight, data memory and battery power of the attached devices, especially in animals with light body masses, such as the majority of bird species. In this study, we describe the combined use...

Unmanned Aerial System equipment and operation. A) Aerial platform. B) Ground station. C) Antennas of control signal transmitters. D) Manual take off. (TIF)

Pros and cons of commonly used techniques for recording environmental information. This table is based on our study case, i.e. an actual case to study the habitat selection of Lesser Kestrel using the kestrel flight tracks. Note that advantages/disadvantages may change according to the aims of the studies. (PDF)

Relationship between image resolution and altitude. Dashed lines indicate the mean altitude flow (184 m) and the mean spatial resolution of the imagery (7.7 cm). (TIF)

Budgetary cost of the equipment used in this study. (PDF)

Lesser kestrel breeding colony located at the headquearters of Doñana Biological Station (Seville, Spain). A) Lesser kestrel colony located at the roof of the headquarters of Doñana Biological Station in Seville. B) Nestlings in the proximity of releasing nest-boxes. C) Fledglings perched in one of the antennas of the building. D) First breeding at...

Distribution of nearest distances between kestrel and UAS fixes. Fixes were taken one per second. (TIF)

The lesser kestrel is a small falcon distributed in the Palaearctic south of 55°N which experienced steep population declines in the second half of the 20th century. Its breeding population seems to be stable and even growing now, especially in SW Europe with an approximate estimate for the European breeding range of 29,900-34,500 pairs. Spain hold...

How food is distributed among offspring may have profound impacts on both adult and offspring fitness. This is especially true when food availability does not allow the whole brood to be reared. Feeding strategies are expected to have evolved allowing parents to optimize resource allocation. However, not all species seem to be able to control food...

Se examinaron los cambios en la composición de la dieta de la especie de cernícalo amenazada Falco naumanni a lo largo del ciclo reproductivo. Se recogieron egagrópilas semanalmente desde la última semana de marzo hasta la segunda semana de julio en una colonia situada en el suroeste de España. La dieta se evaluó en términos de la composición de pr...

Lesser kestrel diet was examined from the last week of March to the first week of July in a colony located in La Palma del Condado (Huelva province –SW Spain-). After removing all old remains from nests, fresh pellets were collected weekly from different nests and analyzed in the lab to the maximum taxonomic level possible. Both frequency of occurr...

The final aim of project HORUS is to develop and test an automatic monitoring system of the long-term response in population size, reproduction, body condition, and behaviour, of a Lesser Kestrel breeding colony in an agricultural area. We are developing an automatic recording system of the individuals present at the colony, that is located in agri...

Among other impacts, climate change may increase salinity in inland wetlands due to changes in precipitation and evaporation regimes, especially in Mediterranean countries. This may influence the composition of bird communities wintering, foraging or breeding in wetlands. We studied bird species composition in 80 wetlands of South-western Spain (in...

Agricultural intensification has occurred in much of Europe since the middle of the 20th century implying profound changes in arable landscapes, and being the main cause of biodiversity erosion in farmed ecosystems. Because current public demands also include non-market goods such as biodiversity, landscape, historic environment, and natural resour...