Diego Villanúa

• PhD
• Birds specialist at Navarra Environmental Management (Orekan)

The Iberian population of the European wildcat (Felis silvestris) is undergoing a decline and is highly fragmented. This study aimed to determine the occurrence and identity of tick-borne parasites (piroplasms and Hepatozoon spp.) in Navarre, one of the strongholds for wildcats in Spain. DNA was extracted from spleen samples of 63 road-killed wildc...

Anthropogenic activities threaten many wildlife populations by increasing mortality rates, making it crucial to identify the locations and causes of mortality to inform conservation actions. Technological advancements, such as GPS satellite tracking, enable precise recording of wildlife movements. High‐resolution data from such devices can facilita...

We compile the information available for Spanish sparrow (Passer hispaniolensis) in the provinces of Navarra and Huesca (northern Spain) until 2022 and add the results of specific censuses carried out in the spring of 2023. It is confirmed that the presence of this species in the area was practically anecdotal, with only 5 records in the last 20 ye...

Most raptors are flagship and umbrella species acting as ecosystem engineers. Research on avian parasites in raptors is therefore of interest. There is a lack of studies on Sarcocystis in naturally infected raptors. In the present work, we aimed to identify Sarcocystis spp. in intestinal scrapings of the raptors from Spain. Sarcocystis spp. were id...

The urban populations of Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus) is increasing throughout Europe, generating conflicts with humans associated with damage resulting from their feces deposition or with their role in the maintenance of zoonotic diseases. Despite this, the species has a significant conservation value, as it is an important part of the diet of va...

The European bittern (Botaurus stellaris) is a cryptic species, with very discreet habits, mainly nocturnal and occupying a habitat with poor visibility, so its monitoring generally requires resorting to the detection of its song. The emission of songs is not constant, but is subject to great variations depending on the weather, the mating period a...

The great increase in outdoor activities experienced in recent years has brought with it a greater frequency of involuntary disturbances to wildlife. Due to their aesthetic appeal, rocky cliffs are one of the most visited places, which could negatively impact rock raptors, especially during the reproductive period. Assessing the impact of these nui...

Wild carnivorans are key hosts of parvoviruses of relevance for animal health and wildlife conservation. However, the distribution and diversity of parvoviruses among wild carnivorans are under-investigated, particularly in Southern Europe. We evaluated the presence, spread, and diversity of multi-host protoparvoviruses (canine parvovirus type 2 (C...

We compile the information available for Spanish Sparrow (Passer hispaniolensis) in the provinces of Navarra and Huesca (northern Spain) until 2022 and add the results of specific censuses carried out in the spring of 2023. It is confirmed that the presence of this species in the area was practically anecdotal, with only 5 records in the last 20 ye...

Above all, bird ringing must be safe for birds, for ethical reasons but also to ensure that data collection is not biased by marking effects. Bird ringing schemes are responsible for determining the size of the rings used to mark birds individually. This paper critically reviews the recommended ring sizes in the Aranzadi Ringing Scheme and proposes...

Internal guidelines for installing raptor nest boxes as a rodent control tool

El gato montés europeo (Felis silvestris) es una especie incluida en el Listado Estatal de Especies Silvestres en Régimen de Protección Especial. Según estudios recientes, muchas poblaciones ibéricas están en regresión, lo que hace necesario una revisión de su estatus legal. Para ello se requieren métodos eficaces que permitan monitorizar el estado...

En la península ibérica existen poblaciones silvestres establecidas de visón americano (Neovison vison), un mustélido invasor en creciente expansión que puede afectar negativamente a las poblaciones de otras especies autóctonas, como el visón europeo (Mustela lutreola). Es una especie sometida a planes de control y erradicación, también por el pape...

El objetivo de este artículo es actualizar la estima de población de grajilla occidental (Corvus monedula) en Euskadi, Navarra y La Rioja a partir de censos llevados a cabo en invierno (concentraciones en dormideros). Además, a través de la comparación con estimas previas, tanto en época reproductora como invernal, se pretenden también inferir tend...

The main goal of the LIFE EUROKITE project is to reduce anthropogenic causes of mortality of the red kite in Europe. The efficient protection of the red kite requires the detailed understanding of overall mortality reasons, especially focusing on those caused by legal and illegal human activities. The LIFE EUROKITE project focuses on a Europe-wide...

We analyzed changes in the composition of the community of birds of prey and corvids in a rainfed agrosystem after the transformation of 37.2 % of the sampled area into irrigated land between 2005 and 2020. We sampled 57 transects (372 km per year) and fitted generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) to study changes in species occurrence. Our results...

We have compiled the information available for the White-Backed Woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos lilfordi) on the south-facing slopes of the Pyrenees since its detection in 1968 until 2016 and we have added the results of specific censuses carried out between 2017 and 2021 and the results of the GPS marking of reproductive specimens, both within th...

Capsule Barn Owls Tyto alba and Red-billed Choughs Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax show differential breeding outputs as a consequence of sharing nest boxes. Aims To describe for the first time a commensal relationship between the Red-billed Chough and the Barn Owl during the breeding period. Methods During systematic monitoring of 90 nest boxes installe...

Durante cinco años se ha llevado a cabo un seguimiento de la población de cernícalo vulgar Falco tinnunculus y lechuza común Tyto alba mediante anillamiento de pollos en cajas nido y adultos capturados con trampas bal-chatri y redes niebla con reclamo sonoro digital en Navarra, Aragón, La Rioja y Valencia. En total se han anillado 515 ejemplares de...

Artificial food subsidies like landfills generate very strong impacts on animal ecology and spatial behavior. Landfills indeed have been considered to be one of the most influential factors explaining the very fast recovery of many colonial waterbird populations worldwide, as documented for the white stork Ciconia ciconia. More recently, the increa...

The Iberian Green Woodpecker is an endemic species of the Iberian Peninsula that has been little studied. We describe the nesting habitat selection of this species in the three biogeographic regions where the species is located. The characteristics of 78 trees with occupied nests and 312 other randomly chosen trees in the vicinity of the nests were...

The range of Red-legged Partridge populations is very wide from natural ones, through those managed for maximum hunting yields, up to completely artificial captive-reared ones. Within this scenario, the Red-legged Partridge has become an interesting model species for studying disease dynamics and host-pathogen evolution. Indeed, exposure to pathoge...

The Bonelli's eagle is one of the rarest and most threatened birds of prey in Europe, which means that great efforts are being made to guarantee its conservation. One of the lines of work is the reintroduction of specimens in areas where the species has recently become extinct and those in which the factors that caused its disappearance have been c...

Between 2011 and 2021, 50 Bonellis Eagles were released in Navarra within the European Life Bonelli and Aquila Life projects using hacking techniques. With this action, the recovery of 3 historical territories and the creation of 1 new one have been achieved. The relationship between survival during the first year and the sex of the specimen, the w...

Assessing the effects of agricultural intensification on biodiversity is critical for developing effective management plans for farmland conservation. Among other factors, the direct and indirect impacts of irrigation on wildlife have yet to be thoroughly studied despite significant increases in the surface area of irrigated farmlands since the mid...

Anthropogenic activities, such as the translocation or introduction of animals, may cause a parallel movement of exotic parasites harboured by displaced animals. Although introduction and/or relocation of animals for hunting purposes is an increasingly common management technique, the effects of gamebird release as a major vehicle for the introduct...

Determining the age of specimens is of great help in wildlife management, especially for rare or threatened species in which each individual has a high value. In birds, differences in moulting pattern between juveniles and adults may in some cases allow determination of a bird’s age from the examination of its plumage. In the present study, we anal...

Damage associated with rodent's outbreaks is common in the actual intensive agriculture. In order to reduce these economic losses, the placement of nest boxes for raptors could be a useful alternative to the chemical control programs. Barn owl (Tyto alba) and common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) are two of the most commonly used species as rodent bio...

Resumen: La rata topera (Arvicola scherman) es una especie de gran interés, tanto por su papel como presa de multitud de depredadores, como por el impacto de sus daños sobre la agricultura. Las variaciones en su abundancia poblacional y el papel de los factores que la modulan han sido ampliamente estudiadas en el norte de Europa, pero hasta el mome...

Background Members of the genus Sarcocystis are protozoan parasites characterized by a prey–predator two-host life-cycle. Sarcocysts are formed in the muscles or central nervous system of the intermediate host (IH), while sporocysts develop in the small intestine of the definitive host (DH). Various birds of prey have been confirmed to be DH for Sa...

Navarra supports one of the northernmost populations of lesser kestrel. Since the confirmation of its presence as a breeder at the end of the 80s, its population has been the subject of different censuses that, since 2007, are carried out directly by the Environmental Guards of the Government of Navarra This monitoring has revealed a strong increas...

Background: Members of the genus Sarcocystis are protozoan parasites characterized by a prey-predator two-host life cycle. Sarcocysts are formed in muscles or CNS of the intermediate host (IH), while sporocysts develop in the small intestine of the definitive host (DH). Various birds of prey were confirmed to be DH for Sarcocystis spp. By contrast,...

The white stork Ciconia ciconia is one of the most emblematic birds in rural habitats of Europe. Its populations showed a drastic decline during the 20th century, followed by a rapid recovery in the last decades. The population increase has led to a relaxation in the specie’s monitoring effort, the last Spanish national official census having been...

Variación de la abundancia del zorzal en invierno durante la temporada de caza en el sur de Europa: la importancia de las reservas Analizamos las variaciones de la abundancia del zorzal común (Turdus philomelos) y el mirlo (T. merula) durante la temporada de caza en reservas y en zonas de caza. Una vez controlado el efecto del hábitat, la abundanci...

The White-backed Woodpecker Dendrocopos leucotos is one the rarest and the most vulnerable woodpeckers in Europe. Intensive forest practices have caused a widespread decline of the species. In the Spanish Pyrenees, on the south-west limit of the species range, a population of the lilfordi subspecies (Lilford Woodpecker) is estimated at less than 20...

Capsule: The use of mist nets placed at more than 9 m high and small GPS tags fitted with a pelvic harness, and equipped to download remotely, allows the capture and tracking of breeding White-backed Woodpeckers Dendrocopos leucotos. Aims: To describe and test a method for capturing, ringing and GPS-marking medium-sized woodpeckers. Methods: Bird...

https://aldizkaria.elhuyar.eus/gai-librean/irrati-telemetria-okil-gibelnabarren-sekretuak-era/

There is a strong relationship between bird wing morphology and flight style. Wing shapes are related to manoeuvrability, flight speed, energetic costs during flight and take-off speed. Wing shape differences among species have been frequently studied but differences can also be found within species, between sexes and age groups. Many studies have...

Biological control of rodents in agricultural areas, increasing avian predator abundance by nest-box provisioning, has been proposed during the last decades in several regions around the world as an alternative to the widespread use of anticoagulant rodenticides (AR) to protect crops. However these experiences have often lacked a “Before-After-Cont...

La Rata Topera (Arvicola terrestris) es un roedor de tamaño mediano que en Navarra aparece en el extremo norte. A pesar de haberse detectado ya a principios de la década de 1980, ha sido en los últimos años cuando se ha manifestado su incidencia en las praderas del Pirineo. Se alimenta tanto de raíces y bulbos como de partes aéreas de plantas prate...

Estimar la densidad de las distintas especies de roedores resulta muy complicado y costoso, por lo que se suele recurrir a estimas de abundancia relativa. Una de las herramientas más utilizada para determinar la composición de la comunidad de roedores de una zona es el análisis de egagrópilas de Lechuza Blanca (Tyto alba). En la primavera de 2007,...

La distribución de especies se ve afectada en todo el mundo por los cambios inducidos por el hombre a escalas de tiempo reducidas, particularmente asociadas con los cambios en el uso del suelo. A partir de estas consideraciones y con la información obtenida en el I Sondeo Ibérico de Tejoneras, se procedió a identificar los principales usos del suel...

The Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus) is a typical woodland species, which has colonized urban habitats over the last decades reaching breeding densities significantly higher than in woodland sites. Zaragoza is the biggest city in the Ebro Valley, north of Spain, and it has been colonized by the Woodpigeon in the last twenty years. In the present study...

Las aves, participan en la epidemiología de diversas enfermedades zoonóticas, y muestras procedentes anillamientos son de interés para los programas de vigilancia sanitaria. La toma de muestras biológicas, en aves de pequeño tamaño, puede resultar dificultosa o peligroso para el ejemplar. Este trabajo resume la experiencia de un muestreo de campo y...

Red-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) is a corvid which usually nests inside caves and cavities in the cliffs. However, in some areas of the Iberian Peninsula, including the Ebro Valley, the species breeds inside abandoned buildings (Blanco et al. 1997). During the last decades, these buildings are being restored or demolished (Blanco et al.,...

Hunting statistics can be suitable to determine wild boar density estimates if a calibration with an accepted rigorous method is performed. Here, densities calculated from drive counts during collective drive hunting activities are compared against density values calculated by camera trapping using the random encounter method. For this purpose, we...

The White-backed woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos)-WBW- is considered the rarest woodpecker in Europe. Moreover, their irregular distribution, together with the big isolation of the populations, make it especially vulnerable. The population present in the Iberian Peninsula would be one of these specially endangered ones, with only 78-95 pairs which...

The migratory behaviour of European Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) populations ranges from resident in the south and west to partly or totally migratory in northern, central and eastern Europe. This varied migratory behaviour could be reflected in morphological adaptations, with migrants having a proportionally longer wing, lower tail:wing ratio,...

Managers have, over the years, searched methods with which to monitor wildlife populations that will have the best cost-performance balance for each case scenario. Monitoring techniques are of particular importance when attempting to attain either population density estimates or species richness values, since they enable management decisions to be...

Open landfills seem to be playing an increasing role as target feeding areas for several species, not only in their breeding areas or during the winter, but also during the migration period. Evaluating the extent to which landfill sites are used by migrants is crucial to understanding their role in driving stopover decisions during migration, and i...

The main advances on the knowledge of the three hare species inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula (Lepus granatensis, Lepus castroviejoi and Lepus europaeus, the first two endemic) were carried out in late XXth century, mainly with studies on genetic, morphological and ecological aspects. During the 1990s and 2000s advances were especially related to g...

A faunistic study of the simuliids of the Flumen river in Los Monegros (Huesca) was performed based on the identification of 135 collected specimens of larvae, cocoons and pupae. Sampling began in May 2001 and lasted until June 2002, and sampling frequency was twice a month. A total of six species distributed in four subgenera were collected: Simul...

We studied the helminth community and body condition of 99 hunter-harvested red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa) from Ciudad Real (Central Spain). Forty-six were sampled in two game estates where an important number of farm-reared red-legged partridges are released yearly. The remaining 53 were obtained from natural wild populations adjacent to o...

Preys require effective anti-predator traits to escape from predator attacks, whereas predators focus on individuals that have lower fitness. This fitness reduction is due to the effects of many regulatory forces such as parasites. We directly observed in the field the escape performance of the Iberian hare (Lepus granatensis) against coursing pred...

FEDENCA

108 pp.-- Tesis inédita de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) e Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC), Unidad de Sanidad animal.-- Fecha de lectura: 18-01-2008.-- Texto en castellano e inglés. La presente Tesis Doctoral ha sido concebida bajo un enfoque eminentemente práctico, tratando de responder a las cuestiones de c...

Game bird farming is associated with high parasite levels that reduce farm productivity, reduce survival after releasing, and may pose a health risk for natural populations. The efficacy of albendazole (orally, 20 mg kg(-1) was evaluated in farmed red-legged partridges naturally infected with the nematodes Aonchotheca caudinflata and Heterakis gall...

The genus Anaplasma (Rickettsiales: Anaplasmataceae) includes several pathogens such as A. marginale and A. phagocytophilum that have an impact on veterinary and human health. In this study, we characterized A. marginale and A. phagocytophilum infections in humans, wild and domestic animals, and ticks in southern Europe (particularly in south-centr...

The production of parasite transmission stages was investigated in the faeces of 77 farm-bred ring-necked pheasants (Phasianus colchicus). Coccidian oocysts (Eimeria sp.), and nematode eggs (Heterakis sp., and Capillaria-like eggs) were recovered before and after release but all birds were treated prior to release. Treatment with fenbendazole signi...

The study of host-parasite relationships usually requires reliable estimates of parasite intensity, which is often estimated from parasite propagule concentration in faeces. However, parasite excretion in faeces may be subject to variation due to endogenous or exogenous factors that must be identified to obtain reliable results. We analysed the eff...

We studied the prevalence and potential subclinical effects of infestation by Trichomonas gallinae in 91 hunter-harvested Common Wood Pigeons Columba palumbus from northern (n = 30) and southern (n = 61) Spain during the winter period. All animals were measured, sexed, aged, necropsied and their organs were weighed. Infestation with T. gallinae was...

We studied the seroprevalence of six reproductive pathogens in Spanish hunter-harvested wild boar females. The sample was representative of the hunting harvest in the studied hunting estates. Mean antibody prevalences were: 60.6+/-0.06% for Aujeszky's disease virus (ADV), 56.6+/-0.09% for porcine parvovirus (PPV), 51.8+/-0.06% for porcine circoviru...

Serum samples from 693 hunted wild boar (Sus scrofa) were analysed by means of a blocking ELISA technique, and the mean (se) prevalence of antibodies to Aujeszky's disease virus was 44 (4) per cent. All the seropositive wild boar were from south central Spain, except for one from central Spain, close to the main positive area. In this area, where l...

Organisms in the genus Anaplasma are obligate intracellular pathogens that multiply in both vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. The type species, A. marginale, causes bovine anaplasmosis and only infects ticks and ruminants. A. phagocytophilum causes human and animal granulocytic anaplasmosis, and genetically closely related strains show a wide host...

The number of wild animals threatened or at risk of extinction constantly increases and, as a result, biodiversity decreases. Therefore, it is necessary to set in motion proceedings to preserve the genetic variability and to overcome factors leading to this situation. Banks of cryopreserved cells, such as skin fibroblasts, from wild animals could b...

El jabalí es un buen modelo para estudiar el papel de las enfermedades en la dinámica poblacional de vertebrados, y especialmente del impacto de distintos sistemas de manejo sobre el estado sanitario de la especie. El uso sostenible de este recurso cinegético depende del conocimiento científico de las enfermedades que le afectan. Este artículo pres...