Flavio Monti

Italian National Research Council | CNR

Evolutionary context matters when moving species. Reintroductions that are not consistent with the evolutionary history of a species, and that will likely alter the species’ future evolution, could prove detrimental to conservation. For osprey conservation, translocation programs that move individuals without accounting for local adaptations betwee...

Reporting on uncommon wide animal movements could help in depicting potential carry-over effects at the population level, particularly in an era of rapid climate and environmental changes. The razorbill (Alca torda, Linnaeus 1758) is a regular passage migrant and winter visitor to Italian seas, but with sporadic presences usually involving small nu...

The breeding period is a demanding and time-constrained phase for migratory bird species. Breeding outcome and duration can interact with the extent and duration of post-breeding movements, resulting in individual differences in space use ultimately influencing later stages of the annual cycle. We present space-use and home range estimates during t...

A continuous balance between costs and benefits dictates individual vigilance and foraging dynamics. In group-living animals, understanding the resulting trade-off is often complicated by multiple confounding effects. Vigilance and foraging levels may be the result of intrinsic (e.g., body size, trophic ecology, migratory phenology) and extrinsic (...

Populations of long-distance migratory species may exhibit dissimilarities in the leeway of scheduled annual migration programs, the routes they follow and their convergence at ecological barriers. The aim of this study was to fill the current geographical gap, spanning over 1,100 km longitudinally between southern France and eastern Austria, in th...

The active participation of scientific trusts, including CISO (Centro Italiano Studi Ornitologici), in applied conservation actions plays a crucial role in addressing the challenges faced by natural and semi-natural landscapes, which are increasingly impacted by improper land-use and land-cover. This is particularly true for those landscapes where...

The active participation of scientific trusts, including CISO (Centro Italiano Studi Ornitologici), in applied conservation actions plays a crucial role in addressing the challenges faced by natural and semi-natural landscapes, which are increasingly impacted by improper land-use and land-cover. This is particularly true for those landscapes where...

The history of human colonisation in the Mediterranean has long been recognised as a crucial factor influencing biodiversity patterns in southern Europe. Nonetheless, our understanding of how anthropogenic and natural dispersal events interacted in shaping wildlife distributions, particularly in small mammals, remains limited. The edible dormouse G...

Human-induced direct mortality affects huge numbers of birds each year, threatening hundreds of species worldwide. Tracking technologies can be an important tool to investigate temporal and spatial patterns of bird mortality as well as their drivers. We compiled 1704 mortality records from tracking studies across the African-Eurasian flyway for 45...

Understanding a species' diet is of paramount importance to ecology as it provides vital insights into interactions between organisms and their environment. In this study, we report the first data on the diet of wintering Razorbills (Alca torda) in the Mediterranean Sea. Taking advantage of the irruption event that occurred in the Mediterranean in...

ABSTRACT: Long-distance, nonroutine movements (LDMs) have been described in raptors but rarely studied. We assessed the occurrence of LDMs in two interbreeding Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) populations in the central-southern Apennines on 64 GPS-tagged birds from 2016 to 2022 (44,746 telemetry days). We defined LDMs as routes exceeding 200km from f...

Reintroductions represent an opportunity to restore local biodiversity and reverse the effect of taxa extinction. However, they need feasibility and monitoring plans before and during their implementation to ensure concrete and lasting results. During the 20th century, the osprey (Pandion haliaetus) underwent a severe population decline in many Eur...

Migratory organisms can be vectors of parasitic host organisms that can then be transported along seasonal migratory journeys and spread across continents. Ornithophilic nidicolous ticks (e.g. soft ticks) include species responsible for the transmission of pathogens and bacteria, thus representing a health problem not only for wild species that are...

Forestry management can shape the structure of habitat types and have important biological consequences on the composition of biodiversity. This study focused on Momotus lessonii and Eumomota superciliosa, two potential bioindicators of local and wide scale tropical forest alterations. The study took place in the Karen Mogensen Wildlife Refuge (Cos...

As part of a long-term monitoring program, more than 80 Mediterranean ospreys Pandion haliaetus (both adults and juveniles) were tagged with GPS-GSM transmitters and tracked to study their spatiotemporal behaviour. Here we document the peculiar and unexpected migration movements performed by three inexperienced (juvenile/immature) individuals, who...

Conservation translocations ( e. g., restocking, reintroductions) represent efficient tools to prevent the extinction or favouring the return of previously extirpated populations into the wild. Evaluating demographic parameters of translocated populations is a key issue to assess and monitor their conservation status and to provide evidences useful...

Letter to the editor: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1fKAc1R~eOy0I

Movement ecology and environmental factors are topics of paramount importance to consider when planning conservation programmes for target species. Here we discuss this topic by reviewing the available information related to the Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus, with reference to the remnant breeding population of Southern Italy, of high cons...

Although environmental flow regime assessments are becoming increasingly holistic, they rarely provoke water managers to enact the adaptive water reallocation mechanisms required to secure environmental water for wetlands. The conditions that cause science-based environmental flow assessments to succeed or fail in informing the management of envi...

Wind turbines and power lines can cause bird mortality due to collision or electrocution. The biodiversity impacts of energy infrastructure (EI) can be minimised through effective landscape‐scale planning and mitigation. The identification of high‐vulnerability areas is urgently needed to assess potential cumulative impacts of EI while supporting t...

Protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation. Evaluating the effectiveness of PAs for protecting peculiar habitats and sensitive species is of paramount importance to ultimately assess their long-term effects on biological communities. We evaluated the importance of the PAs network at intercontinental scale, across Europe and A...

Although environmental flow regime assessments are becoming increasingly holistic, they rarely provoke water managers to enact the adaptive water reallocation mechanisms required to secure environmental water for wetlands. The conditions that cause science-based environmental flow assessments to succeed or fail in informing the management of enviro...

This report summarises the results of a review of the conservation status of the 36 species of birds of prey that are considered to breed in North Africa according to the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. It identifies those species that are threatened with extinction at the regional level to guide appropriate conservation actions for improvin...

Ramsar sites are internationally protected wetlands designated to maintain an international network for biodiversity conservation and sustain human life. There are often conflicting interests for site management that lead to decisions based on sectoral policies or local approaches that have poor outcomes in terms of effectiveness and trade-offs. Th...

Flying over the open sea is energetically costly for terrestrial birds. Despite this, over-water journeys of many birds, sometimes hundreds of kilometres long, are uncovered by bio-logging technology. To understand how these birds afford their flights over the open sea, we investigated the role of atmospheric conditions, specifically wind and uplif...

The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) experienced severe declines in Europe over the past centuries, including extirpations from large parts of its range. After Ospreys began naturally recolonizing Wales, United Kingdom (UK), in 2004, the Dyfi Osprey Project initiated an extensive ecological (ringing, satellite tracking, and nest video recordings) and gen...

The osprey (Pandion haliaetus) is a cosmopolitan raptor species exhibiting a leap-frog migration pattern, with both long- and short-distance migratory as well as resident populations. It is a versatile flyer representing an exception among raptor species since it is capable of flying over several hundred kilometres of open water. The species genera...

• Interspecific competition may be particularly exacerbated when occurring between native and invasive alien species, with environmental conditions affecting drivers of natural selection and shaping spatio‐temporal dynamics of animal communities. The effects of invaders are particularly evident in aquatic ecosystems with delicate and complex balanc...

We used both satellite tracking and carbon, nitrogen and sulphur stable isotopic analysis (SIA) to infer wintering ecology and habitat use of the Corsican osprey Pandion haliaetus population. A control sample of feathers from 75 individuals was collected within the osprey's northern hemisphere breeding range, to assess the SIA variability across ha...

Oil pollution may have deleterious effects on wildlife, and represents one of the most severe threats to marine birds and shorebirds that get in close contact with the source of contamination. Compared to seabirds, few accounts of oil contamination exist for raptors. However, in particular circumstances, oil contamination can represent a serious pr...

Delayed maturity and low reproductive rate make raptors naturally sensitive to high mortality rates, yet a wide variety of human-related threats negatively affect their population dynamics and persistence over time. We modelled the variability in the proximate causes of mortality associated with six species of large migratory raptors characterized...

The open sea is considered an ecological barrier to terrestrial bird movement. However, over-water journeys of many terrestrial birds, sometimes hundreds of kilometers long, are being uncovered by bio-logging technology. To understand how these birds afford their flights over the open sea, we investigated the role of atmospheric conditions in subsi...

Ormai si può affermare con certezza: dopo 42 anni di assenza, il falco pescatore è tornato tra noi. L'ambizioso progetto di reintroduzione iniziato con il prelievo dei pulcini in Corsica nel 2006 è stato coronato, dopo 5 anni, dalla prima, storica nidificazione nel Parco Regionale della Maremma. E' questa bellissima storia di sopravvivenza e speran...

Due to its peculiarity to accumulate environmental contaminants, the osprey Pandion haliaetus is a sentinel species for the biomonitoring of contaminants in aquatic ecosystems. Despite this, no information on trace element concentration exists for the Mediterranean area, where relict and vulnerable osprey populations exist. We evaluated the geograp...

The Maremma Natural History Museum is active in the field of Citizen Science at the Tuscan, national and international level. Among the founding bodies of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), it has promoted meetings for a national Citizen Science strategy in Italy, actively participated in the drafting of national guidelines on the sub...

Survival is a key parameter for the management and conservation of wildlife and to evaluate the success of reintroductions. We estimated survival of Eurasian griffon vultures in the central-southern Apennine from telemetry data with a staggered entry design (Kaplan-Meier procedure as modified by Pollock). Nineteen vultures have been captured and fi...

The constant evaluation of any reintroduction programme is extremely important for planning management and conservation strategies aimed at reducing post-fledging mortality and, ultimately, influence the successful establishment of adults over time. In 2011, after >40 years from local extinction, Osprey started to breed again in Italy, in the same...

Many raptors build multiple nest structures to be used alternatively in different seasons or years. The construction and maintenance of alternative nests require a considerable investment in term of energy, which might be offset by evolutionary benefits. One of the evident advantages of such strategy is the reduced exposure to ectoparasites (especi...

Background: Changes and increased mechanisation of agricultural practices have infuenced the biodiversity composition of farmland habitats and caused a decline of bird communities in many European countries. The removal of shrubs and large trees rich in natural cavities, has also led to a drastic decrease in nest site availability for cavity-nestin...

In the 21st century, nature-based tourism has often reached the magnitude of mass-tourism. Even if it generates substantial revenues which may contribute to enhanced conservation, this industry is based on finite resources, such as accessible places rich in scenic beauty or charismatic wildlife. This is very much the case for the UNESCO site of Scan...

Most large raptors on migration avoid crossing the sea because of the lack of atmospheric convection over temperate seas. The osprey Pandion haliaetus is an exception among raptors, since it can fly over several hundred kilometres of open water. We equipped five juvenile ospreys with GPS-Accelerometer-Magnetometer loggers. All birds were able to fi...

Genetic variability and population structure in osprey were studied using DNA microsatellite markers. Special emphasis was placed on the subspecies living in the Afro-Palearctic (Pandion haliaetus haliaetus). For comparative purposes, American osprey subspecies (P. h. carolinensis, P. h. ridgway) and Indo/Australian subspecies (P. h. cristatus) wer...

The development of migratory behaviour is a continuous process which is not only determined by genes, but also moulded by individual differences based on life-history variations occurring at each ontogenetic stage. Assessing consistency and plasticity in migratory traits between long distance (LDM) and short distance migratory (SDM) populations wit...

Appendix S1. Prey resource availability (methods and results). Appendix S2. Home ranges and feeding areas of breeding ospreys (methods and results). Appendix S3. Tourism and boat traf fi c evaluation (methods and results). Appendix S4. Corticosterone analyses (methods and results). Appendix S5. Complementary info on demographic data analyses and beh...

Disturbance of wildlife by ecotourism has become a major concern in the last decades. In the Mediterranean, sea-based tourism and related recreational activities are increasing rapidly, especially within marine protected areas (MPAs) hosting emblematic biodiversity. We investigated the impact of ecotourism in the Scandola MPA (UNESCO World Heritage...

Ecology and conservation of Osprey in the Mediterra- nean basin. The peculiarities of ecology and behaviour of the vulnerable Osprey population in the Mediterranean basin was stu- died in order to propose sound conservation actions. A large scale phylogeographic analysis revealed the existence of four different lineages : one in America pooling...

Reporting for policy-science platforms (e.g. IPBES) relies on the use of published data to identify current and future trends for biodiversity and ecosystem services across biomes. Generated reports tend to ignore or underrepresent small social-ecological systems due to either their size or limited data availability. Data gaps or a lesser spatia...

Il Mediterraneo centrale rappresenta una delle principali rotte migratorie utilizzate dagli uccelli che si muovono tra l'Africa e l'Europa (Zalles & Bildstein 2000). In quest'area lo Stretto di Messina rappresenta il luogo in cui convergono il maggior numero di individui in migrazione sia durante la primavera sia durante l'autunno. Lo Stretto diven...

Negli ultimi venti anni oltre 600 nidi artificiali per varie specie di uccelli sono stati installati sui tralicci dell’alta tensione in diverse regioni del Paese interessando circa 800 km di linee elettriche. In particolare, le installazioni più numerose sono state effettuate nel Lazio, Toscana ed Emilia Romagna ma tratti di linee sono stati util...

In the last decades, changes in agricultural practices have modified the landscape structure and have influenced the biodiversity composition of farmland habitats, leading to effects on populations of farmland and grassland bird species. Here, we focused on an emblematic insectivorous bird species of agricultural landscapes, the European roller...

The osprey (Pandion haliaetus) is a long-lived fish-eating raptor at the top of the aquatic food web, which can adapt to anthropized environments (potentially highly contaminated). Due to its high ability to accumulate contaminants spread in the environment, the osprey has been historically used world-wide as a sentinel species for the biomonitorin...

Après avoir participé à la réintroduction des balbuzards pêcheurs en Italie, Flavio Monti a mené de 2012 à 2015 une thèse au sein du CEFE-Université de Montpellier et l’Université de Ferrara (Italie) qui s’intéresse particulièrement au statut fragile de l’espèce dans le bassin méditerranéen.

Capitolo sul Falco pescatore nel libro Rapaci d'Italia (a cura di F. Cauli & F. Genero). Grazie al contributo di oltre 30 autori, scelti fra gli esperti e le persone più impegnate nella conservazione in Italia, Federico Cauli e Fulvio Genero hanno portato a termine l’opera più accurata e coinvolgente mai pubblicata sui rapaci diurni italiani. Con...

Background: The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) is one of only six bird species with an almost world-wide distribution. We aimed at clarifying its phylogeographic structure and elucidating its taxonomic status (as it is currently separated into four subspecies). We tested six biogeographical scenarios to explain how the species' distribution and differ...

Being a cosmopolitan and migratory species, the osprey Pandion haliaetus provides a good opportunity to explore how behavioural adaptations in different populations, that evolved under different ecological conditions and are widely spaced, can be the proximate causes of geographical distribution, genetic divergence, population connectivity, migr...

Capsule Sex-biased dispersal and an age-dependent effect in survival rate accounted for the pattern of first settlement and reproduction in a newly reintroduced Osprey population. Aims We estimate the survival of translocated individuals, describe juvenile movements and evaluate the success of first breeding events to document the re-establishment...

Despite wide differences in ecology and habitats across a world-wide distributional range, Osprey populations appear to be poorly differentiated from a morphological point of view. The most widely accepted taxonomic arrangement recognises a single species, Pandion haliaetus, with four subspecies classified on the basis of morphometric and plumage c...

The study of exploration and dispersal behaviour is a key component of conservation-related research on any animal species. This is especially true for populations living in fragmented habitats that are isolated or too small to be self-sustainable. In this framework the case of the Osprey Pandion haliaetus in the Mediterranean basin is of notable i...

In the Mediterranean, most areas belonging to the initial distribution range of the Osprey Pandion haliaetus have been lost and local populations have disappeared in recent decades because of persecution. Even though direct management actions have allowed local partial recovery, the Mediterranean population currently only holds a few tens of breedi...

In the Mediterranean, the osprey Pandion haliaetus is currently present with <60 breeding pairs after having suffered demographic decreases and local extinctions during the last decades, as result of the strong persecution. Even though direct management actions have allowed partial recoveries, the Mediterranean population is still exposed to local...

— Space-use strategies are essential behavioural skills during the fledging-to-dispersal period, when physical capabilities and the ability to explore the external world are developed. Here we describe the space-use strategies of 13 radio-tagged ospreys Pandion haliaetus, released as part of a reintroduction project in Central Italy, during their p...

Between October 2008 and September 2010, a standardised monitoring plan at the Ombrone’s river mouth has been carried out with the aim to investigate the phenology and richness of the waterbird community. The study area (about 210 ha), which is partially interested by upcoming constructions of an embankment and of an off-shore breakwater parallel t...

Knipowitschia panizzae (Verga, 1841)has been recorded for the fi rst time within the coastal wetlands of the Maremma Regional Park. Here we are describing the species’ distribution, the habitats and the salinity range in which the species was found during the sampling. The presence of this species, endemic of brackish habitats of the North Adriatic...

The presence and distribution of two species of cyprinodonts, the Mediterranean toothcarp Aphanius fasciatus (Valenciennes, 1821) (endangered native species) and the eastern mosquitofi sh Gambusia holbrooki (Girard, 1859) (inva-sive species), was investigated within the coastal wetlands of the Maremma Regional Park. Here we are describing the two s...