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Introduction
Publications
Publications (163)
Among large carnivores, wolves show a remarkable capability to persist in human-dominated landscapes.
However, the temporal dynamics of variation in spatial use of these landscapes remains poorly understood.
Considering the relevance of spatio-temporal variations of territorial marking on wolf behaviour, either to defend
territory boundaries and co...
In many early European cultures, humans shared an overall positive view of the wolf. But this changed with the anthropocentric view of nature brought about by Christianity as well as with the process of domestication and the advent of extensive
animal husbandry. Wolves were then strongly persecuted, leading to their extirpation in almost all their...
Advances in the field of museomics have promoted a high sampling demand for natural history collections (NHCs), eventually resulting in damage to invaluable resources to understand historical biodiversity. It is thus essential to achieve a consensus about which historical tissues present the best sources of DNA. In this study, we evaluated the perf...
Detailed knowledge about biodiversity distribution is critical for monitoring the biological effects of global change processes. Biodiversity knowledge gaps hamper the monitoring of conservation trends and they are especially evident in the desert biome. Mauritania constitutes a remarkable example on how remoteness and regional insecurity affect cu...
The wolf is a generalist-opportunistic predator that displays diverse and remarkably adaptable feeding strategies across its range with local adaptations to certain prey species depending on their availability and vulnerability. The multi-prey system of the Slovak Carpathians supports important portion of the European wolf population; however, it h...
The grey wolf (Canis lupus) persists in a variety of human-dominated landscapes and is subjected to various legal management regimes throughout Europe. Our aim was to assess the effects of intrinsic and methodological determinants on the hair cortisol concentration (HCC) of wolves from four European populations under different legal management. We...
We present new information on the distribution of 25 bird species in Mauritania, mainly in the mountainous parts of the interior, based on field work between 2002 and 2020. Records represent extensions of known range or seasonal presence for 16 species, plus observations of nine species rarely reported in the country.
The wolf is a generalist-opportunistic predator that displays diverse and remarkably adaptable feeding strategies across its range with local adaptations to certain prey species depending on their availability and vulnerability. The multi-prey system of the Slovak Carpathians supports important portion of the European wolf population; however, it h...
Raccoons are American carnivores, considered invasive across several countries worldwide, especially in Europe. In the Iberian Peninsula, previous studies on raccoons documented several breeding populations in Spain a decade ago and only two confirmed records from isolated individuals in Portugal. Given the need for updating its Iberian distributio...
Successful conservation depends on accurate taxonomy. Currently, the taxonomy of canids in Africa, Eurasia and Australasia is unstable as recent molecular and morphological studies have questioned earlier phenetic classifications. We review available information on several taxa of Old World and Australasian Canis with phylogenetic uncertainties (na...
Generalist species are often characterized by low habitat specialization and reduced genetic structure in their populations. Here, we tested this common assumption on golden jackals in Iran, a wide country with a highly heterogeneous landscape where this carnivore is assumed to be widespread, although little is known about the ecology and populatio...
Long-term monitoring studies assessing wolf population dynamics are scarce, particularly in human-dominated landscapes of southern Europe. In this work, we estimate wolf demographic parameters in northwest Portugal based on a multi-methodological approach over 20 years split into two periods (period A: 1996–2005; period B: 2007–2016). Period B take...
Sarcoptic mange is globally enzootic, and non-invasive methods with high diagnostic specificity for its surveillance in wildlife are lacking. We describe the molecular detection of Sar-coptes scabiei in non-invasively collected faecal samples, targeting the 16S rDNA gene. We applied this method to 843 Iberian wolf Canis lupus signatus faecal sample...
Knowledge on interference competition between species, particularly for scarce crucial resources, such as water, is a topic of increasing relevance for wildlife management given climate change scenarios. This study focuses on two sympatric canids, the African wolf and the side-striped jackal, to evaluate their group size and spatiotemporal activity...
The occurrence of carnivore species in wolf diet has been overlooked and poorly studied despite the potential implications for wolf ecology and wildlife management. We conducted an extensive literature review, focusing on 120 wolf diet studies worldwide to assess global patterns of carnivore consumption by wolves and their ecological and human-rela...
Abstract The physiological significance of biometric body condition indices (bBCI) is poorly understood. We hypothesized that bBCI are composite metrics of nutritional physiology, physical fitness and health. To test this hypothesis, we first compared the performance of eight bBCI, using 434 Southern European carnivores from six species as a model...
Este capítulo explica a metodologia utilizada na construção do Atlas de Mamíferos de Portugal (2ª edição).
Além das espécies com presença atual conhecida em Portugal, este atlas inclui também uma secção dedicada a espécies extintas (mamíferos com ocorrência documentada em território português, mas que se extinguiram entre a criação da nacionalidade portuguesa e a atualidade, isto é, desde o séc. XII) e a espécies de ocorrência duvidosa, cuja presença no...
Este capítulo introduz a 2ª edição do Atlas de Mamíferos de Portugal.
Este atlas reúne e cartografa os dados de distribuição disponíveis dos mamíferos selvagens (excepto morcegos) recolhidos em Portugal entre 1990 e 2018.
Diet studies are crucial to understand the trophic ecology of wolves and increase available knowledge on the magnitude of their impact to both livestock and wild game. The most common method to assess wolf food habits is the analysis of scat contents. The aim of this work was to determine the main prey items for wolves in three adjacent areas in Ba...
Worldwide, wolf predation on wild game and livestock are the main trigger for conflicts with humans and for direct persecution towards wolves. This study aims to understand how relevant are wolves in human-wildlife conflicts in Slovakia and which economic impacts they produce in comparison to other wildlife species, namely large carnivores and ungu...
O Atlas de Mamíferos de Portugal surgiu no âmbito de um projecto de investigação em biogeografia de vertebrados da Europa Ocidental, durante o qual se revelou necessário colmatar a ausência de uma fonte de dados de distribuição dos mamíferos no nosso país. O Atlas foi construído a partir de uma extensa busca, organização, depuração e cartografia do...
Large carnivores often inhabit human-dominated landscapes, where avoidance of anthropogenic risks can constrain their use of space and time. Large carnivore conservation thus requires designing landscapes of coexistence, which should provide suitable habitats and dispersal opportunities in areas shared with humans. This study investigates the lands...
Background:
Different population trajectories are expected to impact the signature of neutral and adaptive processes at multiple levels, challenging the assessment of the relative roles of different microevolutionary forces. Here, we integrate adaptive and neutral variability patterns to disentangle how adaptive diversity is driven under different...
This dataset represents an extensive collection of available (published or contributed, often opportunistically collected) occurrence data of terrestrial mammals (except bats) on Portuguese UTM 10x10-km cells, and it is the first at this scale for this country. It can be useful for biogeographical and macroecological analyses in regions that includ...
The Gray wolf (Canis lupus) is one of the most well-known and studied species because of its close and ancient relationship with humans. Wolves occur throughout the northern hemisphere, inhabiting a variety of habitats that range from Arctic tundra to Arabian deserts. They often live in human-dominated landscapes, particularly in Southern Europe an...
Information regarding species’ status at a regional scale is instrumental for effective conservation planning. Some regions of southwestern Europe, such as Portugal, albeit included in the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot, lack a detailed assessment of the distribution patterns of several taxonomic groups, such as carnivores. Moreover, informatio...
Updated Iberian distributions of the carnivore species occurring (currently or historically) in Portugal.
Dots represent UTM 10x10-km cells with confirmed (black) or unconfirmed (dark red) presence records in Portugal compiled in this study (see Methods for further details), together with presence records in Spain (light blue) from the latest mamma...
Scientific literature on mammalian terrestrial carnivores in Portugal from 1789 until November 2015 (n = 755 studies).
Note: Relevant studies were identified using several search engines, including Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com), ISI Web of Knowledge / Web of Science (WoS, www.wokinfo.com), Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO,...
Classification of Portuguese Municipalities for each carnivore species according to two possible categories for historical presence records (after 2000): No records (0) and with records (1).
(XLSX)
Classification of each UTM 10x10-km cell for each species into the three possible categories according to current presence records (after 2000): No records (0), Confirmed (C) and Unconfirmed (U) presence.
(XLSX)
Highly mobile mammalian carnivores are expected to have the capability to maintain high levels of gene flow across large geographic scales. Nonetheless, surprising levels of genetic structure have been found in many such populations. We combined genetic and spatial behavioural information from wolves (Canis lupus) in the Iberian Peninsula (Western...
Due to the technical and functional characteristics of wind turbines, impact assessment studies have focused mainly on flying vertebrates. Nevertheless, evidence from the little available knowledge indicates potential impacts on large terrestrial mammals resulting from habitat fragmentation and increasing human disturbance. Over the last 15 years,...
Provisional clustering of the abstracts, external use (Corresponding Authors)
Legend: First letter= the day of presentation, 2nd digit = the session, 3rd or 3rd and 4th digits =the order, next letter = type of presentation (K Keynote, C oral communication, P poster), digits after letter = duration.
Example: W110C5 Wednesday in the first session,...
The persistence of large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes is conditional on the preservation of adequate ecological conditions during the reproduction period, when they may be particularly susceptible to human disturbance. However, little is known about the breeding behaviour of large carnivores in these landscapes, though this would be imp...
Wolf populations are difficult to monitor due to their elusiveness, low density, and wide movements. However, wolf monitoring targeting reproductive units (e.g. family groups or packs), is essential for the efficient management and conservation of this large carnivore, especially where populations are being controlled. This study used a multi-metho...
Population estimates and monitoring are crucial to determine and support the wolf management plan in Slovakia and subsequent implementation of the annual quota for wolf population control. The elusiveness of wolves, low density, wide range and their high adaptability to various landscape types, make their monitoring a challenge. The present methods...
Over the last 15 years, more than 900 wind turbines were built within Portuguese wolf range. Due to the endangered status of this large carnivore in Portugal, several monitoring plans were conducted, resulting in a reasonable amount of information on the effects of wind farms on wolves. We reviewed methodological approaches, compiled major findings...
Objectives:
Wildlife capture is an essential management tool that induces a reactive homeostasis response in the captured animals. The aim of this study was to characterize the reactive homeostatic response to trapping in free-ranging wolves and assess the mitigation achieved by reducing the duration of restraint.
Materials and methods:
Making u...
The golden jackal’s Canis aureus range in Europe is expanding rapidly and populations are increasing. Historically restricted to the Mediterranean and Black sea coastal regions [1], jackals are now reproducing in most of Southeastern European and some Central European countries [2-4]. Current population trends suggest that population expansion is f...
The grey wolf (Canis lupus) is an iconic large carnivore that has increasingly been recognized as an apex predator with intrinsic value and a keystone species. However, wolves have also long represented a primary source of human–carnivore conflict, which has led to long-term persecution of wolves, resulting in a significant decrease in their number...
Live-trapping elusive animals is often challenging, hampering the achievement of reasonable sample sizes for molecular studies. In such cases, the use of noninvasive samples (NIS) is critical in many research fields, mostly related to ecology, management and conservation of wild species. We analysed the influence of several variables potentially as...
Animal host–microbe interactions are a relevant concern for wildlife conservation, particularly regarding generalist pathogens, where domestic host species can play a role in the transmission of infectious agents, such as viruses, to wild animals. Knowledge on viral circulation in wild host species is still scarce and can be improved by the recent...
During the wolf breeding season, breeding females and other pack members may need to adjust their movement patterns and activity budgets to maximise reproductive success. We hypothesized that patterns of homesite use and attendance depend on the breeding status and sex of pack members, as well as the number of helpers, the pack membership, and the...
We conducted a viral metagenomics study in diarrheic free-ranging wolves in Portugal, revealing for the first time the presence of reassortant picobirnaviruses. These viruses shared identical capsid segments together with diverse RNA-dependent RNA polymerase segments. Even though causality between these picobirnaviruses and diarrhea could not be es...
The surgical treatment of an exposed compounded comminuted fracture of the right radius and ulna in a free-ranging adult female Iberian Wolf (Canis lupus signatus) with an osteosynthesis plate and screws and subsequent post-operative care are described. The evolution of the fracture healing was very similar to those expected in a dog of the same si...
Injured free-ranging wolves (Canis lupus) are often rehabilitated and released into the wild, but there is limited data on their post-release survival and behavior.We used global positioning system telemetry to document movements and spatial overlap with resident packs of 2 wolves in northern Portugal that were released following rehabilitation fro...
The Grey wolf (Canis lupus) was distributed across the whole European continent some centuries ago. The continuous persecution led to species extinction in most of its European range but it is presently recolonizing old territories. Currently, 11,000 wolves are estimated to occur in Europe divided into 10 different populations. Slovak wolves are pa...
Noninvasive samples for genetic analyses have become essential to address ecological questions. Popular noninvasive samples such as faeces contain degraded DNA which may compromise genotyping success. Saliva is an excellent alternative DNA source but scarcity of suitable collection methods makes its use anecdotal in field ecological studies. We dev...
Documento que compila a informação mais atual sobre o lobo-ibérico em Portugal, relevante para o Plano de Ação para a Conservação do Lobo-Ibérico em Portugal (PACLobo).
The effects of Pleistocene glaciations on moulding biodiversity have been extensively investigated within temperate biomes, yet arid ecosystems are largely neglected. A clear example comes from North Africa and the successive range of expansion/contraction cycles of the Sahara desert. This study focuses on North African foxes (genus Vulpes), in par...
Granting legal protection to an endangered species has long been considered a major milestone for its conservation and recovery. A multitude of examples such as wolves in the contiguous USA (Boitani 2003) or many large carnivore populations in Europe (Chapron et al. 2014) have revealed how instrumental wildlife protection laws can be for species re...
The golden jackal of Africa (Canis aureus) has long been considered a conspecific of jackals distributed throughout Eurasia, with the nearest source populations in the Middle East. However, two recent reports found that mitochondrial haplotypes of some African golden jackals aligned more closely to gray wolves (Canis lupus) [1, 2], which is surpris...
Shape files of current and historical distribution maps of large carnivore species in Europe. Also available from http://datadryad.org/resource/doi:10.5061/dryad.986mp
The conservation of large carnivores is a formidable challenge for biodiversity conservation. Using a data set on the past
and current status of brown bears (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), gray wolves (Canis lupus), and wolverines (Gulo gulo) in European countries, we show that roughly one-third of mainland Europe hosts at least one larg...
Hematology and serum biochemistry are important tools in assessing the health and physiological status of wildlife populations. Nevertheless, studies on free-ranging wolves (Canis lupus) are scarce, and no reference values are available neither for Iberian wolves nor for wolves captured with leg-hold snares. We report 37 hematology and serum bioche...
