Frédéric Jiguet

• Professor
• Professor at Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle

Understanding the occurrence of vagrant individuals away from their usual distribution range can shed light on animal navigation systems. In autumn, migratory Nearctic landbirds often occur as far as Western Europe, and while the link between these occurrences and wind conditions over the Atlantic Ocean is largely established, the drivers and natal...

The destruction and degradation of natural ecosystems is a major driver of biodiversity loss. The steppe ecosystem is under threat from human activities and habitat degradation. Fine‐scale breeding habitat selection is critical for the survival of steppe birds, but understanding the factors that drive this selection remains challenging. This study...

We analyzed data retrieved from six multi-sensor loggers deployed on adult Western Orphean Warblers Curruca hortensis in France, to unravel the migration strategy of the species. Individuals followed a mostly direct, straight-line route towards wintering areas in North Senegal/South Mauritania, which was consistent across individuals and between au...

Birds can cause significant damage to agricultural fields, notably in Europe, where corvid species like carrion crows (Corvus corone) and rooks (Corvus frugilegus) target spring crops, posing challenges for conservation and wildlife management. Among targeted crops, sunflower and maize suffer the highest levels of damage from corvids' foraging. Whi...

Migratory species experience various conditions and events throughout their annual cycle that influence their spatial and demographic dynamics. To understand these dynamics, it is essential to describe the origin and destination of individuals. Migratory connectivity, which is defined as the geographic linkage between populations across the annual...

In war and conflict zones, the jamming of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNNS) signals by military forces disrupts the tracking of tagged animals, and has increased in frequency following the recent escalation of conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Such disruption to data collection strongly hampers research into the protection an...

The installation of automatic detection systems (ADSs) on operating wind energy facilities is a mitigation measure to reduce bird collisions. The effectiveness of an ADS depends on a combination of parameters, including the detection distance of the bird, its flight speed, and the time to complete the chosen action (e.g., turbine shutdown). We crea...

Context Throughout their annual cycle and life stages, animals depend on a variety of habitats to meet their vital needs. However, habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation are making it increasingly difficult for mobile species such as birds to find suitable habitats. Wetlands are highly productive systems of great importance to many animals, b...

We report the non-breeding range of an adult Rapa Shearwater Puffinus myrtae , as estimated from data collected by one light logger deployed from 31 August 2019 to 22 July 2020. The Rapa Shearwater is classified as “Critically Endangered”, with a strong decline in breeding numbers reported recently. As the species is threatened by various introduce...

The increasing abundance of animal species thriving in urban environments is a source of conflicts with managers and users of public spaces. Although opportunistic urban species often use resources originating from human food leftovers, the potential impact of a reduction in these resources on their demography is hard to quantify. The COVID-19 epid...

The MIGRALION program as been launched in 2021 to understand how birds cross the Gulf of Lion during migratory flights, before the settlement of offshore wind energy facilities in the Mediterranean Sea. We focus on two species of waders that nest along the Mediterranean shores: the Pied avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) and the Black-winged stilt (Hi...

The recent development of tracking technologies has allowed to discover how small migratory birds cope with large ecological barriers such as seas and deserts, displaying remarkable behaviors like extreme diel flight altitude changes when crossing the Sahara Desert. However, the drivers and the prevalence of such behaviors among terrestrial migrant...

The population dynamics of urban animals has been so far remarkably understudied. At the same time, urban species’ population trends can provide important information on the consequences of environmental changes in cities. We modelled long-term population trends of 93 bird species breeding in urban areas in 16 European countries as a function of sp...

Geographic distribution models of environmentally stable isotopes (the so‐called “isoscapes”) are widely employed in animal ecology, and wildlife forensics and conservation. However, the application of isoscapes is limited to elements and regions for which the spatial patterns have been estimated. Here, we focused on the ubiquitous yet less commonl...

Species niches may impact population and community stability by influencing average population sizes and species richness, however, niche-based approaches are rarely applied when studying stability in natural communities. Here we utilise a niche-based approach to link niche characteristics to community stability in 140 European butterfly communitie...

Aim The abundance and distribution of multiple species are interconnected through various mechanisms (e.g. biotic interactions or common responses to the environment) shaping communities. Joint species distribution models (jSDM) have been introduced as a potential tool to integrate these mechanisms when modelling multiple species distributions, by...

Although positive effects on biodiversity of woody features in agricultural landscapes are widely recognized, questions remain as to which landscape context to prioritize their implementation and in what proportion. To investigate the response of farmland biodiversity to small woody features (SWF) density in different landscape compositions (cropla...

Coastal, and to a lesser extend inland wetlands, are critical habitats for wintering shorebirds. Given the significant population declines of most shorebird species worldwide, the current degradation of coastal habitats through climate change and human activities raises severe conservation concerns. In order to ensure sufficient and adequate habita...

Biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate. Many grassland species have been lost and are now of conservation concern. Identifying efficient biodiversity indicators is a key pillar of the global conservation strategy. Mongolian Lark (Melanocorypha mongolica) is a charismatic bird species abound in Mongolian steppes, and recent studies demon...

The Eurasian Curlew is an endangered migratory shorebird benefiting from numerous conservation efforts in Europe, including the remote tracking of individuals to document habitat use and migration strategy. Formerly hunted in France, the species is subject to a hunting ban since 2020. By analysing the data collected by multisensor tags deployed on...

The Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata) forms with the Mediterranean Flycatcher (M. tyrrhenica) a newly recognized species pair of trans-Saharan migratory passerines. These flycatchers present a nested peripatric distribution, a pattern especially unusual among high dispersal species which questions the eco-evolutionary factors involved during t...

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...

EU member countries and the UK are currently installing numerous offshore windfarms (OWFs) in the Baltic and North Seas to achieve decarbonization of their energy systems. OWFs may have adverse effects on birds; however, estimates of collision risks and barrier effects for migratory species are notably lacking, but are essential to inform marine sp...

Declines in European bird populations are reported for decades but the direct effect of major anthropogenic pressures on such declines remains unquantified. Causal relationships between pressures and bird population responses are difficult to identify as pressures interact at different spatial scales and responses vary among species. Here, we uncov...

Many farmland birds, such as the Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata; hereinafter Curlew), are insteep decline. So far, decreased reproduction and, hence, an insufficient number of offspring to compensate for adult mortality has been considered the main driver of the recent populationcollapse. However, despite extensive conservation measures in most...

Climate warming is driving species to shift their geographical distribution poleward to track suitable climatic conditions. Two strategies have been suggested to help species respond to climate warming: facilitating distribution change or improving persistence. We questioned whether habitat management in favour of duck hunting activities interacted...

At large scales, the mechanisms underpinning stability in natural communities may vary in importance due to changes in species composition, mean abundance, and species richness. Here we link species characteristics (niche positions) and community characteristics (richness and abundance) to evaluate the importance of stability mechanisms in 156 butt...

Geographic distribution models of environmental stable isotopes (so called "isoscapes") are widely employed in animal ecology, wildlife forensics and conservation. However, the application of isoscapes is limited to elements and regions for which the spatial patterns have been estimated. Here, we focused on the ubiquitous yet less commonly used sta...

The urban environment is associated with a multitude of challenges and stressors for populations of wild species from the surrounding natural environment. Among those, habitat fragmentation and noise pollution are suspected to have negative effects on the behavior and physiology of free-living birds in urban areas. Exposure in early life and chroni...

Installation of offshore wind farms (OWFs) is becoming increasingly important to ensure a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; however, OWFs also pose a threat to migrating birds and other wildlife. Informed marine spatial planning is therefore crucial, but individual‐based high‐resolution data on bird migration across the sea are currently lacki...

Sex is an important parameter to consider when studying population dynamics and movement ecology, for example, though sex determination is often difficult in young birds of sexually monomorphic species, with large biometric overlap between sexes. We aimed at determining the sex of first-calendar-year (1cy) Carrion Crows, in order to study temporal...

The Iberian and North African populations of reed warblers have been recently described as a separate taxon, ambiguus, forming a sister clade to the Sahelian subspecies minor of African Reed Warbler Acrocephalus baeticatus. While the breeding range of ambiguus has been identified, the migration strategy of its populations remained unknown. We deplo...

Aim It is important to understand the factors affecting community stability because ecosystem function is increasingly at risk from biodiversity loss. Here, we evaluate how a key factor, the position of local environmental conditions within the thermal range of the species, influences the stability of butterfly communities at a continental scale....

Modelling the distribution of breeding birds for the Second European Breeding Bird Atlas (EBBA2), promoted by the European Bird Census Council (EBCC), was challenging and required the test and development of robust statistical procedures to provide accurate maps of species distribution. To de-velop the maps of EBBA2, we explored several modelling o...

Space-based tracking technology using low-cost miniature tags is now delivering data on fine-scale animal movement at near-global scale. Linked with remotely sensed environmental data, this offers a biological lens on habitat integrity and connectivity for conservation and human health; a global network of animal sentinels of environmental change.

Jankowski’s Bunting Emberiza jankowskii is one of several grassland birds that have suffered major population declines across their ranges, and the cause of these declines remains largely unknown. To determine what demographic drivers are responsible for their decline, we combined specific annual female productivity from a local Jankowski’s Bunting...

In order to understand species’ sensitivity to habitat change, we must correctly determine if a species is associated with a habitat or not, and if it is associated, its degree of specialization for that habitat. However, definitions of species’ habitat association and specialization are often static, categorical classifications that coarsely defin...

Le Phragmite aquatique (Acrocephalus paludicola) est le passereau continental le plus menacé d’Europe. Il est classé en catégorie « Vulnérable » sur la liste rouge de l’UICN. Depuis 2003, un mémorandum d’accord concernant les mesures de conservation de l’espèce a été signé dans le cadre de la Convention sur les espèces migratrices appartenant à la...

Knowledge of the origin and spatial distribution of migratory bird contingents is essential information for the study and conservation of their populations. In short-distance migratory birds, their propensity to migrate has reduced over the past decades: more individuals remain year-round on the breeding grounds, and those that migrate winter at cl...

Natural sounds, and bird song in particular, play a key role in building and maintaining our connection with nature, but widespread declines in bird populations mean that the acoustic properties of natural soundscapes may be changing. Using data-driven reconstructions of soundscapes in lieu of historical recordings, here we quantify changes in soun...

On 9 August 2020, one of 10 tagged Eurasian curlews we tracked with GPS died on Ile Madame, France, and we managed to collect the corpse for further analyses. Our investigation proved that the bird was shot, as x-ray imagery revealed a single lead ball under the bill skin, while the bill had been recently broken. The study of the GPS tracks during...

The Eurasian Curlew is an endangered long-lived shorebird breeding in grassland and moorland, with declining numbers across its range due to habitat loss and former hunting. In this context, any additional adult mortality can have a noticeable impact on population dynamics, hence on extinction risk. We report a case of a GPS-tagged individual which...

The evolution of migration routes in birds remains poorly understood as changes in migration strategies are rarely observed on contemporary timescales. The Richard’s Pipit, a migratory songbird breeding in Siberian grasslands and wintering in Southeast Asia, has only recently become a regular autumn and winter visitor to western Europe. Here, we ex...

Capsule Migration associations by Eurasian Curlews Numenius arquata are temporary and last for single flight bouts between stopover sites. Aims Migrant shorebirds are known to initiate migration communally, with groups of birds departing simultaneously from wintering or post-breeding fuelling sites, though the duration of such migratory associatio...

Increasing urbanisation and human pressure on lands have huge impacts on biodiversity. Some species, known as “urban exploiters”, manage to expand in urban landscapes, relying on human resources. The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is the perfect example of a human-commensal species. Surprisingly, this urban exploiter has been declining all over...

The loss and fragmentation of natural habitats because of anthropogenic activities are major threats to biodiversity worldwide. In recent decades, vast mosaics of natural and seminatural habitats have been transformed into fragmented agricultural landscapes in Inner Mongolia, China, with potential negative effects on avian diversity. We quantified...

Urban crows feed mainly on food wastes, also often dig up plantations and uproot grass in search of soil invertebrates, locally leading to extended damages to flower and lawn beds. Lethal methods to reduce crow numbers are largely inefficient, because of the large spatial scale of metapopulation dynamics. We tested experimentally if the mowing mana...

Increasing land use intensification (“LUI”) threatens ecosystem functioning by altering the flows of net primary production (“NPP”) and interacts with other drivers of change (landscape use, climate). According to the “species-energy” hypothesis, such alteration of NPP flows should affect biodiversity patterns. However, the capability of the human...

There is sparse and contradictory information concerning the migratory status and non-breeding range of the endangered Jankowski’s Bunting Emberiza jankowskii, precluding the possible development of conservation measures dedicated to protecting habitats occupied across the full-annual cycle. To unravel the migratory strategy and identify the non-br...

Around fifteen thousand fieldworkers annually count breeding birds using standardized protocols in 28 European countries. The observations are collected by using country-specific and standardized protocols, validated, summarized and finally used for the production of continent-wide annual and long-term indices of population size changes of 170 spec...

Wildlife conservation policies directed at common and widespread, but declining, species are difficult to design and implement effectively, as multiple environmental changes are likely to contribute to population declines. Conservation actions ultimately aim to influence demographic rates, but targeting actions towards feasible improvements in thes...

Global climate change is driving species' distributions towards the poles and mountain tops during both non‐breeding and breeding seasons, leading to changes in the composition of natural communities. However, the degree of season differences in climate‐driven community shifts has not been thoroughly investigated at large spatial scales. We compare...

The Natura 2000 protected area network (N2000), implemented under the Birds and Habitats Directives (respectively, Special Protection Areas, SPA, and Special Areas of Conservation, SAC), constitutes a key tool for the conservation of European biodiversity. To date, few studies have looked at its long-term effect on biodiversity and even fewer on co...

The recent discovery that cats and mustelids can be infected by SARS-CoV-2 may raise the question of monitoring domestic, feral and wild populations of such animals, as an adjunct to the elimination of COVID-19 in humans. Emergency solutions might consider large scale control of these animals in the wild. However, looking at science recently publis...

The geographic origin of migratory birds can be traced using measurements of stable-hydrogen isotopes (δ2H) in their feathers. In continental Europe, local amount-weighted mean annual δ2H in precipitation varies with latitude, so that assignments of geographical origin of bird feathers are linked to latitude. Consequently, a potential northward lat...

The European Union's Natura 2000 (N2000) is among the largest international networks of protected areas. One of its aims is to secure the status of a predetermined set of (targeted) bird and butterfly species. However, nontarget species may also benefit from N2000. We evaluated how the terrestrial component of this network affects the abundance of...

This report includes the first records for Egypt of Broad-billed Roller Eurystomus glaucurus, Bearded Reedling Panurus biarmicus and Banded Martin Riparia cincta, which are all additions to category A of the Egyptian list.

Aim To evaluate the patterns of bird assemblage and distribution in an endangered grassland system, taking into accounts both environmental and biotic effects. To further focus on an endangered songbird and associated steppe birds. Location Inner Mongolia, China. Methods We investigated the relative importance of abiotic and biotic factors drivin...

Although the impacts of climate and land‐use changes on biodiversity have been widely documented, their joint effects remain poorly understood. We evaluated how nonbreeding waterbird communities adjust to climate warming along a gradient of land‐use change. Using midwinter waterbird counts (132 species) at 164 major nonbreeding sites in 22 Mediterr...

Although biological conservation is based on international agreements, its effectiveness depends on how countries implement such recommendations as effective conservation tools. The Ramsar Convention is the oldest international treaty for wetland and waterbird conservation, establishing the world's largest network of protected areas. However, since...

Each year, billions of songbirds cross large ecological barriers during their migration. Understanding how they perform this incredible task is crucial to predict how global change may threaten the safety of such journeys. Earlier studies based on radar suggested that most songbirds cross deserts in intermittent flights at high altitude, stopping i...

The greatest loss of biodiversity in the EU has occurred on agricultural land. The Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is one of the many numerous and widespread European farmland breeding bird species showing major population declines linked to European agricultural intensification. Here we present results based on monitoring data collected since 1...

Climate change is a major global threat to biodiversity with widespread impacts on ecological communities. Evidence for beneficial impacts on populations is perceived to be stronger and more plentiful than that for negative impacts, but few studies have investigated this apparent disparity, or how ecological factors affect population responses to c...

The greatest loss of biodiversity in the EU has occurred on agricultural land. The Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is one of the many numerous and widespread European farmland breeding bird species showing major population declines linked to European agricultural intensification. Here we present results based on monitoring data collected since 1...

Measuring the impacts of urban pollution on biodiversity is important to identify potential adaptations and mitigations needed for preserving wildlife even in city centers. Foot deformities are ubiquitous in urban pigeons. The reasons for these mutilations have been debated, as caused by frequenting a highly zoonotic environment, by chemical or mec...

It is essential to gain knowledge about the causes and extent of migratory connectivity between stationary periods of migrants to further the understanding of processes affecting populations, and to allow efficient implementation of conservation efforts throughout the annual cycle. Avian migrants likely use optimal routes with respect to mode of lo...

In order to study the global decline of biodiversity, accurate models of animal population dynamics are required. In this paper, this challenging problem of biodiversity decline analysis is tackled by modelling the dynamics of bird populations. More specifically, a new data-driven modelling of bird population dynamics is suggested which resorts to...

Climate variability drives many aspects of the ecology of species directly or indirectly through changes in habitat type and structure, and thus long-term climatic variability has been thought to be the key determinant of community structure and change at large spatial scales. We review potential and reported impacts of climate change on shifts in...

Naturally occurring stable isotopes of several elements are important tracers in the study the wildlife ecology including the identification of origins for migration research, investigations of trophic relationships, and in the forensic determination of illegally harvested and captive fauna. Extensive illegal trapping for use as decoys and in cuisi...

Dealing with the erosion of terrestrial biodiversity has become of key importance in order to ensure ecosystems sustainability. Agricultural and forestry activities are one major anthropogenic driver of this decline. The underlying land-use changes result in the alteration of species habitats. In this context reconciling economic and ecological obj...

By analysing the deuterium concentration in the scapulars and rectrices (δ²Hf) of breeding and spring migrating Ortolan Buntings (Emberiza hortulana), we found a high correlation attesting that spring body and central rectrices have grown in similar isotopic environments. Furthermore, we failed to find a correlation between δ²Hf of the rectrices an...

In France, illegal hunting of the endangered ortolan bunting Emberiza hortulana has been defended for the sake of tradition and gastronomy. Hunters argued that ortolan buntings trapped in southwest France originate from large and stable populations across the whole of Europe. Yet, the European Commission referred France to the Court of Justice of t...

Biodiversity underpins a number of ecological processes crucial to agricultural production. Agro-landscapes are instrumental for the conservation of biodiversity, including wild and domestic species. A key challenge for European agriculture and conservation policies is to develop land-use strategies that reconcile agricultural production and farmla...

Currently, the deployment of tracking devices is one of the most frequently used approaches to study movement ecology of birds. Recent miniaturization of light‐level geolocators enabled studying small bird species whose migratory patterns were widely unknown. However, geolocators may reduce vital rates in tagged birds and may bias obtained movement...

Mountain areas often hold special species communities, and they are high on the list of conservation concern. Global warming and changes in human land use, such as grazing pressure and afforestation, have been suggested to be major threats for biodiversity in the mountain areas, affecting species abundance and causing distribution shifts towards mo...

It is possible to frame sustainability as occurring when the global or local system is within a set of limits and boundaries, such as the concept of safe operating spaces within planetary boundaries. However, such framings, whilst highly useful conceptually, have been difficult to translate into operation, especially in the development of policies....