Inmaculada Abril Colón

The National Museum of Natural Sciences · Evolutionary Ecology

We studied the effects of visibility, female and male distribution, microhabitat and distance to human infrastructure on display site selection in a ground-dwelling bird, the Canarian houbara bustard. Using a very high-resolution digital elevation model based on LIDAR technology, and a complete census of the breeding population, we compared 98 disp...

Comprender los cambios en el uso del espacio y el comportamiento reproductivo de las especies, sobre todo de aquellas que se encuentran amenazadas, es crucial no solo para mejorar el conocimiento sobre las mismas, sino para poder aplicar medidas de conservación que eviten su declive y posible extinción. Esta tesis doctoral tiene como objetivo profu...

An endangered subspecies of the African houbara bustard, the Canarian houbara (Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae), is endemic to the Canary Islands off southern Morocco (Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and La Graciosa islands). This population decreased over the last centuries because of hunting and egg collection, and was close to extinction in Lanzar...

Background The home range of an animal is determined by its ecological requirements, and these may vary depending on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which are ultimately driven by food resources. Investigating the effects of these factors, and specifically how individuals use food resources within their home ranges is essential to understand...

A good location of song or call posts and visual display sites of males is crucial for territory defence and mate attraction. These sites are typically located at prominent positions to ensure an efficient, long-distance sexual advertisement. If the purpose of display sites is to maximize visibility, a suitable strategy would be to use multiple dis...

Migratory birds typically fly long distances in response to large-scale seasonal climate variation. However, most migratory species are partial migrants, and some fly only short distances , for example to take advantage of suitable feeding conditions during the non-breeding season. In spite of their short distance, such migrations may also be fixed...

Se han documentado por primera vez movimientos entre islas en la hubara canaria. Un macho liberado con emisor en La Graciosa a finales de 2020 voló a Lanzarote y de ahí a Fuerteventura en un periplo de varios meses. Estos desplazamientos facilitarían el intercambio genético entre las distintas poblaciones de esta subespecie endémica.

The importance of nocturnal display in diurnal birds has been neglected for a long time, owing to the difficulties in recording behaviour by night. Using loggers with an accelerometer (ACC) we studied nocturnal display in male African houbara bustards, Chlamydotis undulata, ssp. fuertaventurae. Diurnal display of male houbaras consists of a visual...

Monitoring programmes are needed to assess the conservation status of species and to quantify the effectiveness of conservation effort. Rare species are usually poorly studied due to difficulties in monitoring. We evaluated the use of autonomous recording units (ARUs) coupled with automated song recognition for monitoring the presence of Dupont’s L...

Melanin-based colouration of tegument structures may be related to variability in the expression of certain strategies or behaviours within a species, including the propensity to disperse. This is because melanin synthesis may be physiologically linked to certain behaviours and personality traits, as proposed by the hypothesis of the pleiotropy in...

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Comportamiento territorial de los machos de alondra ricotí durante el periodo reproductor en la ZEPA Altos de Barahona, Soria.

Las aves se caracterizan por ser generalmente filopátricas. Sin embargo, la variación en la dispersión natal (movimientos individuales desde el lugar de nacimiento al de la primera reproducción) puede depender de muchos factores, entre los que destacan la calidad del hábitat, la densidad de competidores, el fenotipo individual y el sexo. En este es...

Los depredadores generalmente suscitan respuestas rápidas por parte de las presas cuando éstas se exponen al riesgo de depredación. Las áreas sujetas a un aprovechamiento cinegético pueden alterar la presión de depredación y, consecuentemente, modificar el comportamiento de las presas. En este estudio, desarrollado entre junio y septiembre de 2011,...

The southern shrike (Lanius meridionalis) is declining at the Spanish and European level. One cause of this decline could be low reproductive success due to low availability of prey in agricultural environments. To investigate this possibility we analysed the breeding ecology of a population of southern shrike in an agrosystem in Lomas de Padul (SE...