José A Sánchez-Zapata

Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche | UMH · Department of Applied Biology

Since the origin of early Homo species during the Late Pliocene, interactions of humans with scavenging birds and mammals have changed in form through shifting ecological scenarios. How humans procured meat during the Quaternary Period changed from confrontational scavenging to hunting; shepherding of wild animals; and, eventually, intensive husban...

PDF of submitted version available for free at: http://publish.illinois.edu/maxallen/files/2019/06/Sebastian-Gonzalez-et-al.-MS.pdf Understanding the distribution of biodiversity across the Earth is one of the most challenging questions in biology. Much research has been directed at explaining the species latitudinal pattern showing that communi...

Concern for megafauna is increasing among scientists and non-scientists. Many studies have emphasized that megafauna play prominent ecological roles and provide important ecosystem services to humanity. But, what precisely are ‘megafauna’? Here, we critically assess the concept of megafauna and propose a goal-oriented framework for megafaunal resea...

In regions with a long-standing history of grazing pressure, vegetation has co-evolved with herbivores by developing intrinsic functional dynamics. Although this type of trophic interaction has been recognised as being important for shaping how vegetation responds to climate, better knowledge about how this process occurs on the landscape scale and...

Invasive Alien Species (IAS) alter ecosystems, disrupting ecological processes and driving the loss of ecosystem services. The common carp Cyprinus carpio is a hazardous and widespread IAS, becoming the most abundant species in many aquatic ecosystems. This species transforms ecosystems by accumulating biomass to the detriment of other species, thu...

There is broad consensus that increasing the use of renewable energies is effective to mitigate the global climate crisis. However, the development of renewables may carry environmental impacts, and their expansion could accelerate biodiversity loss (1). However, Dunnett et al. (2) have recently estimated a minimal overlap between renewable energy...

In recent decades, intensive techniques of livestock raising have flourished, which has largely replaced traditional farming practices such as transhumance. These changes may have affected scavengers’ behaviour and ecology, as extensive livestock is a key source of carrion. This study evaluates the spatial responses of avian scavengers to the seaso...

Carrion production is one of the most crucial yet neglected and understudied processes in food webs and ecosystems. In this study, we performed a large-scale estimation of the maximum potential production and spatial distribution of ungulate carrion biomass from five major sources in penin-sular Spain, both anthropogenic (livestock, big game huntin...

Ecosystem services associated with cetacean strandings have been altered by humans through exploitation of wild populations during the whaling era and more recently by regulations on carcass management and disposal to abide by environmental health requirements. Here, we systematically review the scientific literature and gather data on cetacean str...

There is a long‐standing relationship between humans and vertebrate scavengers, as scavengers' contributions take on regulating (e.g. nutrient recycling and disease control), material (e.g. competition and livestock depredation) and non‐material (e.g. sky burials and ecotourism) roles in society. A social–ecological approach to studying biodiversit...

Scavenging is a key ecological process controlling energy flow in ecosystems and providing valuable ecosystem services worldwide. As long‐lived species, the demographic dynamics of vultures can be disrupted by spatio‐temporal fluctuations in food availability, with dramatic impacts on their population viability and the ecosystem services provided....

Carrion consumption by scavengers is a key component of both terrestrial and aquatic food webs. However, there are few direct comparisons of the structure and functioning of scavenging communities in different ecosystems. Here, we monitored the consumption of 23 fish (seabream Sparus aurata) and 34 bird (yellow-legged gull Larus michahellis) carcas...

Over millennia, human intervention has transformed European habitats mainly through extensive livestock grazing. “Dehesas/Montados” are an Iberian savannah-like ecosystem dominated by oak-trees, bushes and grass species that are subject to agricultural and extensive livestock uses. They are a good example of how large-scale, low intensive transform...

Nature's contributions to people (NCP) may be both beneficial and detrimental to humans' quality of life. Since our origins, humans have been closely related to wild ungulates, which have traditionally played an outstanding role as a source of food or raw materials. Currently, wild ungulates are declining in some regions, but recovering in others t...

Species assemblages often have a non‐random nested organization, which in vertebrate scavenger (carrion‐consuming) assemblages is thought to be driven by facilitation in competitive environments. However, not all scavenger species play the same role in maintaining assemblage structure, as some species are obligate scavengers (i.e., vultures) and ot...

Scavenging is widespread among vertebrates, being very important for maintaining certain ecosystem functions. Despite this, the scavenger communities remain poorly known in some biomes, especially in the Neotropics. Our main objective was to describe for the first time the scavenger community and identify the factors affecting scavenging efficiency...

The recent SARS-CoV-2 epidemic has highlighted the need to prevent emerging and re-emerging diseases, which means that we must approach the study of diseases from a One Health perspective. The study of pathogen transmission in wildlife is challenging, but it is unquestionably key to understand how epidemiological interactions occur at the wildlife-...

Background Electrocution and collisions on power lines are among the leading causes of non-natural mortality for birds. Power lines are exponentially increasing, particularly in developing countries, but mitigation strategies to prevent bird mortality are questionable. Mongolia combines a recently increased power line network, an abundant raptor po...

Unos 150 aerogeneradores y más de 120 kilómetros de nuevos tendidos eléctricos traerán a Cabrera los proyectos de parques eólicos previstos en esta comarca del suroeste de la provincia de León. Los valores naturales de estas montañas y valles son tan desconocidos y están tan amenazados que lo que merecerían es un Parque Natural.

Despite the essential role that vertebrate scavengers play in ecosystems, most studies have been conducted in Europe and North America, and there is a lack of information on vertebrate scavengers in vast regions of the world. Our aim was to describe the functioning and composition of the unknown vertebrate scavenger assemblage in the Gobi Desert, M...

The Eurasian Eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) meets the requirements of a suitable sentinel species for biomonitoring environmental contaminants in Southeastern Spain (Murcia Region and Alicante Province). In this area, it is an abundant species, showing the highest breeding density within its distribution range. Since 1992, different sample types from free-l...

Vultures and condors are among the most threatened avian species in the world due to the impacts of human activities. Negative perceptions can contribute to these threats as some vulture species have been historically blamed for killing livestock. This perception of conflict has increased in recent years, associated with a viral spread of partial a...

Sexual segregation is widely reported among sexually dimorphic species and generally attributed to intraspecific competition. Prey diversity and human activities can reinforce niche segregation by increasing resource heterogeneity. Here, we explored trophic and spatial sexual segregation in the only avian scavenger that exhibits pronounced sexual s...

Birds striking aircraft cause substantial economic loss worldwide and, more worryingly, human and wildlife fatalities. Designing effective measures to avoid fatal bird strikes requires in‐depth knowledge of the characteristics of this incident type and the flight behaviors of the bird species involved. The characteristics of bird strikes involving...

Habitat anthropization is a powerful stressor affecting the health and fitness of organisms, ultimately impacting their population dynamics. In vertebrates, stressful living conditions are usually associated with elevated glucocorticoids-based responses (GCs) as well as shorter telomeres, which are in turn associated with decreased overall body con...

Soaring birds use the energy available in the environment in the form of atmospheric uplifts, to subsidize their flight. Their dependence on soaring opportunities makes them extremely sensitive to anthropogenic wind energy development. Predictive modelling is now considered instrumental to forecast the impact of wind farms on single species of conc...

Scavenging is key to understanding ecosystem structure and functioning, both in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Here, we compare the structure and carrion consumption efficiency of the scavenger communities occurring in terrestrial and shallow marine habitats on and around a Mediterranean island. During July 2018, we monitored the consumption...

Transhumance is an extensive livestock technique that consist on the seasonal movement of herds to take advantage of natural high-quality pastures. Extensive pastoralism modulates the landscape, provide ecosystem services as well as feeding opportunities for scavengers. However, transhumance is in decline mainly due to socio-economic changes, so th...

Soil microorganisms maintain soil functions, playing a key role in nutrient cycling. However, human activities may alter ecological processes through, for instance, wildlife management tools, which affect environment conditions. Some management tools, such as diversionary feeding, are a source of organic matter and promote high animal densities in...

Intentional poisoning is a global wildlife problem and an overlooked risk factor for public health. Managing poisoning requires unbiased and high-quality data through wildlife monitoring protocols, which are largely lacking. We herein evaluated the biases associated with current monitoring programmes of wildlife poisoning in Spain. We compared the...

Animal behavior is greatly shaped by the ‘landscape of fear’, induced by predation risk, and the equivalent ‘landscape of disgust’, induced by parasitism or infection risk. However, the role that carrion may play in these landscapes of peril has been largely overlooked. Here, we aim to emphasize that animal carcasses likely represent ubiquitous hot...

Expertos en derecho ambiental y conservación de especies amenazadas analizan en el siguiente artículo las más de cien sentencias penales dictadas en España a los envenenadores de fauna salvaje. Sus conclusiones y recomendaciones deberían ser tenidas muy en cuenta para mejorar la lucha contra el veneno en el medio natural.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global priority. To meet this goal, the Spanish government is planning 89 GW of wind and solar photovoltaic energy in the draft of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) for 2021–2030 (1). Despite the Spanish government's efforts to prevent a speculative bubble in the secondary market, there a...

Identifying the most appropriate bait for a camera trap study is an important step in sampling design, as some baits may perform better than others in attracting different animal species. In this study, we compare the vertebrate communities detected using five different widely used baits (i.e., fruit, sardines, valerian extract, a mix of sweet frui...

En noviembre de 2018, en el entorno de un proyecto de apoyo a la trashumancia, se instalaron collares con dispositivos GPS en cinco rebaños de ovino segureño trashumante originarios de la comarca de Santiago Pontones (Jaén). Estos rebaños pastan en los Campos de Hernán Perea durante el agostadero (junio a noviembre) y trashuman para la invernada a...

In today’s societies, scavengers play an important role as providers of nature’s contribution to people (NCP), such as disease control and carcass removal. Yet very little is known about the non-material NCP (i.e. nature’s effects on subjective and psychological aspects of people’s well-being) that scavengers provide societies with. The first aim o...

Protected areas are central to the conservation of biodiversity across the globe. However, their performance, especially in relation to highly mobile species, is largely dependent on the socio-ecological characteristics of the landscape that surrounds them. Here, we assess the patterns of avian scavenger distribution, including both obligate (i.e.,...

Vultures are one of the most threatened bird groups globally. Although many of the threats faced by vultures have been identified, the impact of human activities on the social life of vultures has received little attention. In this paper, we emphasize the need to integrate vulture sociality into conservation practice. First, we summarize current kn...

The organization of ecological assemblages has important implications for ecosystem functioning, but little is known about how scavenger communities organize at the global scale. Here, we test four hypotheses on the factors affecting the network structure of terrestrial vertebrate scavenger assemblages and its implications on ecosystem functioning....

Exploitative competition implies an indirect interaction in which a resource exploited by one species is not available for another; e.g., when species share diet or habitat. It plays a key role in community structure and dynamics. Here we evaluated the niche overlap between the exotic aoudad (Ammotragus lervia) and the native Iberian ibex (Capra py...

This is the list of papers included in the systematic review by Lozano et al. (2019) published in Biological Conservation: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.07.002

Lead intoxication is an important threat to human health and a large number of wildlife species. Animals are exposed to several sources of lead highlighting hunting ammunition and lead that is bioavailable in topsoil. Disentangling the role of each in lead exposure is an important conservation issue, particularly for species potentially affected by...

Vertebrate scavenger communities vary in species composition across the globe. They include a wide array of species with diverse ecological strategies and life‐histories that support essential ecosystem functions, such as carrion removal. While previous studies have mostly focussed on how community aspects such as species richness and composition a...

El uso ilegal del veneno es una de las principales amenazas para la conservación de especies, particularmente de carroñeros y depredadores. Aunque no existe información fiable sobre el impacto real del veneno en España, entre 1992 y 2013 se ha estimado que podrían haber muerto unos 185.000 animales entre aves y mamíferos. A pesar del elevado número...

Events of non-natural mortality in human-dominated landscapes are especially challenging for populations of large vertebrates with K strategies. Among birds, vultures are one of the most threatened groups experiencing sharp population declines due to non-natural mortality. Factors causing non-natural mortality are usually studied separately. Howeve...

Mobile species face an array of human threats across political boundaries, and their protection relies on identifying and prioritizing areas for conservation. Large avian scavengers are one of the widest ranging and most threatened species globally, and efforts to preserve them have come to the forefront of wildlife management. Vultures require acc...

Nature's contributions to people (NCP) are all the contributions of living nature, both beneficial and detrimental, to the societies' life's quality. Ungulates play this dual role of providers of beneficial and detrimental NCP, as they are responsible of the supply of benefits (e.g. extractive experiences, habitat maintenance) and detriments (e.g....

The Mediterranean biome has seen a great decline in its rural population. This trend has been followed by an abandonment of agricultural and livestock practices, which has provided an opportunity for rewilding to take place. Rewilding processes can modify the availability of carrion resources for avian obligate scavengers and reduce accessible open...

Vertebrate scavenger communities vary in species composition across the globe, and include a wide array of species with diverse ecological strategies and life-histories that support essential ecosystem functions, such as carrion removal. While previous studies have mostly focussed on how community aspects such as species richness and composition af...