Juan F. Beltran

University of Seville | US · Physiology and Zoology

Speciation, i.e., the formation of new species, implies that diverging populations evolve genetic and phenotypic factors that promote reproductive isolation (RI), but the adaptive vs. neutral origin of these factors and their relative contributions across the speciation continuum remain elusive. Here we test which of genomic, bioacoustic, morpholog...

Political responses to the COVID-19 pandemic led to changes in city soundscapes around the globe.From March to October 2020, a consortium of 261 contributors from 35 countries brought togetherby the Silent Cities project built a unique soundscape recordings collection to report on local acousticchanges in urban areas. We present this collection her...

The Earth Hologenome Initiative (EHI) is a global collaboration to generate and analyse hologenomic data from wild animals and associated microorganisms using standardised methodologies underpinned by open and inclusive research principles. Initially focused on vertebrates, it aims to re-examine ecological and evolutionary questions by studying hos...

In their recent paper, Van Hassel and Bovenkerk [...]

This research focuses on understanding the evolutionary history, dispersal patterns and diversification of amphibians and reptiles in the Strait of Gibraltar region. By analyzing Ultraconserved Elements (UCEs) from six amphibian and six reptile species, we highlight clear separations between Iberian and African populations, multiple colonization ev...

In this study we examine the common chameleon's (Chamaeleo chamaeleon) distribution in the Mediterranean region, focusing on introductions and breeding populations in the Iberian Peninsula. Genetic analysis reveals two main clades in Iberia, linked to introductions from North Africa, with evidence of human-mediated expansions. The research emphasiz...

Anurans are known to detect vibrations, but few studies explore relationships between vibrations and resultant behaviors. We studied the reaction of calling captive-bred male midwife toads (Alytes obstetricans) to the randomized playback of a vibrational crescendo stimulus train. We considered two sources of natural abiotic vibrational stimuli: rai...

Species distribution models (SDMs) are a key tool for biogeography and climate change research, although current approaches have some significant drawbacks. The use of species occurrence constrains predictions of correlative models, while there is a general lack of eco‐physiological data to develop mechanistic models. Passive acoustic monitoring is...

Global change is impacting our lives in many ways [...]

Competition, predation, and diseases are key factors shaping animal communities. In recent decades, lagomorphs in Europe have been impacted by virus-borne diseases that have caused substantial declines in their populations and, subsequently, in many of their predators. We examined activity and habitat-use patterns of sympatric European rabbits (Ory...

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) constitute a promising paradigm that could fit various applications. Monitoring based on the Internet of Things (IoT) has become a research area with new challenges in which to extract valuable information. This paper proposes a deep learning classification sound system for execution over CPS. This system is based on co...

Communities usually possess a multitude of interconnected trophic interactions within food webs. Their regulation generally depends on a balance between bottom-up and top-down effects. However, if sensitivity to temperature varies among species, rising temperatures may change trophic interactions via direct and indirect effects. We examined the cri...

A participatory monitoring programme of an exceptional modification of urban soundscapes during Covid-19 containment.

The developmental and biochemical mechanisms of colour change through chromatophore metachrosis in amphibian tadpoles are relatively well studied, but the environmental factors driving colour change remain unclear. A cryptic response to background colour in order to reduce predation is an intuitively valid explanation, however, other hypotheses nee...

Variation and population structure play key roles in the speciation process, but adaptive intraspecific genetic variation is commonly ignored when forecasting species niches. Amphibians serve as excellent models for testing how climate and local adaptations shape species distributions due to physiological and dispersal constraints and long generati...

En esta nota describimos un comportamiento necrofílico en sapo corredor (Epidalea calamita)relacionada con una depredación, posiblemente de nutria. En ella, discutimos las implicaciones de este fenómeno y sus posibles implicaciones reproductivas cómo se ha descrito en otros trabajos.

One common approach to assigning conservation priorities during the current biodiversity crisis is to identify and direct efforts to high profile, vulnerable taxa, and important biodiversity areas. We addressed the first issue by assessing the comparison between conservation status and habitat suitability under differing climate change scenarios fo...

. Recensión bibliográfica La rana de Shakespeare. Autor: Ricardo Reques. Editorial Baile del Sol. 312 páginas. Idioma: Castellano. Precio aprox.: 17,78 euros.

This work provides several records of reptiles and amphibians of the Gran Bilbao region during the decade of 1970. Some of the are unrecordered localities fot that taxons.

El género Alytes presenta cinco especies, Alytes obstetricans, dos endemismos ibéricos que tomaremos como modelo (Alytes cisternasii y Alytes dickhilleni), un endemismo balear (Alytes muletensis) y otro magrebí (Alytes maurus). Las cinco especies presentan actualmente una distribución alopátrica. Alytes dickilleni presenta una distribución restring...

Release calls of Pelobates varaldii Pasteur and Bons (1959) are described quantitatively based on airborne recordings obtained from 4 males and 12 females from a population of the extreme north of its range. The calls are sequences of pulsed notes with a variable number of pulses per note. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report on th...

Toads occupy underground refugia during periods of daily or seasonal inactivity, emerging only during rainfall [1 • Pinder A.W. • Storey K.B. • Ultsch G.R. Hibernation and aestivation.in: Feder M.E. Burggren W.W. Environmental Physiology of the Amphibians. University of Chicago Press, Chicago1992: 250-274 • Google Scholar ]. We test the hypothesi...

The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is a critically endangered felid that, during the last fifty years, has been subject to an intensive conservation program in an attempt to save it from extinction. This species is first recorded at ca. 1.7–1.6 Ma (late Villafranchian, late Early Pleistocene) in NE Iberian Peninsula, roughly coinciding with the large...

Habitat fragmentation may involve a loss of genetic diversity and increments the vulnerability to species persistence. It could be a particular issue when coupled with other negative factors as the predicted climatic changes and the emergence of infectious diseases. In Southern Iberian Peninsula several endemic amphibian species have confined and f...

Abstract Stag rutting calls differ among subspecies of red deer Cervus elaphus. Studying sex-, age-, and subspeciesrelated vocal variation may highlight the forces driving this evolution. This study presents the first bioacoustical comparison of oral calls produced during the rut by Iberian red deer Cervus elaphus hispanicus stags, hinds and calves...

El Atlas digital del esqueleto del lince ibérico es un proyecto piloto desarrollado durante la segunda mitad del año 2013, y que forma parte del proyecto El museo virtual de la vida, el cual permite alcanzar de manera no presencial muchas de las posibilidades divulgativas de un museo tradicional. El Atlas digital que aquí se presenta es una obra...

Calling behaviour is strongly temperature-dependent and critical for sexual selection and reproduction in a variety of ectothermic taxa, including anuran amphibians, which are the most globally threatened vertebrates. However, few studies have explored how species respond to distinct thermal environments at time of displaying calling behaviour, and...

Environmental and social factors are critical to determine the timing and duration of lekking behavior since they provide species with signs to maximize benefits over costs in sexual displays. However, these factors have rarely been studied under different environmental conditions, and thus, it remains unclear whether exogenous factors affecting gr...

In Southern Iberian Peninsula, the endemic Betic Midwife Toad, Alytes dickhilleni is confined exhibiting fragmented distributions. This species is considered vulnerable by the Internationa Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) because of its very fragmented distribution and declining populations in recent decades. This species is also included in...

RESUMEN Zoología es una asignatura troncal del Grado de Biología, con 12 créditos ECTS. Durante el curso 2011-12, ensayamos el aprendizaje basado en problemas (ABP) como una metodología activa de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Al comienzo del curso se presentó el proyecto a los alumnos. La participación era voluntaria y sin recompensa académica (sólo por e...

We monitored acoustic activity of populations of anurans (genera Hyla and Alytes) in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) in localities at thermal extremes of their distribution. Logistic and linear regression models revealed that the major social and environmental determinants of calling behavior (chorus recruitment and chorus duration) were...

Acoustic signals are important for inter- and intraspecific interactions in many species. Their information potential depends largely on species characteristics. Here we describe quantitatively the song of Eugaster spinulosa (Johannson 1763), (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae) and analyse the relationships of song parameters with temperature. To the best...

El estudio de las tolerancias térmicas para el examen de El estudio de las tolerancias térmicas para el examen de hipótesis biogeográficas y de la vulnerabilidad de los orga hipótesis biogeográficas y de la vulnerabilidad de los orga-nismos ante el calentamiento global. Ejemplos en anfíbios nismos ante el calentamiento global. Ejemplos en anfíbios....

The Iberian hare Lepus granatensis is a common and abundant species throughout the Iberian Peninsula; however, studies documenting its ecology are scarce. Between August 1996 and September 1997, after a long drought, we studied the effects of a widespread flood on the Iberian hare ecology in ecotone pastures of Doñana National Park. Hares were capt...

The results of multi-year acoustic monitoring using automated recording systems (ARS) of the calling activity of two populations per species of five species of anurans from the Iberian peninsula are reported: two species of tree frogs (Hyla) and three species of midwife toads (Alytes), with populations of each species being located at the thermal e...

Predicting the biodiversity impacts of global warming implies that we know where and with what magnitude these impacts will be encountered. Amphibians are currently the most threatened vertebrates, mainly due to habitat loss and to emerging infectious diseases. Global warming may further exacerbate their decline in the near future, although the imp...

The Moroccan midwife toad is to date the only species of Alytes whose advertisement call remains undescribed. We describe the calls of this species from recordings obtained in a population of the Parc National de Tazzeka (Middle Atlas range) on 21¢24 April 2010. We sampled the population calls with two methods: (1) we recorded advertisement calls o...

Retos y oportunidades del desarrollo de los nuevos títulos en educación superior

Este trabajo surge ante la necesidad de entrenar y evaluar una competencia genérica en la materia de Zoología del Grado de Biología “Solidez en los conocimientos básicos de la profesión”. Consideramos que es fundamental que los estudiantes adquieran conocimientos suficientes para valorar la importancia de los aspectos genéricos que poseen los anima...

This article documents the addition of 238 microsatellite marker loci to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Alytes dickhilleni, Arapaima gigas, Austropotamobius italicus, Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici, Cobitis lutheri, Dendroctonus ponderosae, Glossina morsitans morsitans, Haplophilus subterr...

We report the occurrence of facultative paedomorphosis in the three species of newts (Pleurodeles waltl, Lissotriton boscai and Triturus pygmaeus) from dry and seasonal Mediterranean areas from southern Spain. These are the first records of paedomorphosis for P. waltl and L. boscai, and the second for T. pygmaeus. Other than the previous T. pygmaeu...

Acoustic predator recognition has rarely been studied in anurans, in spite of the fact that hearing is widespread in these animals and that it has been demonstrated to play an important role in both arthropods and other vertebrates. Using field playback experiments, we tested the hypothesis that adult common toads (Bufo bufo) are capable of recogni...

We report the observation of an event of mortality of ribbed newts (Pleu-rodeles waltl) and Iberian spadefoot toads (Pelobates cultripes) due to predation by a pair of otters (Lutra lutra) in a temporary pond complex in southern Spain. The pecu-liar predation mode on ribbed newts, with extraction of soft organs through an inci-sion in the upper par...

Riassunto. Il Marocco è il paese dell'Africa settentrionale, così come del Mediterraneo oc-cidentale, dall'erpetofauna più ricca e varia, di cui fanno parte anche 33 specie endemiche (ossia il 20% del totale di anfibi e rettili che ci vivono). Se da un lato si conosce bene la composizione attuale dell'erpetofauna marocchina, d'altra parte non si sa...

The European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) is a species native to the Iberian Peninsula, where it was once extremely abundant. It is considered the most important prey item for the peninsula's assemblage of Mediterranean vertebrate predators, which includes two endangered specialist rabbit feeders, the Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti...

Survival of mediterranean hare (Lepus granatensis Rosenhauert, 1856) in Doñana National Park during a wet year A total of 29 hares (14 in the marshland and 15 in the ecotone zone) were tagged and marked with radiocollar during the summer of 1996. The periodic study finish in September 1997. An unusually hight rainfall, during the fall of 1996, prod...

Abundance trends of the Iberian hare (Lepus granatensis Rosenhauert, 1856) in Doñana National Park The density and relative abundance index (IKA: hares/km) of the Iberian hare (Lepus granatensis) was studied in Doñana National Park (DNP) in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998 in the main 4 plant communities of DNP (ecotone zone -Vera-, lowland marshland, hig...

The spatial organization of the endangered Iberian lynx, Lynx pardinus (Temminck, 1827), was studied in Doñana National Park, south-western Spain, between 1983 and 1992. Thirty-six individuals (19 males and 17 females), including 24 adults (13 males and 11 females) were radio-tracked, providing 13,950 locations during 17,111 radio-tracking days. Ib...

Gibier Faune Sauvage 14(3):: 497 ( 1997) The spatial distribution, abundance and density of Lepus granatensis were studied during three seasons: summer 1995, autumn 1995 and winter 1995. A stratified sampling regime was established. We describe spatio-temporal variations of Lepus granatensis abundance in the two major vegetation types of the Dofian...

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Worldwide. populations ofwild cats have been reduced and fragmented by exploitation and contemporary land uses. Although many ofthese populations are now protected from legal exploitation. they continue to decline as human-related factors (e.g.. habitat degradation. poaching. and vehicle coIlisions) and stochastic events limit survival and reproduc...

We immobilized 10 ocelots (Felis pardalis), and 21 bobcats (F. rufus) in south Texas (USA) during March to November 1991 with a mixture of ketamine hydrochloride (KH) and xylazine hydrochloride (XH); two ocelots were immobilized twice. Species were immobilized with (mean +/- SE) 14.7 +/- 1.6 mg KH/kg body mass for ocelots, 13.3 +/- 1.8 mg KH/kg for...

A combination of 100 mg/ml of ketamine hydrochloride (Ket) and 20 mg/ml of xylazine hydrochloride (Xyl) was used to immobilize coypus (Myocastor coypus). Eight mature coypus (four males and four females) were injected intramuscularly with doses ranging from 2.33 to 6.25 mg/kg of KET and 0.25 to 0.86 mg/kg of Xyl. The mean (+/- SE) time for inductio...

From February 1983 to May 1985, 12 Iberian lynxes (Lynx pardinus) (six adults and six juveniles) were radiotracked at hourly intervals for 114 24-h periods at Donana National Park, southwestern Spain. Nine environmental factors were related, by season and age class, to 12 indices of daily activity of lynxes derived from movement rates and pulses of...

A combination of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine hydrochloride (KH) and the sedative xylazine hydrochloride (XH) was used to immobilize 31 wild Iberian lynx (Felis pardina) 45 times at Doñana National Park, Spain. A mean (+/- SE) dose of 4.6 (+/- 0.2) mg/kg KH and 4.0 (+/- 0.2) mg/kg XH resulted in mean (+/- SE) induction time of 5.6 (+/- 0.3)...

External and cranial measurements were determined for live-trapped Iberian lynxes and lynx skulls from Donana National Park, Spain, and its surroundings. Skins of Iberian lynxes from the same population collected between 1895 and 1986 were examined to determine pelage-pattern characteristics. Adult (greater-than-or-equal-to 2 years old) males were...

Data are presented on mortality rates of the Iberian lynx Felis pardina in Doñana National Park and the surrounding area in southwestern Spain, collected from 1983 to 1989. Data from radio-tagged lynxes and records of lynx mortality were used to assess causes of death. Annual mortality rate, estimated by using the Heisey and Fuller methodology, was...