Paola Bartolommei

Fondazione Ethoikos

Anthropogenic activities often lead to changes in the distribution and behavior of wild species. The mere presence of humans and free‐roaming domestic cats (Felis catus) can affect wildlife communities; however, responses to these disturbances might not be ubiquitous and may vary with local conditions. We investigated European pine marten's (Martes...

The cost-effectiveness of different attractants during camera trapping surveys has been seldom evaluated. To contribute in filling this knowledge gap we (1) compare the effectiveness of a suite of attractants in detecting widely distributed mammals in Europe and (2) evaluate the cost-effectiveness of these attractants, by calculating the costs asso...

The social system of animals involves a complex interplay between physiology, natural history, and the environment. Long relied upon discrete categorizations of “social” and “solitary” inhibit our capacity to understand species and their interactions with the world around them. Here, we use a globally distributed camera trapping dataset to test the...

The invasive house mouse Mus musculus represents a great threat to islands. Eradicating house mouse populations is thus often necessary, entailing actions that could be optimised on the basis of the species’ demography and spatial behaviour. Currently, information on these aspects is scarce on small Mediterranean islands, where house mouse manageme...

The wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus is common in woodlands and open areas of Western Palearctic. Despite extensive research, little is known about its population ecology in fields in the Mediterranean area, where climate involves great seasonal changes in environmental features. Here, we investigated wood mice seasonal fluctuations in abundance and...

Evidence of abnormal coloration in wild animals provides useful information to better understand its adaptive function and its impact on survival. For this reason, we need to know the frequency and distribution of these abnormal phenotypes in wild populations. Here, we report two records of hypopigmentation in European pine marten Martes martes, ob...

The American mink Neovison vison is a widespread alien carnivore in Europe due to escapes from fur farms through this continent. Impacts by naturalized mink include competition with native species and predation of crayfish and small vertebrates. Therefore, an updated monitoring of mink distribution is required to design management plans. The Americ...

The European Union (EU) has recently adopted a regulation on invasive alien species that foresees the possibility of developing lists of species of National Concern. We developed a prioritisation process for alien mammals already established in Italy, but not yet included in the EU list (n = 6 species) and a systematic horizon-scanning procedure to...

Strong mutual relationships exist between rodents and ecosystems. By modifying the structure and functioning of ecosystems, human activity can affect rodent behaviour and ecology. The yellow-necked mouse Apodemus flavicollis is widespread in Europe, and its spatial ecology has been studied in various habitats, but studies are lacking for Mediterran...

The growing interest in emerging environmental crisis has increased the level of public attention and the willingness to take part in participatory science projects, commonly defined with the term “Citizen Science”. This phenomenon can be recorded globally in many national contexts, with a prevalence in anglophone and more industrialized countries....

Information on intra- and inter-specific social tolerance is useful to evaluate the role of social interactions at shaping population dynamics. This is particularly interesting for sympatric species with similar ecological requirements that can be potential competitors. In this light, we investigated multiple captures of Apodemus flavicollis, A. sy...

The present study aims at quantifying the error in visual sexing of live-trapped bank voles and evaluating if animal body weight and experience of field workers affected the ability to determine the sex of voles. The error in sex attribution involved 25.6% of non-reproductive individuals, pointing out the need to validate the field sex identificati...

Studies at small spatial scale are often fundamental to highlight the behavioural plasticity of a species and thus have important implications for conservation planning, in particular for species usually considered as habitat specialists. We investigated second-order habitat selection of the European pine marten in an area dominated by deciduous oa...

Having a thorough understanding of animal feeding behaviour is a basic aim in ecology. Food represents a crucial resource that can strongly rule animal populations, especially where food supplies are seasonal, such as in temperate areas. In Italy, sub-Mediterranean forests dominated by deciduous oaks are commonly inhabited by the yellow-necked mous...

Genetic relatedness among individuals can play a major role in the socio-spatial organization of mammals. However, only a few studies have documented kin-related spatial pattern in solitary medium-sized carnivores. Using radiotelemetry and genetic data from 15 individuals (seven males and eight females), we investigated the relationship between kin...

Several studies regarding acorn choice by granivorous rodents have been conducted in dry Mediterranean oak forests, mainly composed by evergreen oaks. However, a lack of knowledge still persists about this subject in sub-Mediterranean forests dominated by deciduous oaks. We investigated the choice between Quercus cerris and Q. pubescens acorns by t...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

Figure S1: Database schema. Diversity data in yellow, GIS data in green and Catalogue of Life data in blue. The diversity tables datasource, study, site, measuredtaxon and diversitymeasurement follow the structure described in ‘Methods’ in the main text and in Hudson et al. (2014): a datasource is associated with one or more study records, each of...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

Several studies have shown that small mammal communities are influenced by silvicultural activities, possibly because these affect the quality of wildlife habitats. Previous research mainly focused on community parameters and abundance of target species, however the most robust way to study the impacts of forestry on wildlife is to follow a demogra...

Several studies have shown that small mammal communities are influenced by silvicultural activities possibly because these affect the quality of wildlife habitats. Previous research mainly focused on community parameters and abundance of target species, however the most robust approach to study the impacts of forestry is to follow a demographic-res...

Size and characteristics of home range are fundamental ecological parameters for a species and useful life-history variables for predicting the number of individuals that can occupy a certain area. In Italy, wildlife biologists have largely ignored spatial behaviour of the European pine marten, although this predator is present across the peninsula...

Size and characteristics of home range are fundamental ecological parameters for a species and useful life-history variables for predicting the number of individuals that can occupy a data area. In Italy, wildlife biologists have largely ignored spatial ecology of the European pine marten, although this predator is present with a fragmented distrib...

Several studies regarding acorn choice by granivorous rodents have been conducted in dry Mediterranean oak forests, mainly composed by evergreen oaks. However, a lack of knowledge still persists about this subject in sub-Mediterranean forests dominated by deciduous oaks. We investigated the choice between Quercus cerris and Q. pubescens acorns by t...

A dataset of 3,250,404 measurements, collated from 26,114 sampling locations in 94 countries and representing 47,044 species. The data were collated from 480 existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database was assemb...

The identification of the wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus and the yellow-necked mouse Apodemus flavicollis in the field has challenged many generations of field mammalogists, particularly in northern Spain and continental Italy. These two species present highly similar morphologic and morphometric characteristics especially when they are sympatric....

Parasite-mediated selection may contribute to the maintenance of genetic variation at host immune genes over long time scales. To date, the best evidence for the long-term maintenance of immunogenetic variation in natural populations comes from studies on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, whereas evidence for such processes from oth...

The knowledge of morphological features of species can help to understand other related biolo- gical aspects. In Italy the European pine marten Martes martes seems to show a recent expansion of its distribution, however information on this species in our country are scarce. Very few data on biometric measurements are available, mainly referring to...

Although the Eurasian pine marten Martes martes seems widespread in most regions of Italy, little is known about its habitat use in our country. The species is considered a habitat specialist, associated primarily with mature mesic mixed forest habitats, avoiding areas without overhead cover. Using radiotelemetry locations, we examined the habitat...

Several studies have examined the diet of the yellow-necked mouse Apodemus flavicollis, the wood mouse A. sylvaticus and the bank vole Myodes glareolus; however, little is known about how food selection varies across seasons We investigated the food selection and possible trophic niche overlaps of small mammals during a year (from autumn 2012 to su...

Evaluating presence and abundance of small carnivores is essential for their conservation. In Italy, there is scarce information on European pine marten distribution, and no data are published on its abundance. Camera traps have been widely used to estimate population density applying capture–recapture models for species in which individual recogni...

The woodmouse Apodemus sylvaticus and yellow-necked mouse Apodemus flavicollis are sympatric throughout their European range. Southern European populations of the two species show a strong convergence in phenotypic and morphological features which makes field identification relatively difficult. In the past decades several assignment methods have b...

Camera trapping is a useful tool for collecting information on elusive species. However it rarely has been used for small mammals. Within a wider project, we investigated the time of capture of the wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus, the yellow-necked mouse A. flavicollis and the bank vole Myodes glareolus using 19 live traps associated with 19 camera...

Identifying and mapping new sites of establishment of alien species is a research priority as it helps to provide timely management actions. In Italy, feral populations of the American mink Neovison vison, a semi-aquatic mustelid native to North America, have been present since the 1980s in the north of the country and on the island of Sardinia. Re...

Understanding the role of land-use patterns in determining the distribution of nocturnal birds has important implications for the conservation of these species and for land management. One important step for effective conservation is to develop statistical models to assess how the probability of birds' presence can be influenced by land-use types i...

Although small carnivore distribution has been widely studied in several countries, not all techniques used for mustelids survey can be efficiently applied in every area and scarce information exists on the effectiveness of different techniques. For this reason we tested three different methods to detect presence and abundance of European pine mart...

This work brings together the results of a series of researches on the importance of the visual communication for nocturnal birds, carried out using the eagle owl as a model species. We analysed the main characteristics of the white feathers of the adults and the offspring and we tested the function of the achromatic plumage in territorial behaviou...

Since 2005, nocturnal birds have been counted twice in each breeding season at points randomly distributed along routes within 26 10km UTM-grid cells selected according to a systematic sampling protocol, yielding a semi-quantitative description of nocturnal bird distribution in Tuscany.

Telemetry triangulation is commonly used for obtaining location estimates of animals in the field. Although this technique provides only an estimate of the animal true position, most authors do not report the error associated with the radio-telemetry location. We show the results of estimating error in a radio-telemetry study of roe deer in a hilly...

We developed a set of nine polymorphic microsatellite markers from a genomic library enriched for dinucleotide repeats in the European polecat Mustela putorius. Microsatellite loci amplification was tested on fresh tissues and museum samples collected over the last 40 years in central and northern Italy. Number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to...

Evaluating presence and abundance of small carnivores is essential for their conservation. In Italy, there is scarce information on European pine marten distribution, and no data are published on its abundance. Camera traps have been widely used to estimate population density applying capture–recapture models for species in which individual recogni...

A set of 13 polymorphic microsatellite markers were isolated and characterized from a genomic library enriched for dinucleotide repeats in the European pine marten Martes martes. Microsatellite loci amplification was tested on a panel of 12 tissue samples and 9 distinct hair samples collected from either road-killed or trapped animals in Tuscany, I...

Among mammals, female searching behaviour for a mate has been poorly investigated in behavioural studies on sexual selection. The social organization of roe deer and its physiological constraints suggest the existence of searching strategies by females. Using radiotracking and direct observation we studied the spatial behaviour and intersexual inte...

Among mammals, female searching behaviour for a mate has been poorly investigated in behavioural studies on sexual selection. The social organization of roe deer and its physiological constraints suggest the existence of searching strategies by females. Using radiotracking and direct observation we studied the spatial behaviour and intersexual inte...

Two pine martens (Martes martes), a male and a female, were radio-tracked (six and eleven months respectively) in a forest area near Siena, Central Italy. Martens were captured using box traps baited with eggs and mice, marked by Passive Integrated Transponders (PITs) and fitted with a VHF radio-collar (Televilt, 60 g). Individuals were monitored d...

The interactions among the multiple factors regulating predator-prey relationships make predation a more complex process than previously thought. The degree to which substandard individuals are captured disproportionately seems to be better a function of the difficulty of prey capture than of the hunting techniques (coursing vs. ambushing predators...

Complex begging display by bird offspring has predominantly been investigated in diurnal species, which have conspicuous gape colours or plumage features. In nocturnal species, in contrast, such visual communication has received little attention because the assumption is that they exclusively rely on vocal communication. Here, we use a field experi...

We investigated the use of landmarks by capuchins to solve spatial search tasks. In Experiment 1 one subject learned to find a hidden reward in the middle of a 4-landmark configuration. During probe trials, with the landmark configuration expanded and no reward, the capuchin mainly searched near 2 of the 4 landmarks, thus showing it used the landma...