Pelayo Acevedo

Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos, IREC (CSIC-UCLM-JCCM) · Sanidad Animal y Biotecnología

In order to monitor wildlife populations in a manner that supports policy makers and natural resource managers, data must be collected using frameworks and methodologies that allow for comparisons between projects and across time. Though hunting statistics may represent a reliable data source for monitoring population trends in game species, a stan...

Estimation of changes in abundances and densities is essential for the research, management, and conservation of animal populations. Recently, technological advances have facilitated the surveillance of animal populations through the adoption of passive sensors, such as camera traps (CT). Several methods, including the random encounter model (REM),...

Context The expansion of exotic plantations can impose conservation challenges on wildlife, and the Iberian Peninsula has one of the widest planted areas of exotic Eucalyptus sp. in Europe. Since mesocarnivores are pivotal elements of ecosystems’ functioning and Eucalyptus have been modifying the Portuguese landscape context in the last half centur...

The management of animal tuberculosis (TB) is a priority for European Union animal health authorities. However, and despite all the efforts made to date, a significant part of Spain has as yet been unable to obtain the officially tuberculosis-free (OTF) status. Information regarding wildlife disease status is usually scarce, signifying that the rol...

The distribution range and population abundance of species provide fundamental information on the species–habitat relationship required for management and conservation. Abundance inherently provides more information about the ecology of species than do occurrence data. However, information on abundance is scarce for most species, mainly at large sp...

Forest raptor nest-site selection is mostly influenced by the quality of the habitat, food resources, and competition. Here, we identified common targets of trees selected as breeding sites and differences in selection traits, i.e. prey availability and intra- and interspecific competition, among Booted Eagle, Long-legged Buzzard, Black Kite, and C...

Wildlife policy makers and managers face challenges in taking decisions and dealing with the complexity of international context, and often operate without informed decision‐making frameworks. This situation evidences the need of a harmonised Europe‐wide wildlife monitoring framework able to sustain coordinated transboundary policy. With a pragmati...

Motion‐sensitive cameras are popular as non‐invasive monitoring tools, and several methods have been developed to estimate population densities from camera data. These methods frequently rely on auxiliary movement data including the distance traveled by an individual in a day and the proportion of the day that an animal spends moving when individua...

Habitat use is a virtually universal activity among animals and is highly relevant as regards designing wildlife management and conservation actions. This has led to the development of a great variety of methods to study it, of which resource selection functions combined with biologging-derived data (RSF) is the most widely used for this purpose. H...

Over the past few decades, the use of camera-traps has revolutionized our ability to monitor populations of wild terrestrial mammals. While methods to estimate abundance from individually-identifiable animals are well-established, they are mostly restricted to species with clear natural markings or else necessitate invasive and often costly animal...

Estimation of changes in abundances and densities is essential for the research, management, and conservation of animal populations. Recently, technological advances have facilitated the surveillance of animal populations through the adoption of passive sensors, such as camera traps (CT). Several methods, including the random encounter model (REM),...

The American mink Neogale vison is an invasive alien species in Europe that threatens endemic biodiversity and can transmit zoonotic diseases, including the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus. The last attempt to map the geographic range of this species in Europe, at continental scale, dates back to 2007. We aimed to update the distribution map of the feral American...

Modelos de distribución de especies integrando diferentes fuentes de datos (software)

The European Observatory of Wildlife (EOW) as part of the ENETWILD project, aims to improve the European capacity for monitoring wildlife populations, implementing international standards for data collection, providing guidance on wildlife density estimation, and finally, to promote collaborative, open data networks to develop wildlife monitorin...

The supplementary feeding of wild ungulates is a common and pervasive practice throughout Europe, but the understanding on its unintended ecological effects is still limited. This management action has different degrees of intensity from artificial grasslands to supplementation in feeders, since the type and criteria of each supplementary feeding p...

The goal of this report is modelling the occurrence for carnivores at the European scale and to compare the output of occurrence with observed hunting yield (HY) density models for red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and badger (Meles meles). Random Forest function was used for modelling occurrence of species. Occurrences available from the past 30 years (1990...

Tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious chronic disease due to infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) bacteria. Monitoring of wildlife, especially potential reservoirs, is important for detecting changes in disease occurrence and assessing the impact of interventions. Here, we examined whether wild boar (Sus scrofa) may contribute to the...

Body condition (BC), is a measure to assess the health status of domestic and wild animals. When food resources are abundant, a decrease in BC may indicate an increase in the energetic expenditure due to the effects of growth, reproduction, or disease. BC impoverishment is one of the most common clinical effects of diseases progressing chronically,...

European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) are main small game species of conservation concern in Mediterranean ecosystems. To date, their presence in wild boar’s (Sus scrofa) diet and factors driving their consumption have been little investigated. A genetic metabarcoding approach was used on 80 wild boa...

Expanding on the foundation of Zeitschrift für Jagdwissenschaft in 1955, the European Journal of Wildlife Research (EJWR) continues to publish original research and reviews on all aspects of wildlife science regardless of the geographic region. Eighteen years after publication of the first issue of EJWR, we briefly reflect on the journal’s profile...

The International Symposium on Wild Boar and Other Suids (IWBS 2022), which took place in Montseny Biosphere Reserve (Catalonia, Spain) in September 2022, provided to ENETWILD with the opportunity to meet in‐person for the first time after 2.5 years, and meet the international scientific community with expertise on wild suids and other ungulates. T...

During summer 2022, the European Wildlife Observatory (EOW²), involving 50 study areas in at least 30 European countries, has applied similar camera‐trapping‐based population estimation protocols and data collection standards to facilitate harmonization and interoperability. For this purpose, continuous training of the network of wildlife professio...

It is essential to provide tools to wildlife professionals and researchers in order to facilitate data collection on wildlife density estimation following standardized protocols in the field. This is relevant for efficient harmonized data management systems, from the field to final reporting. Our main objective was to facilitate the collection of i...

Background To control the transmission of relevant shared diseases, such as animal tuberculosis (TB) and African swine fever (ASF), it is essential to reduce the risk of interaction between livestock and wild ungulates. In Eastern and Central Europe, the current spread of ASF virus affecting wild boar and domestic pigs (especially those raised outd...

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) aims to attain ‘good quality’ status for all European water bodies through the achievement of good ecological status. To this purpose, the WFD advocates the creation of cost-effective monitoring tools to deliver appropriate data that help to create links between chemical and ecological indicators, as those from e...

Multiple infections or co-exposure to pathogens should be considered systematically in wildlife to better understand the ecology and evolution of host-pathogen relationships, so as to better determine the potential use of multiple pathogens as indicators to guide health management. We describe the pattern of co-exposure to several pathogens (i.e. s...

El mapache Procyon lotor (Linnaeus, 1758) es un mesocarnívoro originario del centro y norte de América que ha conseguido expandir su área de distribución enormemente gracias a introducciones y escapes de granjas y zoológicos. En España, tras las primeras observaciones realizadas a principios de siglo XXI como consecuencia de escapes de núcleos zool...

The goal of this report is i) to model the occurrence and hunting yield (HY) density of wild ungulates not only for widely distributed species in Europe, but also for those ones which have a constrained distribution and ii) to compare the output of occurrence with observed HY. Random Forest function was used for modelling occurrence of species. We...

La estima de densidades poblacionales es un parámetro fundamental para la toma de decisiones en el ámbito de la conservación y la gestión la fauna silvestre. En este sentido, el uso de fototrampeo como herramienta para monitorizar los tamaños poblacionales ha ido adquiriendo importancia en los últimos 20 años, dándose un gran desarrollo tecnológico...

Wildlife population monitoring requires that collected information be comparable among data collection frameworks and useful in decision making. Hunting statistics may suppose a reliable alternative for monitoring population trends of game species, however, there is not a common and homogeneous framework in Europe, even, within countries. As a case...

This comprehensive species-specific chapter covers all aspects of the mammalian biology, including paleontology, physiology, genetics, reproduction and development, ecology, habitat, diet, mortality, and behavior. The economic significance and management of mammals and future challenges for research and conservation are addressed as well. The chapt...

Real R, Báez JC, Fa JE, Olivero J and Acevedo P (2022) Making the competitive exclusion principle operational at the biogeographical scale using fuzzy logic. In biogeography the competitive exclusion principle (CEP) has been confirmed in some cases but not in others. This has fueled an unresolved debate between those advocating niche theory or the...

Native wild boar populations are expanding across Europe, causing concern due to their significant soil disturbances and considerable impact on ecosystems. However, little is known about how wild boar activities affect other organisms. This study investigated the effects of wild boars on the abundance of fungal sporocarps and their respective funga...

Hunting statistics are commonly used to model wild boar abundance and distribution at large spatial scales. However, data availability is not always homogeneous, and hunting yields are often aggregated at different resolutions in different countries or territories. The main objective of this study was to produce wild boar abundance maps at a fine r...

The main aims of this report are (i) to implement camera trap practical methods to estimate wild boar density by means of field trials, which is also of application to other medium and big sized mammals and (ii) to report on progress of the development of automatic identification for density estimation based on camera trapping. As for (i), we speci...

Tick abundance is an essential demographic parameter to infer tick-borne pathogen transmission risks. Spatiotemporal patterns of tick abundance are heterogeneous, so its determinants at small spatial scales need to be understood to reduce their negative effects on hosts. Current knowledge of these determinants is scarce, especially in Mediterranean...

The new‐born European Observatory of Wildlife (EOW)² is a part of the EFSA‐funded ENETWILD project, and has the aim of improving the European capacities for monitoring wildlife populations, implementing international standards for data collection, providing guidance on wildlife density estimation, and finally, to promote collaborative, open data ne...

Human–wildlife conflicts are a growing problem in Northern Hemisphere where wild ungulates are one of the taxonomic groups most frequently involved. To mitigate these conflicts, it is essential to develop preventive actions able to avoid encounters between wildlife and human (activities). We here employed photo-trapping to evaluate the behaviour of...

Population density estimates are important for wildlife conservation and management. Several camera trapping‐based methods for estimating densities have been developed, one of which, the random encounter model (REM), has been widely applied due to its practical advantages such as no need for species‐specific study design. Nevertheless, most of the...

While reliable estimates of species abundance distribution are required for wildlife management and are greatly needed at broad spatial scales, such information is scarce. In this context, the usefulness of spatial modelling as a tool for predicting game species relative abundance and distribution from hunting yield data was studied. Hunting yield...

One of the main objectives of ENETWILD consortium is to collect data on density, hunting statistics and wildlife occurrence in order to model the geographical distribution and abundance of wildlife species across Europe as a tool to support the assessment of risks associated, for example, with disease transmission. Created in the framework of the E...

Biodiversity is dramatically declining worldwide due to the complex processes that include interactions among threats. Studies investigating how multiple drivers (inter)act to influence spatio-temporal shifts in species distribution ranges, which are among the most anticipated changes in biodiversity in the future, are still scarce in the scientifi...

Reliable estimates of the distribution of species abundance are a key element in wildlife studies, but such information is usually difficult to obtain for large spatial or long temporal scales. Wildlife–vehicle collision (WVC) data is systematically registered in many countries and could be used as a proxy of population abundance if the number of W...

Abstract This report presents the results of field activities in relation to the generation of reliable wild boar density values by camera trapping (CT) in 19 areas in Europe, mainly in East Europe. Random Encounter Model (REM) densities ranged from 0.35±0.24 to 15.25±2.41 (SE) individuals/km2. No statistical differences in density among bioregion...

The definition of the most relevant parameters that describe the wild boar (WB) population dynamics is essential to guide African swine fever (ASF) control policies. These parameters should be framed considering different contexts, such as geographic, ecological and management contexts, and gaps of data useful for the parameter definition should be...

Background: Fences are one of the most widespread manmade features in nature, constituting an artificial limitation to the movement of wildlife. To date, their effects on wildlife behaviour have been understudied but this knowledge is required to design effective management procedures. Using 21 GPS-monitored wild boar, we evaluated the permeability...

Tuberculosis (TB) is a zoonotic mycobacterial infection with great importance in human health, animal production, and wildlife conservation. Although an ambitious eradication programme in cattle has been implemented for decades, TB-free status has not yet been achieved in most of Spain, where animal TB persists in a multi-host system of domestic an...

A cross‐sectional study was carried out to assess the circulation of bluetongue virus (BTV) and Schmallenberg virus (SBV) within the wild and domestic ungulate host community in Doñana National Park (southwestern Spain). A total of 440 animals, including 138 cattle, 102 red deer (Cervus elaphus), 101 fallow deer (Dama dama) and 99 wild boar (Sus sc...

In a previous report, ENETWILD proposed a generic model framework to predict habitat suitability and likely occurrence for wild ruminant species using opportunistic presence data (occurrence records for wild ungulate species from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility). In this report, for the first time, we develop models based on hunting yi...

Tick abundance is an essential demographic parameter to infer tick-borne pathogen transmission risks. Spatiotemporal patterns of tick abundance are heterogeneous, so its determinants at small spatial scales need to be understood to reduce their negative effects on hosts. Current knowledge of these determinants is scarce, especially in Mediterranean...

The 2nd ENETWILD Annual General Meeting took place on 5‐6th October 2021, bringing together experts, stakeholders and ENETWILD collaborators in online workshop discussions. First, workshop discussions contributed to the analysis and proposal of approaches for a harmonized European‐wide wildlife monitoring framework able of sustaining coordinated de...

The ENETWILD consortium (www.enetwild.com) aims at progressively defining the spatial interface between wild ungulates and livestock in Europe, which is essential to evaluate the risk for shared diseases. This is to provide preliminary risk maps of possible wild‐domestic interfaces at European scale using relatively similar sized regions by compili...

Contexto Probabilidad de detección Objetivo: identificar los factores que afectan a la probabilidad de detección y velocidad de disparo de las cámaras Fig. Diseño experimental Métodos 5 modelos Resultados & discusión CONCLUSIONES La probabilidad de detectar un individuo de una especie dada depende del modelo de cámara usado (no todas las cámaras de...

Conocer la distribución y abundancia de las poblaciones animales es un paso clave para la conservación y el manejo de las mismas, pero esta información es a menudo difícil de obtener a grandes escalas espaciales y temporales. Los accidentes de tráfico generados por colisiones con fauna silvestre pueden ser usados como un índice de abundancia si el...

Camera trapping is a widely used tool in wildlife research and conservation, and a plethora of makes and models of camera traps have emerged. However, insufficient attention has been paid to testing their performance, particularly under field conditions. In this study, we have comparatively tested five of the most frequently used makes of camera tr...

Crimean‐Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) continues to cause new human cases in Iberia while its spatial distribution and ecological determinants remain unknown. The virus remains active in a silent tick‐animal cycle to which animals contribute maintaining the tick populations and the virus itself. Wild ungulates, in particular red deer, are e...

In a context of disease emergence and faced with the ever-growing evidence of the role of wildlife in the epidemiology of transmissible diseases, efforts have been made to develop wildlife disease surveillance (WDS) programs throughout Europe. Disease monitoring is ideally composed of “numerator data” (number of infected individuals) and “denominat...

Bovine leptospirosis is a bacterial disease that affects cattle herds, causing economic losses due to reproductive problems which require expensive treatments. The main source of transmission for cattle is still uncertain, but rodents and bats can play an important role in the transmission cycle by being maintenance hosts for the pathogenic species...

Measures of performance in wild ungulates must consider density dependent and stochastic factors such as parasitic rates (as natural enemies in intimae relation with hosts) along with the impact of population management. In order to standardize parasite counts to be useful ecological indicators, it is essential to test host and parasite responses t...

Wildlife populations are experiencing drastic changes in their areas of distribution and abundance in the last decades and, therefore, population monitoring programs should be implemented to support effective management strategies. In this case, we have focused on the Iberian wild goat (Capra pyrenaica) population nucleus from Parque Natural Valle...

Bird nest selection in forests can be influenced by the composition of key structural elements and resources. This has important consequences in terms of species population dynamics since it can determine reproduction success. Here, we assessed Common raven nest-site selection and reproductive success, and how these might be determined by foraging...

In the previous ENETWILD model, the predicted patterns of wild boar abundance based on hunting yield data reached an acceptable reliability when the model was downscaled to higher spatial resolution. This new approach, based on the modelling of hunting yield densities instead of hunting yield counts and the assessment of spatial autocorrelation, wa...

This book, aimed at professionals in the sector such as veterinarians, livestock farmers or wildlife managers, is the first volume of a manual that lists and details the different sources of risk of tuberculosis for cattle. In each section, the risk is described, its epidemiological role is detailed and control measures are proposed, providing a co...

This book, aimed at professionals in the sector such as veterinarians, ranchers or wildlife managers, is the second volume of a manual that lists and details the different sources of risk of tuberculosis for wildlife. In each section, the risk is described, its epidemiological role is detailed and control measures are proposed, providing a complete...

Bluetongue is a vector-borne disease affecting domestic and wild ruminants, with a major socioeconomic impact. Endemic circulation of the bluetongue virus serotype 4 (BTV-4) and BTV-1 have occurred in Spain since 2004 and 2007, respectively. However, epidemiological studies have seldom been approached from a long-term perspective in wild ruminants....

The ubiquitous wild boar is causing diverse and growing conflicts of socio-ecological and economic relevance worldwide. For that reason, knowledge of its spatial ecology is crucial to designing effective management programmes. But this knowledge is scarce in Mediterranean areas with mixed land uses. We describe the spatial ecology and habitat selec...

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic zoonosis caused by Toxoplasma gondii which infects warm-blooded species worldwide. Humans can be infected through ingestion of tissue cysts from raw or undercooked meat, including game meat. A nationwide large-scale cross-sectional study was conducted to assess exposure to T. gondii in seven wild ruminant species in Spa...

Aim The role of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in local adaptation has been thoroughly debated, and the ancient pervasive mtDNA introgression from Lepus timidus into Lepus granatensis allows testing of this hypothesis. Here, we study the environmental niche of animals with introgressed mtDNA, to gain insights about the potential selective pressures main...