About
42
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Introduction
Savvas Zotos (male) is a senior researcher & adjunct faculty tutor at the Open University of Cyprus. His scientific expertise focuses on Animal Ecology, Animal Behaviour and Wildlife Conservation with a special interest in reptiles. He holds a B.Sc. (1999-2004) and Ph.D. (2006-2014) in Biology (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) and has been awarded a scholarship for Doctoral (PENEK) and Post-Doctoral Research (DIDACTOR) by the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (42)
Islands around the world are disproportionately affected by climate change, and their adaptive capacity is generally lower than that of mainland areas. Ecosystems play a vital role in supporting the well-being of island communities; however, their response to climate change has not been thoroughly assessed. Following the PRISMA methodology, this st...
Roadkill is a global issue contributing to biodiversity decline which is increasingly recognized by scientists and decision-makers. In Cyprus, a biodiversity hotspot with one of the highest road densities in Europe, the impact of roads on wildlife has been largely overlooked due to the absence of life-threatening collisions. We analysed data from a...
Small and medium islands (SMI) are particularly vulnerable to climate change, natural hazards, and the overexploitation of their limited resources. While islands exhibit diverse social, economic, and environmental characteristics, SMI often face reduced capacity to address these vulnerabilities due to their relatively small populations, sensitive a...
Global Roadkill Data: a dataset on terrestrial vertebrate mortality caused by collision with vehicles (Supplementary information)
Roadkill is widely recognized as one of the primary negative effects of roads on many wildlife species and also has socioeconomic impacts when they result in accidents. A comprehensive dataset of roadkill locations is essential to evaluate the factors contributing to roadkill risk and to enhance our comprehension of its impact on wildlife populatio...
Islands are diversity hotspots and vulnerable to environmental degradation, climate variations, land use changes and societal crises. These factors can exhibit interactive impacts on ecosystem services. The study reviewed a large number of papers on the climate change-islands-ecosystem services topic worldwide. Potential inclusion of land use chang...
Islands are diversity hotspots and vulnerable to environmental degradation, climate variations, land use changes and societal crises. These factors can exhibit interactive impacts on ecosystem services. The study reviewed a large number of papers on the climate change-islands-ecosystem services topic worldwide. Potential inclusion of land use chang...
The study of animals’ activity and behavior in the wild is an extremely challenging task. Although tri‐axial accelerometers are invaluable for behavioral analyses, their use is more frequent in large charismatic endotherms with limited application in ectotherms. The scarce utilization of this methodology on small‐size reptiles is focused on animals...
The conversion of natural environments to artificial surfaces has significant irreversible impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. The European Union (EU) has set ambitious goals to combat land artificialisation, including achieving "no net land take" by 2050. It also plans to expand its network of protected areas, including the Natura 2000...
The conversion of natural environments to artificial surfaces has significant irreversible impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. The European Union (EU) has set ambitious goals to combat land artificialisation, including achieving "no net land take" by 2050. It also plans to expand its network of protected areas, including the Natura 2000...
European islands are hotspots of biological and cultural diversity, which, compared to mainland, are more vulnerable to climate change, tourism development, uncontrolled land-use changes and the consequences of financial crisis. These drivers of change have increasingly resulted in severe impacts on socio-economic and environmental parameters. Proj...
Competition within and between species affects community structure and is well documented in raptors. We investigated the spatial distribution of two sympatric raptors in Cyprus, the Bonelli’s Eagle (BE) and the Long-legged Buzzard (LLB). Both species are facultative tree/cliff nesters, with overlapping nesting and foraging areas. In 2021, the BE p...
Even though the reptiles and amphibians of Cyprus are of scientific and conservation importance and although several books, guides and scientific reports have been published the past 30 years, there is a clear absence of a systematic recording and archiving scheme of all available data in a structural database. Towards this end, the Cyprus Herp (=...
Roads impacts on wildlife in Cyprus
MedIsWet (Conservation of the island wetlands of the Mediterranean Basin) is a MAVA funded project which aims at investigating all seasonal or permanent island wetlands both natural and artificial, with a minimum extent of 0.1 hectares. More than 16,000 wetlands from almost all the Mediterranean, including islands from France, Italy, Malta, Croatia...
Even though the reptiles and amphibians of Cyprus are of scientific and conservation importance, and although several books, guides and scientific reports have been published the past 30 years, there is a clear absence of a systematic recording and archiving scheme of all available data in a structural database. Towards this end, the Cyprus Herp (=...
Using Species Distribution Modeling and Least Cost Path Analysis to examine and assess the impact of climate change currently and in the future regarding the endemic Cypriot subspecies N. n. cypriaca.
The study of biological form is a vital goal of evolutionary biology and functional morphology. We review an emerging set of methods that allow scientists to create and study accurate 3D models of living organisms and animate those models for biomechanical and fluid dynamic analyses. The methods for creating such models include 3D photogrammetry, l...
Improving knowledge on species distribution is a fundamental part of ecological research and imperative when it comes to species conservation and management. For rare, endemic and elusive species the effort to obtain reliable ecological data is extremely challenging. Data sparsity, or the use of outdated data, for species that are in the greatest n...
In this paper we design and develop a 3D virtual museum with holistic metadata documentation and a variety of reptile behaviors and movements. First, we reconstruct the reptiles mesh in high resolution, and then create its rigged/skinned digital counterpart. We acquire the movement of two subjects using an optical motion capture system, acceleromet...
Simple Summary
The Cyprus grass snake (Natrix natrix cypriaca) is a critically endangered subspecies, endemic to the island of Cyprus. The species can be found in areas mainly related to water (lakes, dams and rivers), that are protected under the Natura 2000 network. Recently volunteers reported sightings of the species outside of its currently kn...
Because of the importance of specimen identification, and for establishing protocols for new species boundaries, novel methods and tools for identifying and sharing specimen data for vertebrate organisms, particularly amphibians and reptiles, is an important aim for taxonomists (Dayrat 2005; McDiarmid et al. 2011). In general, the gold standard for...
Ecosystems deliver a range of services that are important for human well-being. Although Ecosystem Services (ES) assessments have been carried out worldwide in different geographical areas, islands are still under-represented. This research presents the first set of indicators developed for Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (M...
The aim of the paper is to describe the development and implementation of an integrated framework for landscape sensitivity assessment in Cyprus, a biodiversity hotspot with high landscape diversity. Akamas peninsula, the western tip of the island covering an area of 230 km2, is under great pressure for development, notwithstanding it hosts 21 terr...
Report prepared for the objectives of the EnVeROS Intellectual Output 1 (IO1): WVC framework analysis/ Needs assessment report.
Citizens’ science is on the increase in conservation biology and so are observation systems which attempt to provide data on the impact of roads on wildlife particularly as a result of vehicle collisions (roadkills). The island of Cyprus, a global biodiversity hotspot, has seen a fast increase in road length and extent in the last 20 years. However...
Although road length and extent have dramatically increased in Cyprus by 88% over the last 20 years, this has not been followed by studies looking at the impacts of roads on biodiversity on the island, a global biodiversity hotspot. To address the lack of adequate information on road impacts on biodiversity, the Cyprus Roadkill Observation System (...
The degradation of natural wetlands has significant effects on the ecosystem services they provide and the biodiversity they sustain. Under certain conditions, these negative effects can be mitigated by the presence of artificial wetlands. However, the conservation value of artificial wetlands needs to be explored further. In addition, it is unclea...
The list of species accounting for 90% of the dissimilarity in species composition between artificial and natural wetlands in 2010, when abundances are used.
For each species, the average and the relative average abundances in each wetland type are shown, along with the cumulative contribution to the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index.
(DOCX)
The distributions of the overall beta diversities and for each type of wetlands, measured using the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index.
(TIFF)
Results of the two-tailed t-tests comparing species richness and diversity between natural and artificial wetlands using the data from the monthly bird surveys of 2009, 2010, and 2011.
(DOCX)
The list of species accounting for 90% of the dissimilarity in species composition between artificial and natural wetlands in 2009, when abundances are used.
For each species, the average and the relative average abundances in each wetland type are shown, along with the cumulative contribution to the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index.
(DOCX)
List of all the regression models with a ΔAICc of less than 2 for species richness and diversity.
For each of the model the unstandardized regression coefficients are shown, along with the model’s log-likelihood (logLik), AICc, ΔAICc, and weight.
(DOCX)
Four females of Schreiber’s Fringe-fingered Lizard, Acanthodactylus schreiberi schreiberi Boettger, 1878, from the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus were captured after mating in the field and moved into isolated terraria in the laboratory. Three of them laid two clutches and the fourth one laid four clutches without any further mating with males. The la...
Four females of Schreiber's Fringe-fingered Lizard, Acanthodactylus schreiben schreiben Boettger, 1878, from the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus were captured after mating in the field and moved into isolated terraria in the laboratory. Three of them laid two clutches and the fourth one laid four clutches without any further mating with males. The last...
