Sinos Giokas

• Professor
• Professor at University of Patras

The primary objective of this study was to investigate patterns of abundance and diversity among reptiles and amphibians within the protected area of Mount Chelmos, located in Peloponnese, Greece. Our aim was to examine the drivers influencing abundance (for lizards, snakes, chelonians, anurans, urodels) and diversity (for reptiles and amphibians)...

Human-induced direct mortality affects huge numbers of birds each year, threatening hundreds of species worldwide. Tracking technologies can be an important tool to investigate temporal and spatial patterns of bird mortality as well as their drivers. We compiled 1704 mortality records from tracking studies across the African-Eurasian flyway for 45...

Here we report, for the first time, aspects of the breeding performance of Scopoli’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) in one of its largest colonies in Europe, i.e., in the Strofades island group. We describe the chronology of the main events in the breeding cycle of this species on Stamfani Island, the largest island of this island group, includi...

Microtus thomasi (Rodentia: Arvicolinae), a fossorial vole endemic to the SW Balkans, uses a variety of substrates but its underground behavior remains poorly understood. This study examines the architecture and utilization of M. thomasi burrow systems in NW Peloponnese, Greece. In particular, eight burrow systems were meticulously excavated and st...

Water is a vital resource providing multiple services to many organisms, including birds. Eleonora’s falcon is an iconic, long-distance migrant bird of the Palearctic region. While various aspects of its life history have been thoroughly studied, its dependence on water sources has been poorly documented. In this study, we examine for the first tim...

Το γένος Codringtonia αποτελεί ένα Ελληνικό ενδημικό γένος χερσαίου σαλιγκαριού που χαρακτηρίζεται από τον ιδιαίτερο τρόπο διαβίωσής του συχνά σε σχισμές βράχων. Το είδος Codrintonia intusplicata συναντάται συνήθως στους νομούς Αχαΐας, Κορινθίας, Αργολίδας και Αρκαδίας. Στην παρούσα εργασία επιχειρήθηκε η εκτίμηση του πληθυσμιακού μεγέθους του συγκ...

The Aciculidae is a family of terrestrial operculate snails with a western Palaearctic distribution. Historically three Acicula species were reported from the Caucasus Mountains, which represents the eastern edge of the family's distribution: A. limbata, A. moussoni and A. parcelineata, all from a few localities. We examined extensive material from...

The project includes: - Field surveys for butterfly and grasshopper monitoring, - Special focus on rare, threatened and/or endemic species, - Assessment of the effects of grazing on species habitats, - Conservation efforts. The project is being conducted in collaboration with the Management Unit of Chelmos-Vouraikos National Park and Northern Pel...

Given that the social and economic sustainability of rural areas is highly based on the protection of natural resources, biodiversity and human health, simple-operated and cost-effective wastewater treatment systems, like artificial constructed wetlands (CWs), are widely proposed for minimizing the environmental and human impact of both water and s...

Flying over the open sea is energetically costly for terrestrial birds. Despite this, over-water journeys of many birds, sometimes hundreds of kilometres long, are uncovered by bio-logging technology. To understand how these birds afford their flights over the open sea, we investigated the role of atmospheric conditions, specifically wind and uplif...

The slow-worm lizards of the genus Anguis show significant morphological, behavioural and ecological uniformity owing to their limbless, elongated bodies and semifossorial lifestyle. This makes the delimitation of species challenging. Five monophyletic, deeply divergent and mostly parapatric mitochondrial lineages are currently recognized, although...

Eleonora’s Falcon Falco eleonorae is a migratory raptor, well-known for its delayed breeding period. Owing to its great mobility, current information on its distribution pattern during the pre-breeding period is rather sporadic, mainly based on field observations and only one telemetry study. Likewise, the species’ ranging activity during the breed...

The open sea is considered an ecological barrier to terrestrial bird movement. However, over-water journeys of many terrestrial birds, sometimes hundreds of kilometers long, are being uncovered by bio-logging technology. To understand how these birds afford their flights over the open sea, we investigated the role of atmospheric conditions in subsi...

In waterbirds, formation of mixed-species aggregations has been attributed to social facilitation and might also allow birds to exploit the ability of other species to make prey more accessible, to reduce their own time or effort spent in foraging and correspondingly increase foraging efficiency. However, some participants in mixed-species flocks m...

This paper reports on the educational program "Something's flying around us" that took place in the Zoological Museum of the University of Patras, based on constructivism, under the citizen science project "Ornithopolis". The aim of the program was to support primary school pupils in identification of bird species and to enhance their awareness abo...

Context The vast majority of the global population of Eleonora’s falcon overwinters in Madagascar, where the natural environment is threatened by human-induced habitat changes, particularly intensive forest degradation. Objectives We described Eleonora’s falcon phenology and habitat use based on fine-scale telemetry data and field surveys, and inv...

Abstract Herein we present the recently founded Hellenic Evolutionary Society (HEVOS) that has been recently instituted to promote evolution and scientific thinking among the Greek-speaking public. HEVOS is a timely initiative, given the low levels of acceptance of evolution by Greek society and the almost complete lack of evolution teaching in pri...

In the present study we investigated seasonal and intrinsic variability of neurotoxic and cyto-genotoxic biomarkers in blood plasma and erythrocytes of free-living Eleonoras' falcons, captured during the pre-breeding (May of 2017 and 2018) and breeding period (September of 2017) on the Antikythira Island (Greece). Specifically, blood samples of cap...

Eleonora’s Falcon is well known for its delayed breeding season among European breeding raptors, however, its relatively prolonged pre-breeding period remains to date largely understudied. In this study, we compiled information on the species’ behaviour based on data from systematic field surveys to investigate activity patterns of Eleonora’s falco...

Urbanization induces rapid landscape and habitat modifications leading to alterations in species distribution patterns and biodiversity loss. As pollinating insects such as butterflies are particularly susceptible to urbanization, it is important to pinpoint the factors that could enhance their diversity in the urban areas in order to design adequa...

Overall, 695 land snail and slug species have been recorded from Greece, 59% being endemic, but these figures are expected to be quite higher. Thus, the Greek terrestrial malacofauna is the richest in Europe, with the highest level of endemics at different spatial and taxonomic scales. Greek land snails are represented by six major chorotypes. Apar...

Amphibian breeding-migrations are strongly influenced by environmental conditions. Furthermore, an individual’s breeding-migration pattern might be influenced by their sex, size, physiological state, and/or fecundity. From 2012 to 2014, we collected mark–recapture data for two syntopic alpine (Ichthyosaura alpestris) and smooth (Lissotriton vulgari...

A pilot study was carried out at three adjacent rock faces at a location in the Northern calcareous Alps (Johnsbach,Styria, Austria) to estimate population sizes, densities, activity range and small­scale distribution patterns of selected rock­dwelling snails. The study site was a about 15 m long rock face naturally divided into three parts. These...

The aquatic snail genus Dianella (Gastropoda: Hydrobiidae) has only two representatives in Greece: Di-anella schlickumi Schütt, 1962 and Dianella thiesseana (Kobelt, 1878). D. schlickumi, a narrow endemic species to Lake Amvrakia (in Aitoloakarnania, western-central Greece), is considered as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct, sensu IUCN 2017)...

Urbanization causes rapid changes in the landscape and land use, exerting a significant pressure on bird communities. The effect of urbanization on bird diversity has been widely investigated in many cities worldwide; however, our knowledge on urban bird communities from the eastern Mediterranean region is very scarce. In this context, we aimed to...

Conservation of migratory species faces the challenge of understanding the ecological requirements of individuals living in two geographically separated regions. In some cases, the entire population of widely distributed species congregates at relatively small wintering areas and hence, these areas become a priority for the species’ conservation. S...

The Strofades Island complex in the Ionian Sea comprises two small islands, i.e. Stamfani and Arpyia, and several rocks. The islands host a significant Scopoli’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) colony, which is regarded as the largest one in Greece, although no complete national population census has ever been carried out. Here we present data of...

Citation: Radea C, Parmakelis A, Giokas S (2016) Myrtoessa hyas, a new valvatiform genus and a new species of the Hydrobiidae (Caenogastropoda, Truncatelloidea) from Greece. ZooKeys 640: 1–18. https://doi. Abstract A new to science valvatiform hydrobiid, Myrtoessa hyas Radea, gen. n. & sp. n., from southern Greece, is described and illustrated. The...

The present study evaluates a battery of marine species-based bioassays against chemically characterized municipal wastewater samples (raw and WWTP treated). We estimated Dunaliella tertiolecta growth rate inhibition (24–96 h IC50 values), Artemia franciscana immobilization (24 h LC50 values), mussel hemocytes viability and lipid peroxidation enhan...

Consumption of conspecific and heterospecific eggs and larvae is common in many animal taxa, including many amphibians. Adult newts (Amphibia: Urodela) often co-occur temporally and spatially with conspecific and heterospecific newt eggs and larvae and adult individuals may benefit from their consumption, but little is known on the degree of discri...

Every spring a huge number of passerines cross the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea on their way to their breeding grounds. Stopover sites after such extended barriers where birds can rest, refuel, and find shelter from adverse weather, are of crucial importance for the outcome of their migration. Stopover habitat selection used by migrating...

The correct identification of individuals is a requirement of capture-mark-recapture (CMR) methods, and it is commonly achieved by applying artificial marks or by mutilation of study-animals. An alternative, non-invasive method to identify individuals is to utilize the patterns of their natural body markings. However, the use of pattern mapping is...

This study describes the chronology of main events in the breeding cycle of Scopoli’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) colony on Stamfani Island, including the evaluation of breeding performance and the influence of ecological factors (e.g. experience of breeders and nest site characteristics) on breeding success. The colony of Stamfani Island rev...

Reversed chirality has frequently evolved in snails, although the vast majority coils dextrally. However, there are often sinistral species within a dextral genus or almost exclusively sinistral families, such as the Clausiliidae. Some populations of the predominantly sinistral clausiliid genus Albinaria, in the southern Greek mainland, coil dextra...

Compositional dissimilarity patterns of biotic communities can vary among different types of insular systems and among taxa with different dispersal abilities. In this work we examined compositional dissimilarity patterns of four avian groups, namely birds of prey, waterbirds, seabirds and landbirds, in various insular systems around the world. Com...

The Book contains findings of biodiversity research combined with cultural and social aspects of the Albanian Prespa National Park. The information provided by the book has been collected during the five years period of the Project 'Transboundary Biosphere Reserve Prespa - Support to the Prespa National Park in Albania', financed by the Ministry fo...

Drilus beetle larvae (Coleoptera: Elateridae) are specialized predators of land snails. Here, we describe various aspects of the predator-prey interactions between multiple Drilus species attacking multiple Albinaria (Gastropoda: Clausiliidae) species in Greece. We observe that Drilus species may be facultative or obligate Albinaria-specialists. We...

Two slow worm species are distributed at the southernmost part of the Balkan Peninsula: Anguis cephallonica, an endemic of the Peloponnese and the islands Zakynthos, Ithaki and Kephallonia, and A. graeca. Here, we investigate the intraspecific genetic diversity of A. cephallonica from the Peloponnese and Kephallonia and analyse A. graeca, from the...

Seasonal differences in the water content of four Codringtonia species were investigated using specimens collected from the field. In addition, rate of water loss and expression of heat-shock protein 70 (Hsp70) were measured in a laboratory setting with six Codringtonia species subjected to a short-term heat shock. Using a phylogenetic framework, b...

Strofades Islands (37° 15’ N, 21° 00’ E) host a significant Scopoli’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) colony, the largest in Greece. The total population on these two small islands (Stamfani and Arpyia), was estimated via coastal surveys by counting rafts which can comprise thousands of birds, 1-2 hours before dawn. Fieldwork involved three teams...

Morphological variation is often attributed to differential adaptations to diverse habitats, but adaptations to a similar environment do not necessarily result in similar phenotypes. Adaptations for water and heat budget are crucial for organisms living in arid habitats, and in snails, variation in shell morphology has been frequently attributed to...

Management Plan National Park Prespa in Albania for the years 2014-2024

The four-lined snake, Elaphe quatuorlineata, has a fragmented distribution, restricted in continental regions and islands of the Italian and Balkan peninsulas, and includes several morphologically described subspecies. In this study, mtDNA sequences are used to investigate its evolutionary and biogeographical history, to explore the role of palaeog...

A significant number of studies worldwide have shown that incidental catches (by-catch) of seabirds in fishing gear might pose a considerable risk for the conservation of their populations. Nevertheless reliable data on by-catch rates of seabirds in European marine ecosystems are patchy and need to be improved. This study constitutes a first attemp...

Nowadays, modern telemetry tool give information of high level of accuracy regarding seabird foraging movements at sea. Here we report the first data of tracked breeding Scopoli’s Shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea) during the early stages of chick rearing period on one of the Strofades islands (southern Ionian Sea). Global Positioning System (GPS)...

Several studies have shown that taxa with poor dispersal ability have a higher level of compositional dissimilarity than good dispersers. However, compositional dissimilarity patterns between islands with respect to dispersal ability of taxa have never been investigated before. In this study, we investigated compositional dissimilarity patterns of...

The absence of juvenile sexual dimorphism in birds often impedes sex determination using external morphology. We examined sex ratio variation in Scopoli’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea) fledglings (n= 135) on a Strofades island (southern Ionian Sea) between 2007 and 2011. We determined sex by using a polymerase chain reaction-based methodology o...

Despite our incomplete knowledge of Greek Oniscidea, a great number of species have already been described, of which 69% are endemic. This unusually high percentage of endemics is a result of intense speciation triggered by the complex topography, paleogeography, and ecological history of Greece. Using 100 × 100 km Universal Transverse Mercator (UT...

In this study we used genetic approaches to assess the influence of landscape features on the dispersal patterns and genetic structure of two newt species (Triturus macedonicus and Lissotriton vulgaris) living syntopically in a network of ponds. Multilocus genotypes were used to detect and measure genetic variation patterns, population genetic stru...

The applicability of simple PCR-based approaches for sex discrimination in the three European Phalacrocoracidae species was tested, using 93 individuals of known sex and two sets of primers (1237L/1272R and 2550F/2718R) for the amplification of the avian sex-specific chromo-helicase-DNA-binding protein gene. We evaluated the accuracy of each set of...

The majority of the family Typhlopidae occurs in the Neotropic, Australasian, Indo-Malayan and Afrotropic ecoregions. They show a restricted distribution in the western Palearctic, where they include few native species, i.e. Rhinotyphlops simoni, R. episcopus and Typhlops vermicularis. A unique species among typhlopids is T. socotranus, found in So...

Numerous studies of the factors affecting egg size in Procellariiformes have been conducted and have proved very informative about their breeding ecology. Here we present the first results concerning the correlations between abiotic factors (orientation of nest entrance, type of nest, humidity and temperature in the nest) with egg dimensions (lengt...

Land snails usually exhibit cycles of activity and dormancy (aestivation or hibernation). The transition between these two states is accompanied by a range of behavioral and physiological responses to ensure their survival under adverse environmental conditions. Furthermore aestivation plays an important role in shaping snails’ distribution pattern...

Our aim was to investigate species co-occurrence patterns in a large number of published biotic communities, in order to document to what extent species associations can be found in presence-absence matrices. We also aim to compare and evaluate two metrics that focus on species pairs (the ‘natural’ and the ‘checkerboard’ metric) using also artifici...

Disentangling cryptic diversity is important for evolutionary and biogeographical research and conservation planning. In some cases, close examination of the morphology of taxa enables their accurate distinction, but often this is only possible by genetic analysis. In the present study we used geometric morphometrics and genetic analysis of two mit...

Typhlops vermicularis is the only extant scolecophidian representative occurring in Europe. Its main distribution area, the eastern Mediterranean, has a complicated geological and climatic history that has left an imprint on the phylogenies and biogeography of many taxa, especially amphibians and reptiles. Since reptiles are sensitive indicators of...

The aim of this work was to infer the phylogeny of the Greek endemic land-snail genus Codringtonia Kobelt 1898, estimate the time frame of the radiation of the genus, and propose a biogeographic scenario that could explain the contemporary distribution of Codringtonia lineages. The study took place in the districts of Peloponnese, Central Greece an...

Anatolian mountains have played an important role in speciation and definition of biogeographical subregions and have been defined as “hotspots“ of biodiversity. Because of its position and its long palaeogeographic and palaeoclimatic history, Anatolia acted in the past as a bridge or as a barrier for species' dispersal, providing natural pathways...

Scolopendra cingulata Latreille, 1829 is the commonest scolopendromorph species in the Mediterranean area. However, its morphological and geographic variation has not been examined so far, and therefore robust hypotheses about the factors that have shaped that variability are lacking. We examined, using multivariate methods for 19 morphometric and...

Patterns of genetic variation of Albinaria caerulea, a land snail that was probably transported by humans to Vravrona (Attica, Greece), were analysed using the mitochondrial ATPase8 gene. The analysis of molecular variance indicated significant local differentiation at the subpopulation level. This considerable population subdivision and genetic di...

A seabird survey was initiated in 2007 in the National Marine Park of Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea (western Greece). The study is part of a broader conservation project on the seabird populations of Greece aiming to assess their status, evaluate their breeding performance and investigate their foraging ecology. Here we report preliminary data on the...

Morphometric data for the five vole species of the genus Microtus living in Greece are old, sparse, poor and insufficiently analysed. This work aims to give the first comprehensive morphometric analysis of body and skull inter- and intraspecific variation for M. (M.) guentheri, M. (M.) rossiaemeridionalis, M. (Terricola) subterraneus, M. (T.) felte...

Land snails display a great diversity of shell structures subject to adaptive explanations. Ribs, which are transverse protrusions on the shell surface, are an example. For the rock‐dwelling snail Albinaria variation of shell sculpture is attributed to water management adaptations. However, detailed experimental tests of these hypotheses are lackin...

This paper reports on the disruption of normally effective ecological and behavioural barriers, at a contact zone on Monemvasia peninsula (Peloponnese, Greece), between parapatric populations of the land snail species Albinaria discolor and Albinaria campylauchen. Detected outcomes were the increase of gene flow between these two species at the con...

Aim To develop a simple method that (1) combines the notions of biotic elements (groups of taxa with ranges significantly more similar to each other than to the ranges of other taxa) and of areas of endemism (AoE, areas of non‐random distributional congruence among taxa), and (2) overcomes the constraints of a previously suggested null model‐based...

Land snails often exhibit intra-annual cycles of activity interspersed by periods of dormancy (hibernation/aestivation), accompanied by a range of behavioural and physiological adaptations to ensure their survival under adverse environmental conditions. These adaptations are useful to understand species-specific habitat requirements and to predict...

Mitochondrial DNA sequences from 16S rRNA and ATPase8 genes were used to investigate phylogeographic patterns of the land snail Albinaria (Gastropoda: Clausiliidae) in the Aegean archipelago. Forty-two populations of Albinaria were analyzed, mainly A. turrita, A. caerulea and A. brevicollis, collected from 22 Aegean islands and certain surrounding...

Examination of the association between reproductive isolation and genetic divergence in a variety of organisms is essential for elucidating the mechanisms causing speciation. However, such studies are lacking for hermaphrodites. We measured premating (sexual) isolation in species pairs of the hermaphroditic land snail Albinaria and we compared it w...

Most insular communities exhibit nestedness, with the species assemblages of the more depauperate islands constituting subsets of those of the richer. Several methods for the estimation and evaluation of nestedness have been developed during the last fifteen years. In this paper we use two of the more recent and elaborate methods, namely the ‘tempe...