Dataset Information

Following the White Vulture: Ethno-ornithology along the Flyway of the Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus).

ABSTRACT: Vultures constitute globally the most rapidly declining group of birds. Across their wide distribution range, they share common ecological functions and unfavourable conservation status while being associated with varying habitats, lifestyles, cultural standing, and threats. We reveal conceptualisations about the emblematic yet critically endangered Egyptian vulture along its migratory flyway from the Balkans through the Middle East to Africa. Information was gathered through interviews, focus group discussions, and market surveys, with 420 people in 11 participating countries contributing overall. Our results showed that all vultures are recognised primarily for the environmental cleaning services, but the level of awareness differs between countries. Τhe Egyptian vulture has some perceptual advantages based on its white color, migratory nature, and endangered conservation status. This underlines its suitability as a charismatic flagship species that can potentially benefit other vulture species and thus enforce broader vulture conservation initiatives.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10745-022-00340-6.

SUBMITTER: Stara K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9188277 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Following the White Vulture: Ethno-ornithology along the Flyway of the Egyptian Vulture (<i>Neophron percnopterus</i>).

Stara Kalliopi K Saravia-Mullin Victoria V Tsiakiris Rigas R Adefolu Solomon S Akyol Adem A Akyol Raziye İçtepe Rİ Asswad Nabegh Ghazal NG Çetin Turan T Dayyoub Maher M Dushi Gligor G Ivande Samuel Tertese ST Kordopatis Panagiotis P Kret Elzbieta E Özuslu Serdar S Petrovski Nenad N Simeonova Ivalina I Spassova Yana Y Qaneer Tareq Emad TE Pourchier Cloé C Saad Louis Junior LJ ElSafoury Hana H Topi Mirjan M Trajҫe Aleksandër A Ziu Denada D Nikolov Stoyan C SC

Human ecology: an interdisciplinary journal 20220611 4

Vultures constitute globally the most rapidly declining group of birds. Across their wide distribution range, they share common ecological functions and unfavourable conservation status while being associated with varying habitats, lifestyles, cultural standing, and threats. We reveal conceptualisations about the emblematic yet critically endangered Egyptian vulture along its migratory flyway from the Balkans through the Middle East to Africa. Information was gathered through interviews, focus g ...[more]

PMID: 35729956

Similar Datasets

Project description:Variation in offspring sex ratio, particularly in birds, has been frequently studied over the last century, although seldom using long-term monitoring data. In raptors, the cost of raising males and females is not equal, and several variables have been found to have significant effects on sex ratio, including food availability, parental age, and hatching order. Sex ratio differences between island populations and their mainland counterparts have been poorly documented, despite broad scientific literature on the island syndrome reporting substantial differences in population demography and ecology. Here, we assessed individual and environmental factors potentially affecting the secondary sex ratio of the long-lived Egyptian vulture Neophron percnopterus. We used data collected from Spanish mainland and island populations over a ca. 30-year period (1995-2021) to assess the effects of insularity, parental age, breeding phenology, brood size, hatching order, type of breeding unit (pairs vs. trios), and spatial and temporal variability on offspring sex ratio. No sex bias was found at the population level, but two opposite trends were observed between mainland and island populations consistent with the island syndrome. Offspring sex ratio was nonsignificantly female-biased in mainland Spain (0.47, n = 1112) but significantly male-biased in the Canary Islands (0.55, n = 499), where a male-biased mortality among immatures could be compensating for offspring biases and maintaining a paired adult sex ratio. Temporal and spatial variation in food availability might also have some influence on sex ratio, although the difficulties in quantifying them preclude us from determining the magnitude of such influence. This study shows that insularity influences the offspring sex ratio of the Egyptian vulture through several processes that can affect island and mainland populations differentially. Our research contributes to improving our understanding of sex allocation theory by investigating whether sex ratio deviations from parity are possible as a response to changing environments comprised by multiple and complexly interrelated factors.

Project description:BACKGROUND AND GOAL:The study is conducted to facilitate conservation of migratory wader species along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, particularly to 1) Identify hotspots of wader species richness along the flyway and effectively map how these might change between breeding, non-breeding and migratory phases; 2) Determine if the existing network of protected areas (PA) is sufficient to effectively conserve wader biodiversity hotspots along the EAAF; 3) Assess how species distribution models can provide complementary distribution estimates to existing BirdLife range maps. METHODS:We use a species distribution modelling (SDM) approach (MaxEnt) to develop temporally explicit individual range maps of 57 migratory wader species across their annual cycle, including breeding, non-breeding and migratory phases, which in turn provide the first biodiversity hotspot map of migratory waders along the EAAF for each of these phases. We assess the protected area coverage during each migration period, and analyse the dominant environmental drivers of distributions for each period. Additionally, we compare model hotspots to those existing range maps of the same species obtained from the BirdLife Internationals' database. RESULTS:Our model results indicate an overall higher and a spatially different species richness pattern compared to that derived from a wader biodiversity hotspot map based on BirdLife range maps. Field observation records from the eBird database for our 57 study species confirm many of the hotspots revealed by model outputs (especially within the Yellow Sea coastal region), suggesting that current richness of the EAAF may have been underestimated and certain hotspots overlooked. Less than 10% of the terrestrial zones area (inland and coastal) which support waders are protected and, only 5% of areas with the highest 10% species richness is protected. MAIN CONCLUSIONS:The study results suggest the need for new areas for migratory wader research and conservation priorities including Yellow Sea region and Russian far-East. It also suggests a need to increase the coverage and percentage of current PA network to achieve Aichi Target 11 for Flyway countries, including giving stronger consideration to the temporal dynamics of wader migration.

Project description:The conservation of long-distance migratory birds requires coordination between the multiple countries connected by the movements of these species. The recent expansion of tracking studies is shedding new light on these movements, but much of this information is fragmented and inaccessible to conservation practitioners and policy makers. We synthesized current knowledge on the connectivity established between countries by landbirds and raptors migrating along the African-Eurasian flyway. We reviewed tracking studies to compile migration records for 1229 individual birds, from which we derived 544 migratory links, each link corresponding to a species' connection between a breeding country in Europe and a nonbreeding country in sub-Saharan Africa. We used these migratory links to analyze trends in knowledge over time and spatial patterns of connectivity per country (across species), per species (across countries), and at the flyway scale (across all countries and all species). The number of tracking studies available increased steadily since 2010 (particularly for landbirds), but the coverage of existing tracking data was highly incomplete. An average of 7.5% of migratory landbird species and 14.6% of raptor species were tracked per country. More data existed from central and western European countries, and it was biased toward larger bodied species. We provide species- and country-level syntheses of the migratory links we identified from the reviewed studies, involving 123 populations of 43 species, migrating between 28 European and 43 African countries. Several countries (e.g., Spain, Poland, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo) are strategic priorities for future tracking studies to complement existing data, particularly on landbirds. Despite the limitations in existing tracking data, our data and results can inform discussions under 2 key policy instruments at the flyway scale: the African-Eurasian Migratory Landbirds Action Plan and the Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Birds of Prey in Africa and Eurasia.