Emergency conservation work pays off: Zino’s Petrel bounces back!

Zino’s Petrel was Europe’s rarest seabird even before a ravaging wild fire hit the heart of Madeira’s central massif, where this globally endangered bird breeds.

The fire, in August 2010, had dire consequences: 25 young and 3 adults were found burnt to death, and of the 13 young birds found alive, only one survived to fledge that year – the others were predated in their now obvious nests on the barren mountain ledges.

Suddenly, the species’ population – which had been increasing steadily in recent years, thanks to efforts by the Natural Park of Madeira (PNM) – was jeopardized.

The situation was grave indeed – the fire not only led to a near-complete breeding failure in 2010, but also exacerbated soil erosion, causing several nesting burrows to collapse.

As soon as the smouldering cinders permitted it, PNM developed an action plan to mitigate the consequences of this natural disaster. A team of conservation wardens was deployed to place anti-erosion coconut mesh on the breeding ledges to protect the soil in some of the most critical places.

Then, with financial and logistical support from SPEA/BirdLife in Portugal, the RSPB/BirdLife in the UK and BirdLife International, about 100 natural nests were restored, while 60 new artificial nests were built. A protective cordon was also built around the known breeding areas, with cat traps and bait boxes.

Read on:  http://www.birdlife.org/community/2012/02/emergency-conservation-work-pays-off-zinos-petrel-bounces-back/

US bat killer strikes in Europe

White nose syndrome has been diagnosed in a European bat for the first time. The disease, caused by a fungus, Geomyces destructans, has wiped out millions of bats in the US since it was discovered there in 2006.

The single case, in a living bat, signifies that the disease may occur sporadically in European populations. Other European bats carry the fungus but do not develop white nose syndrome.

"There's definitely no disaster in Europe, and no mass mortality, and the long-term data suggest the situation remains stable," says Natália Martinková of the Czech Institute of Vertebrate Biology in Brno, who led the research.

Martinková studies greater mouse-eared bats (Myotis myotis) in a cave in the Czech Republic. She found crescent-shaped cavities filled with fungal spores and hyphae – the defining symptom of the disease – in the skin of one bat. "The pathology of the skin infection is diagnostic of white nose syndrome," she says.

Two dead bats on the cave floor were also found to be carrying the fungus, but there was no evidence that they had been killed by the disease.

The solitary case strengthens the argument that European bats have long acclimatised to the fungus. North American bats succumb because they have yet to develop resistance. The fungus is thought to have arrived recently in the US from Europe.

No ill effects

Last year Emma Teeling of University College Dublin in Ireland found in a study that bats in 12 European countries are carrying the fungus without any ill effects. She agrees that the isolated case of white nose syndrome is no reason to panic.

"To say that white nose syndrome is in Europe could be a bit premature," Teeling says. If anything, she says, the single case highlights the difficulty of defining when a bat has the disease and when it is harmlessly colonised by the fungus.

"An understanding of the susceptibility [of European bats] may help us understand where we can interrupt the disease cycle and slow or contain the spread of the disease in North American populations," says Ann Froschauer, a spokeswoman for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Martinková shares that hope. She adds that European monitoring will reveal environmental factors that suit the fungus. "We have sites where about half the bats are infected, and others where there are far fewer, so we're trying to figure out environmental factors that affect prevalence."

This, in turn, may help to explain how the disease is spreading in the US, and ways to prevent it by modifying the environment within caves.

Journal reference: Journal of Wildlife Diseases, vol 48, p 207

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21452-us-bat-killer-strikes-in-europe.html

Climate change affecting Europe's butterflies and birds

Fast-track warming in Europe is making butterflies and birds fall behind in moves to cooler habitats and prompting a worrying turnover in alpine plant species, studies published on Sunday said. 

The papers, both published by the journal Nature Climate Change, are the biggest endeavour yet to pinpoint impacts on European biodiversity from accelerating global temperatures.

A team led by Vincent Devictor of France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) found that from 1990 to 2008, average temperatures in Europe rose by one degree Celsius.

This is extremely high, about 25% greater than the global average for all of the last century.

In order to live at the same temperature, species would have to shift northward by 249 kilometres, they calculated.

But during this period, butterflies moved only 114 kilometres, and birds by just 37 kilometres.

Population decline risk
The data is derived from observations made by a network of thousands of amateur naturalists, amounting to 1.5-million hours of fieldwork.

The study was not designed to say whether these species are suffering as a result of warming, which is one of the big questions in the climate-change saga.

However, the risk of population decline is clear, the authors say.


Species that lag behind a move to a more suitable habitat accumulate a "climatic debt".

Eventually, the impact of warming hits parts of the local food chain on which they depend, such as caterpillars or vegetation, and this cuts into their chances of being able to adapt. Finding a similar habitat is made more difficult by agriculture.

The second study looked at 867 samples of vegetation from 60 mountaintop sites across Europe in an assessment of the hottest decade on record.

Continental level
Seen at local level, there was little apparent change during in the study period of 2001 to 2008.

But when the picture zoomed out to continental level, it was clear that a major turnover was under way.

Cold-loving plants traditionally found in alpine regions were being pushed out of their habitats by warming-loving ones, which invaded higher altitudes that were now within their grasp.

"We expected to find a greater number of warm-loving plants at higher altitudes, but we did not expect to find such a significant change in such a short period of time," said study leader Michael Gottfried, a University of Vienna biologist.

"Many cold-loving species are literally running out of mountain. In some of the lower mountains in Europe, we could see alpine meadows disappearing and dwarf shrubs taking over within the next few decades."

The research was the biggest plant-count of its kind in Europe, gathering 32 researchers from 13 countries. -- AFP

Exmoor ponies – The true descendant of Europe’s wild horses?

Wild horses for Europe - which breed is the best? August 2011. European grasslands have belonged to wild horses for thousands of years, but with the arrival of human hunters and, later on, farmers, wild horses were pushed from most parts of Europe. They had to give way to their domestic relatives. In some areas domestic and wild horses lived side by side for thousands of years. But ultimately, the story of European Wild horses came to a bad end.

Exmoor pony

Extinct in 1905
The last horse that was from supposedly wild stock died in 1905 in the Moscow's zoo. It was a Tarpan, the steppe horse from southern Russia and Ukraine, and later the name Tarpan was falsely given to all European wild horses.

Europe ‘incomplete' without wild horses
Without wild horses European nature is incomplete, and so experts are now preparing to bring back this key species. But which breed is the best choice for Europe when the last original wild horse died more than one hundred years ago?

Just like when searching for a substitute for the aurochs, the greatest hopes come from primitive breeds of domestic horse breeds. For several decades, the Polish Konik horse was considered to be the best candidate.

Konik horses ‘nothing to do' with prehistoric wild horses
"From genetic research it is clear that the Konik has nothing to do with prehistoric horses and it is clearly of mixed origin. This is surprising, since for years the Konik from Poland has been promoted as the resurrected Tarpan" said Henri Kerkdijk-Otten of The Taurus Foundation, a Dutch organization that uses feral cattle and horses in nature management and natural grazing schemes, and also organizer of an international scientific ancient horse project.

Exmoor ponies are closest relatives of Europe's wild horses
Henri Kerkdijk-Otten continues: "According to the latest researches, it is the Exmoor pony from a remote part of Great Britain that is the closest relative we have of the prehistoric horse. This is confirmed by other researches like bone measurements, historic documents, blood type research and dental researches. Looking at Exmoor ponies, they seem to come right of the walls of the Lascaux cave. We have also noticed from experience that Exmoor ponies express more wild features than Koniks, like a natural tendency to get out of the way when people approach. These are the reasons we are slowly moving away from Koniks and we are concentrating on Exmoor ponies. "

More candidates
The next research could show if the Exmoor pony needs some ‘tweaking' or not. But scientists are not yet united. Some of them prefer continuation of Konik´s breeding, some want to experiment with breeding wild Przewalski's horse with primitive domestic breeds, some prefer other primitive horse breeds - like Retuerta from Spain, Pottoka from the Basque Country or Hucul from the Carpathian mountains.

Regional variationsWhat also has become evident is that there was, and still is, regional variety within the total European wild horse population. Each region has its own landscape, climate and vegetation. Some primitive horse breeds are better adapted to mountainous areas and some to flat savannah-like landscapes. Some are better suited for wetter areas and some for drier areas. The variety of habitats resulted in a regional variety that is still represented in the various primitive horse breeds in different regions of Europe.

No erect manes
When the best breed or breeds are finally chosen, experts will have to agree how the original European wild horses really looked like. "There is a simple fact: prehistoric horses did not all have erect manes. Complete bodies of ponies from 12.000 to 10.000 BC have been found in the frozen tundra of Siberia and they had long manes, not erect ones. A photo from the last Ukrainian Tarpan shows long manes.

Prehistoric cave paintings also show long manes next to erect manes. Descriptions of wild horses in Romania in the 15th and 16th century AD also point to the fact that those horses had long manes. Even Gmelini, the author who described the Tarpan in the 18th century, did not talk about erect manes, but about short frizzy manes," claims Henri Kerkdijk-Otten.

For long years long manes were considered as a sign of domestication. But studies show another reason for having long manes. "The long manes divert rain water. Most prehistoric horses with erect manes that we see on cave paintings were part of a tundra-steppe climate and vegetation. That means very little rains and therefore not the need to develop mechanisms to divert rain water. "continues Henri Kerkdijk-Otten.

"Also, the only illustration we have of a Tarpan with erect manes is of a young colt of about five months old. Young horses always have erect manes, so that illustration says nothing," added Henri Kerkdijk-Otten.

Bay and black
The latest genetic research shows that the original colours of prehistoric horses were bay and black. "Bay colour is common in Exmoor and Przewalski's ponies, Serbian Mountain ponies, Garrano ponies from Portugal and some other authentic breeds. The black colour can still be seen in authentic and feral horse breeds like the Asturcon (North of Spain), the original Potokka (Basque country), the Merens (South of France) and the Fell pony (North England).

The bay colour of the prehistoric horse was also influenced by a gene that determined a lighter belly and a lighter to white muzzle, just like you see in wild horses depicted in the Caves of Lascaux. This gene is still present in the Przewalski horse and in the Exmoor pony and also partly in other breeds.

The European Wildlife conservation organization supports the comeback of wild horses to Europe. "We prefer one breed of ‘wild horse' for the whole of Europe. Researches based on DNA analysis of original wild horses' bones and primitive domestic breeds of nowadays suggests to us which breed is the best for comeback to the wild or for rebreeding European wild horse," said Dalibor Dostal, director of European Wildlife. He continued: "That is why we think it is necessary to separate projects aimed at maintaining local primitive domestic breeds of horses and finding common wild horses for Europe."

It is clear, that finding a common breed for Europe will be very difficult. Because every country and every region will prefer its local primitive breed of horse with which they have shared an emotional bond for centuries. European Wildlife also has its favourite. "I hope it will be Exmoor pony, which The Taurus Foundation focuses on, because it is a magnificent animal" said Dalibor Dostal.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/exmoor-ponies011.html