Clinging on to alpine life: Investigating factors driving the uphill range contraction and population decline of a mountain breeding bird.

Climate change and anthropogenic nitrogen deposition are widely regarded as important drivers of environmental change in alpine habitats. However, due to the difficulties working in high-elevation mountain systems, the impacts of these drivers on alpine breeding species have rarely been investigated. The Eurasian dotterel (Charadrius morinellus) is a migratory wader, which has been the subject of uniquely long-term and spatially widespread monitoring effort in Scotland, where it breeds in alpine areas in dwindling numbers.

Sheep grazing in the North Atlantic region: A long-term perspective on environmental sustainability.

Sheep grazing is an important part of agriculture in the North Atlantic region, defined here as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Scotland. This process has played a key role in shaping the landscape and biodiversity of the region, sometimes with major environmental consequences, and has also been instrumental in the development of its rural economy and culture. In this review, we present results of the first interdisciplinary study taking a long-term perspective on sheep management, resource economy and the ecological impacts of sheep grazing, showing that sustainability boundaries are most likely to be exceeded in fragile environments where financial support is linked to the number of sheep produced.

The Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme: objectives, achievements in the first four years, and plans for future development.

The Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme (SRMS) comprises 7 partner organizations and was established in 2002 after i) the publication of the UK Government's Raptor Working Group Report that made recommendations for enhanced monitoring, ii) increased applied data needs (e.g., for site designation), and iii) concerns for the status of some species.

Male and female behaviour and extra-pair paternity in the wheatear.

Behavioural observations and DNA fingerprinting were used to determine the relationship between male and female behaviours and levels of extra-pair paternity in the wheatear, Oenanthe oenanthe. Behavioural observations were consistent with the hypothesis that males attempted to ensure paternity by mate guarding, while pursuing extra-pair copulations (EPCs) primarily outside the fertile period of their pair female. The intensity of guarding varied with time of season and was greater at late nests.