City life anticipates the breeding of a bird of prey without affecting its reproductive success.

Urbanisation poses a profound threat to biodiversity, leading to the loss of natural ecosystems and changes in animal communities. Many species of birds of prey are increasingly associated with urban habitats even when they have low reproductive success. However, it is unclear if this poor reproductive performance is due to the worse environmental conditions of the cities or to the poorer quality of the nesting sites.

Assessing perfluoroalkyl substance pollution in Central Mediterranean breeding shearwaters.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic organofluorine compounds used in various products, which are highly durable in the environment and may pose risks to wildlife health. We investigated the blood cell concentrations of PFAS in breeding Scopoli's shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea) from three different colonies in the central and southern Mediterranean (Linosa, Malta, and La Maddalena). Shearwaters are flexible, high trophic level foragers, and foraging areas may differ according to sex and breeding stage.

Linking warmer nest temperatures to reduced body size in seabird nestlings: Possible mitochondrial bioenergetic and proteomic mechanisms.

Rapid reduction of body size in populations responding to global warming suggests the involvement of temperature-dependent physiological adjustments during growth, such as mitochondrial alterations, in the efficiency of producing metabolic energy, a process that is poorly explored, especially in endotherms. Here, we examined the mitochondrial metabolism and proteomic profile of red blood cells in relation to body size and cellular energetics in nestling shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea) developing at different natural temperatures. We found that nestlings of warmer nests had lighter bodies and smaller beaks at fledging.

[Human vs. ChatGPT. Is it possible obtain comparable results in the analysis of a scientific systematic review?].

Introduction: There is growing interest in the use of ChatGPT in the writing and reviewing of scientific articles. In line with the nature of ChatGPT, we tested its effectiveness in the scientific article review process.

Methods: We compared the findings of a systematic review of the published literature, produced by researchers in the traditional way, with a version created by ChatGPT, obtained by providing the same inputs as the original paper and a set of instructions (prompts) optimized to obtain the same type of result; we also identified the process that led to a comparable result.

Analysis of organochlorines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons designed for pollutant biomonitoring in three seabird matrices.

Pollutant biomonitoring demands analytical methods to cover a wide range of target compounds, work with minimal sample amounts, and apply least invasive and reproducible sampling procedures. We developed a method to analyse 68 bioaccumulative organic pollutants in three seabird matrices: plasma, liver, and stomach oil, representing different exposure phases. Extraction efficiency was assessed based on recoveries of spiked surrogate samples, then the method was applied to environmental samples collected from Scopoli's shearwater (Calonectris diomedea).