Unexpected Delayed Incursion of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 (Clade 2.3.4.4b) Into the Antarctic Region.

The current highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 panzootic is having substantial impacts on wild birds and marine mammals. Following major and widespread outbreaks in South America, an incursion to Antarctica occurred late in the austral summer of 2023/2024 and was confined to the region of the Antarctic Peninsula. To infer potential underlying processes, we compiled H5N1 surveillance data from Antarctica and sub-Antarctic Islands prior to the first confirmed cases.

Reptile responses to fire across the western Mediterranean Basin.

Effects of anthropogenic activities, including climate change, are modifying fire regimes, and the dynamic nature of these modifications requires identification of general patterns of organisms' responses to fire. This is a challenging task because of the high complexity of factors involved (including climate, geography, land use, and species-specific ecology). We aimed to describe the responses of the reptile community to fire across a range of environmental and fire-history conditions in the western Mediterranean Basin.

Postfire biodiversity database for eastern Iberia.

In the summer of 2012, two fires affected Mediterranean ecosystems in the eastern Iberian Peninsula. The size of these fires was at the extreme of the historical variability (megafires). Animals are traditionally assumed to recolonize from source populations outside of the burned area (exogenous regeneration) while plants recover from endogenous regeneration (resprouting and seeding).

Genetic diversity, phylogenetic position, and co-phylogenetic relationships of Karyolysus, a common blood parasite of lizards in the western Mediterranean.

The genus Karyolysus was originally proposed to accommodate blood parasites of lacertid lizards in Western Europe. However, recent phylogenetic analyses suggested an inconclusive taxonomic position of these parasites of the order Adeleorina based on the available genetic information. Inconsistencies between molecular phylogeny, morphology, and/or life cycles can reflect lack of enough genetic information of the target group.

Behavioral fever in Bosk's fringe-toed lizards (Acanthodactylus boskianus) living in an industrial area in south-eastern Tunisia.

As an indicator of physiological state of lizards, thermoregulatory behavior has been proposed as an assessment tool of environmental contamination, particularly in desert ecosystems where lizards represent a major biological component. Although pesticide contamination has been shown to induce behavioral fever in lizards, the possible pyrogenic effect of heavy metals has received less attention. The objective of this study was to provide data on this issue by using Bosk's fringe-toed lizards (Acanthodactylus boskianus) living in a metal-contaminated industrial area in south-eastern Tunisia as a study model.