Mammal responses to global changes in human activity vary by trophic group and landscape.

Wildlife must adapt to human presence to survive in the Anthropocene, so it is critical to understand species responses to humans in different contexts. We used camera trapping as a lens to view mammal responses to changes in human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across 163 species sampled in 102 projects around the world, changes in the amount and timing of animal activity varied widely.

Optimizing detectability of the endangered fan mussel using eDNA and ddPCR.

Spatial and temporal monitoring of species threatened with extinction is of critical importance for conservation and ecosystem management. In the Mediterranean coast, the fan mussel () is listed as critically endangered after suffering from a mass mortality event since 2016, leading to 100% mortality in most marine populations. Conventional monitoring for this macroinvertebrate is done using scuba, which is challenging in dense meadows or with low visibility.

Drivers of litter ingestion by sea turtles: Three decades of empirical data collected in Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean.

Sea turtles are considered as bio-indicators for monitoring the efficiency of restoration measures to reduce marine litter impacts on health. However, the lack of extended and standardised empirical data has prevented the accurate analysis of the factors influencing litter ingestion and the relationships with individual health. Historic data collected from 1988 and standard data collected from 2016 were harmonised to enable such analyses on necropsied loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in eight Mediterranean and North-East Atlantic countries.

Landscape epidemiology of Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans: reconciling data limitations and conservation urgency.

Starting in 2010, rapid fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) population declines in northwestern Europe heralded the emergence of Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal), a salamander-pathogenic chytrid fungus. Bsal poses an imminent threat to global salamander diversity owing to its wide host range, high pathogenicity, and long-term persistence in ecosystems. While there is a pressing need to develop further research and conservation actions, data limitations inherent to recent pathogen emergence obscure necessary insights into Bsal disease ecology.

Floating marine macro litter: Density reference values and monitoring protocol settings from coast to offshore. Results from the MEDSEALITTER project.

Monitoring Floating Marine Macro Litter (FMML) is a global priority, stressed within international programs, and regulated for the European Seas by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Although some well-defined common protocols exist for the assessment of beach litter and ingested litter, methodologies for FMML monitoring still vary, leading to some inconsistent results and hampering the global assessment of this threat. Within the MEDSEALITTER project (2016-2019), field experiments were implemented to define optimal monitoring parameters for FMML visual monitoring at different spatial scales, by assessing the influence of platform speed, strip width, observers experience, weather conditions, and litter size on its detectability.

Using Boops boops (osteichthyes) to assess microplastic ingestion in the Mediterranean Sea.

This study assesses microplastic ingestion in Boops boops at different geographical areas in the Mediterranean Sea. A total of 884 fish were caught at 20 coastal sites in Spain, France, Italy and Greece and analyzed using a common methodological protocol. Microplastics were found in 46.

Slow life-history strategies are associated with negligible actuarial senescence in western Palaearctic salamanders.

Actuarial senescence has been viewed for a long time as an inevitable and uniform process. However, the work on senescence has mainly focused on endotherms with deterministic growth and low regeneration capacity during the adult stage, leading to a strong taxonomic bias in the study of ageing. Recent studies have highlighted that senescence could indeed display highly variable trajectories that correlate with species life-history traits.

Data Collection on Marine Litter Ingestion in Sea Turtles and Thresholds for Good Environmental Status.

The following protocol is intended to respond to the requirements set by the European Union's Marine Strategy Framework Directives (MSFD) for the D10C3 Criteria reported in the Commission Decision (EU), related to the amount of litter ingested by marine animals. Standardized methodologies for extracting litter items ingested from dead sea turtles along with guidelines on data analysis are provided. The protocol starts with the collection of dead sea turtles and classification of samples according to the decomposition status.

eDNA Increases the Detectability of Ranavirus Infection in an Alpine Amphibian Population.

The early detection and identification of pathogenic microorganisms is essential in order to deploy appropriate mitigation measures. Viruses in the Iridoviridae family, such as those in the genus, can infect amphibian species without resulting in mortality or clinical signs, and they can also infect other hosts than amphibian species. Diagnostic techniques allowing the detection of the pathogen outside the period of host die-off would thus be of particular use.

Determining suitable fish to monitor plastic ingestion trends in the Mediterranean Sea.

The presence of marine litter is a complex, yet persistent, threat to the health and biodiversity of the marine environment, and plastic is the most abundant, and ubiquitous type of marine litter. To monitor the level of plastic waste in an area, and the prospect of it entering the food chain, bioindicator species are used extensively throughout Northern European Seas, however due to their distribution ranges many are not applicable to the Mediterranean Sea. Guidance published for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive suggests that the contents of fish stomachs may be analyzed to determine trends of marine plastic ingestion.

Contrasting patterns of environmental fluctuation contribute to divergent life histories among amphibian populations.

Because it modulates the fitness returns of possible options of energy expenditure at each ontogenetic stage, environmental stochasticity is usually considered a selective force in driving or constraining possible life histories. Divergent regimes of environmental fluctuation experienced by populations are expected to generate differences in the resource allocation schedule between survival and reproductive effort and outputs. To our knowledge, no study has previously examined how different regimes of stochastic variation in environmental conditions could result in changes in both the temporal variation and mean of demographic parameters, which could then lead to intraspecific variation along the slow-fast continuum of life history tactics.

Demographic responses to weather fluctuations are context dependent in a long-lived amphibian.

Weather fluctuations have been demonstrated to affect demographic traits in many species. In long-lived organisms, their impact on adult survival might be buffered by the evolution of traits that reduce variation in interannual adult survival. For example, skipping breeding is an effective behavioral mechanism that may limit yearly variation in adult survival when harsh weather conditions occur; however, this in turn would likely lead to strong variation in recruitment.

RANAVIRUS CAUSES MASS DIE-OFFS OF ALPINE AMPHIBIANS IN THE SOUTHWESTERN ALPS, FRANCE.

Pathogenic fungi and viruses cause mortality outbreaks in wild amphibians worldwide. In the summer of 2012, dead tadpoles and adults of the European common frog Rana temporaria were reported in alpine lakes in the southwestern Alps (Mercantour National Park, France). A preliminary investigation using molecular diagnostic techniques identified a Ranavirus as the potential pathogenic agent.

Next-generation monitoring of aquatic biodiversity using environmental DNA metabarcoding.

Global biodiversity in freshwater and the oceans is declining at high rates. Reliable tools for assessing and monitoring aquatic biodiversity, especially for rare and secretive species, are important for efficient and timely management. Recent advances in DNA sequencing have provided a new tool for species detection from DNA present in the environment.

To breed or not to breed: past reproductive status and environmental cues drive current breeding decisions in a long-lived amphibian.

Iteroparity is an adaptive response to uncertainty in reproductive success. However, spreading reproductive success over multiple reproduction events during a lifetime is constrained by adult mortality and the stochasticity associated with interactions between external factors and physiological states. The acquisition of information about environmental conditions during the growth of progeny and sufficient resources during the non-reproductive period are key factors for breeding success.

Toxicokinetic of benzo[a]pyrene and fipronil in female green frogs (Pelophylax kl. esculentus).

A general consensus that an increased logK(ow) led to an increase in xenobiotic uptake and bioaccumulation is accepted. In this study we compared the toxicokinetics of two chemically different xenobiotics, i.e.

Persistence of environmental DNA in freshwater ecosystems.

The precise knowledge of species distribution is a key step in conservation biology. However, species detection can be extremely difficult in many environments, specific life stages and in populations at very low density. The aim of this study was to improve the knowledge on DNA persistence in water in order to confirm the presence of the focus species in freshwater ecosystems.

Intra-specific variation in nitrate tolerance in tadpoles of the Natterjack toad.

Anthropogenic sources of nitrogen that pollute bodies of water can have toxic and sub-lethal effects on amphibians. It has been hypothesized that such exposure may promote local adaptation, that is, selection for higher tolerance in individuals in populations exposed to pollutants. We tested this hypothesis with respect to the Natterjack toad (Bufo calamita Laurenti, 1768), by comparing the nitrate dose response of tadpoles from eight populations (doses: 0, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 mg/l nitrate) from relatively unpolluted and intensively farmed environments.

Using amphibians in laboratory studies: precautions against the emerging infectious disease chytridiomycosis.

The African clawed frog Xenopus laevis is by far the most widely used amphibian species in laboratories. In the wild, X. laevis is an asymptomatic carrier of an emerging infectious disease called chytridiomycosis.

Variation in genotoxic stress tolerance among frog populations exposed to UV and pollutant gradients.

Populations of widely distributed species can be subjected to unequal selection pressures, producing differences in rates of local adaptation. We report a laboratory experiment testing tolerance variation to UV-B and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) among common frog (Rana temporaria) populations according to their natural exposure level in the field. Studied populations were naturally distributed along two gradients, i.

Influence of ambient ultraviolet radiation on Bufo calamita egg development in a semiarid zone (Catalonia, Spain).

Several experiments have shown that ambient ultraviolet-B radiation (UV-B) has negative effects on the development of amphibians' embryos. We studied the effects of UV-B radiation on development, survival and frequency of deformity during egg development in the Natterjack toad (Bufo calamita) from a semiarid region of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain). Eggs exposed to ambient levels of UV-B and those protected from UV-B with a filter exhibited similar developmental rate, mortality rate and frequency of developmental anomalies.