Local colonisations and extinctions of European birds are poorly explained by changes in climate suitability.

Climate change has been associated with both latitudinal and elevational shifts in species' ranges. The extent, however, to which climate change has driven recent range shifts alongside other putative drivers remains uncertain. Here, we use the changing distributions of 378 European breeding bird species over 30 years to explore the putative drivers of recent range dynamics, considering the effects of climate, land cover, other environmental variables, and species' traits on the probability of local colonisation and extinction.

Acidity and availability of aluminum, iron and manganese as factors affecting germination in European acidic dry and alkaline xerothermic grasslands.

Germination ecology of 10 species from acidic dry grasslands and 10 species from alkaline xerothermic grasslands was studied. The seeds were subjected to different pH, iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) and aluminum (Al) treatments under controlled conditions. Effects of ionic (chlorides) and chelated forms (HBED chelates) of Fe and Mn were also compared.

Passerine extrapair mating dynamics: a bayesian modeling approach comparing four species.

In many socially monogamous animals, females engage in extrapair copulation (EPC), causing some broods to contain both within-pair and extrapair young (EPY). The proportion of all young that are EPY varies across populations and species. Because an EPC that does not result in EPY leaves no forensic trace, this variation in the proportion of EPY reflects both variation in the tendency to engage in EPC and variation in the extrapair fertilization (EPF) process across populations and species.