Luis Gordinho

This study examined the multi-scale effects of farmland management on the assemblages of grassland wintering birds in Southern Portugal, evaluating the potential influences on bird conservation of ongoing transformations in agricultural landscapes. The bird assemblages of 42 ...

Acoustic divergence among populations may result in assortative mating, behavioral isolation, and speciation. In birds, the recognition of suitable mates depends to a large extent on learning, generally resulting in a tendency to discriminate against nonlocal stimuli. However, there may be geographical variation in the discrimination against nonlocal stimuli, and this may allow inferring the mechanisms behind the evolution of vocal recognition. We tested territorial males of 3 west European subspecies of reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus schoeniclus, Emberiza schoeniclus lusitanica, and Emberiza schoeniclus witherbyi) using song playback to determine the level of song discrimination. We found that witherbyi and, to some extent lusitanica, males largely ignored schoeniclus songs. However, witherbyi reacted less strongly to the songs of lusitanica than lusitanica did to songs of witherbyi. In contrast, schoeniclus males did not discriminate the songs of the different subspecies, reacting strongly to all. Differential territorial defense behavior suggest that intruding males with different songs do not represent the same competitive threat, and provide evidence of premating reproductive isolation among these recently evolved subspecies. The high discrimination exhibited by witherbyi and lusitanica seems associated with the high level of local adaptation. Overall, the pattern of premating reproductive isolation appears to agree more with the ecological than with the neutral genetic divergences between subspecies, suggesting that there is an ongoing process of ecological speciation in this study system.

Song divergence between populations of a species can lead to reproductive isolation and speciation. However, birds may have different singing styles used in distinct social contexts, and songs of each style may change at different rates over time and space. Here, we tested whether song divergence between subspecies of reed bunting, Emberiza schoeniclus, differs with singing style, by comparing song traits of its three singing styles among three subspecies breeding in northern and western Europe. We show that the two singing styles under sexual selection (dawn and fast songs, related to obtaining extrapair and social mates, respectively) diverged significantly more than the slow songs (used as an all-clear signal to nest- attending social females). Multiple song traits differed significantly between the subspecies in all singing styles, with E. s. lusitanica generally being intermediate between E. s. schoeniclus and E. s. witherbyi, and the pattern of song complexity opposing the expected latitudinal gradient (of increasing complexity with increasing latitude). Cluster analyses of populations indicate that sexually selected singing styles are better for discriminating subspecies, describing a scenario of a major split in song features between the migratory, northern E. s. schoeniclus and the two resident, southern subspecies, rather than a clinal variation. The greater song divergence in fast and dawn singing styles suggests that sexual selection may be playing an important role in the incipient speciation of reed buntings. (Less)

SummaryHunting and its associated management have significant costs and benefits for biodiversity conservation, which makes this socio-economic activity highly controversial at both international and regional levels. We investigated relationships between management for small game species (mainly Red-legged PartridgesAlectoris rufaand rabbitsOryctolagus cuniculus) and both abundance and richness of farmland and scrubland songbirds, raptors and ground-nesting birds, and on the abundance of three species of conservation concern (Little BustardTetrax tetrax, Eurasian Thick-kneeBurhinus oedicnemusand Montagu’s HarrierCircus pygargus) in southern Portugal farmland. We compared 12 game estates and 12 matching areas with similar sizes and land uses but no game management. Richness and abundance were estimated from fixed point counts, and were related to game regime (managed or unmanaged), habitat characteristics and census period. Our results showed that game management was associated, albe...

Summary1. Mechanical management of forest fuels is increasingly used in the Euro‐Mediterranean region in response to the abandonment of traditional agroforestry and the concurrent increase in fire hazard. Although fuel management may have positive side effects for biodiversity, its long‐term impacts remain largely unknown.2. We used a 70‐year post‐management chronosequence to investigate the influence of time since fuel management and management frequency on bird assemblages in cork oak Quercus suber forests.3. Fuel management strongly affected bird species richness, abundances and assemblage composition, with rapid changes often occurring during the first 10–20 years, followed in the next decades by a slow convergence to pre‐management levels.4. In winter, overall species richness and abundance, and that of frugivores and shrub foragers, were negatively affected by recent and recurrent management, only recovering in stands unmanaged for >50 years. In spring, insectivore abundanc...

Abstract The interaction between hunting interests and legally protected predators is often a contentious conservation problem, requiring detailed understanding of predator responses to game management. This issue was addressed in southern Portugal in a treatment-control ...