Ecological Dynamics and Conservation of Raptor Species

Raptor species occupy key positions in terrestrial ecosystems as apex predators and scavengers, regulating prey populations, facilitating nutrient cycling and serving as indicators of environmental health. Their ecological dynamics encompass complex movement patterns ranging from localized foraging excursions to long-distance migrations shaped by intrinsic factors such as age, sex and breeding status, and extrinsic factors including habitat heterogeneity and primary productivity. Conservation of raptors is challenged by habitat loss, environmental degradation, collisions with energy infrastructure, chemical contamination and emerging diseases. Recent advances in telemetry and biologging have transformed our understanding of space use, home-range dynamics and survival rates, while molecular and microbiome analyses reveal how anthropogenic stressors influence pathogen exposure and host health. Integrating high-resolution movement data with analytical tools now enables near-real-time monitoring of demographic parameters, facilitating adaptive management. A holistic conservation strategy must address threats across the full annual cycle, from breeding territories to wintering grounds, and harness novel bioindicators and predictive models to safeguard raptor populations globally.

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Ecological Dynamics and Conservation of Raptor Species publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in ecological dynamics and conservation of raptor species across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Biologging: Attachment of miniature data loggers to animals to record movement, physiology or behaviour over time.

Home range: The spatial area regularly traversed by an individual during normal activities such as foraging and breeding.

Mycobiome: The community of fungal organisms associated with a host’s tissues or microbiota.

Random forest model: An ensemble machine-learning technique that constructs multiple decision trees to improve the accuracy of classification or regression predictions.

References

1. Fungal signatures of oral disease reflect environmental degradation in a facultative avian scavenger. The Science of The Total Environment (2022).
2. Sex, landscape diversity and primary productivity shape the seasonal space use of a migratory European raptor. Journal of Avian Biology (2022).
3. Extracting reproductive parameters from GPS tracking data for a nesting raptor in Europe. Journal of Avian Biology (2024).