Biased adult sex ratios in Western Europe populations of Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax as a potential warning signal of unbalanced mortalities
Entity
UAM. Departamento de EcologíaPublisher
Cambridge University PressDate
2022-11-15Citation
10.1017/S0959270922000430
Bird Conservation International 33 (2023): e40
ISSN
0959-2709 (print); 1474-0001 (online)DOI
10.1017/S0959270922000430Project
Comunidad de Madrid. S-2013/MAE-2719/REMEDINAL3Editor's Version
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270922000430Subjects
Conservation; Western Europe; Female Mortality; Endangered Species; Steppe Birds; Biología y Biomedicina / BiologíaNote
Los autores de la UAM pertecen al Terrestrial Ecology Group (TEG)Rights
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of BirdLife InternationalAbstract
Adult sex ratios (ASRs) have proved to correlate with population trends, which make them potential useful indicators of a species' population trajectory and conservation status. We analysed ASRs and proportion of juveniles in flocks of an endangered steppe bird, the Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax, using surveys made during the non-breeding period in seven areas within its Western European range (one in Portugal, four in Spain, and two in France). We found overall male-biased ASRs, as all the seven surveyed areas showed a male-biased ASR mean value. Five areas were below the threshold median value (female sex ratio = 0.4) considered to be consistent with an increased probability of extinction, according to earlier population viability analyses for the species. We also found a significant positive correlation between female ratio and the proportion of young individuals in the non-breeding flocks surveyed. Our results (strongly male-biased ASRs) support the hypothesis that the viability of Little Bustard populations in Western Europe is threatened by an excess of female mortality, something that should be quantified in the future, and emphasise the value of monitoring sex ratio as a population viability indicator in species where monitoring survival is difficult to achieve
Files in this item
Google Scholar:Serrano-Davies, Eva
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Traba Díaz, Juan
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Arroyo, Beatriz
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Mougeot, François
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Cuscó, Francesc
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Mañosa, Santi
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Bota, Gerard
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Faria, Nuno
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Villers, Alexandre
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Casas, Fabián
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Attie, Carole
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Devoucoux, Pierrick
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Bretagnolle, Vincent
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Morales Prieto, Manuel Borja
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