Salinity is increasing in aquatic ecosystems in the Mediterranean region due to global change, and this is likely to have an important impact on host-parasite interactions. Here the relationships between infection by ectoparasitic water mites and salinity variation, on survival and fecundity of water boatmen Corixidae from Doñana National Park was studied in the laboratory. Larvae of Sigara lateralis parasitised by larval mites (Hydrachna skorikowi) had lower survivorship, and failed to moult...

Trichocorixa verticalis (Corixidae) is native to North America but is well established as an alien in the Western Mediterranean region, where it is invasive in permanent coastal wetlands with high salinities. The annual cycle and generation time of T. verticalis was investigated in the introduced range in south-west Spain, through a combination of field surveys and laboratory experiments.

Reintroductions have been increasingly used for species restoration and it seems that this conservation tool is going to be more used in the future. Nevertheless, there is not a clear consensus about the better procedure for that, consequently a better knowledge of how to optimize this kind of management is needed. Here the dynamics of released long-lived bird populations in object-oriented simulated reintroduction programs is examined.

Large body-sized avian scavengers, including the Egyptian vulture, are globally threatened due to human-related mortality so guidelines quantifying the efficacy of different management approaches are urgently needed.