A study carried out by the Doñana Biological Station, along with British research institutes, has analyzed the diet of fish, such as brown trout and Atlantic salmon, and of river birds, such as grey wagtails and Eurasian dippers
The results show that water invertebrates constitute a big part of its diet. The loss of these invertebrates could be one of the reasons for the disappearance of trout, salmon and river birds.

Large-scale environmental forces can influence biodiversity at different levels of biological organization. Climate, in particular, is often associated with species distributions and diversity gradients. However, its mechanistic link to population dynamics is still poorly understood. Here, the full mechanistic path by which a climatic driver, the Atlantic trade winds, determines the viability of a bird population is unravelled.

Invasive species have major impacts on biodiversity and are one of the primary causes of amphibian decline and extinction. Unlike other top ant invaders that negatively affect larger fauna via chemical defensive compounds, the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) does not have a functional sting. Nonetheless, it deploys defensive compounds against competitors and adversaries. Levels of ant aggression toward 3 native terrestrial amphibians were estimated by challenging juveniles in field ant...

Matching habitat choice is a particular form of habitat selection based on self?assessment of local performance that offers individuals a means to optimize the match of phenotype to the environment. Despite the advantages of this mechanism in terms of increased local adaptation, examples from natural populations are extremely rare. One possible reason for the apparent rarity of matching habitat choice is that it might be manifest only in those segments of a population for which the cost of a...

The role that apex predators play in ecosystem functioning, disease regulation and biodiversity maintenance is increasingly debated. However, the positive impacts of their presence in terrestrial ecosystems, particularly in human-dominated landscapes, remain controversial. Limited experimental insights regarding the consequences of apex predator recoveries may be behind such controversy and may also impact on the social acceptability towards the recovery of these species.