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Section: Ecology ; Topics: Ecology

Tracking butterfly flight in the field from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV): a methodological proof of principle

de Margerie, Emmanuel; Monmasson, Kyra

10.24072/pcjournal.566 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 5 (2025), article no. e61.
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Tracking and understanding the movements of animals in the wild is a fast-growing area of research, known as movement ecology. However, tracking small animals such as flying insects, which cannot easily carry an electronic tag, remains challenging as existing field methods are costly either in terms of equipment or tracking effort (e.g. VHF radio-tracking, scanning harmonic radar). Here we attempted to record the movements of free-flying butterflies from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), maintaining a static position in the sky and recording video vertically downwards. With an appropriate flight height and image filtering algorithm, we recorded 166 flight tracks of Pieris butterflies (P. brassicae and P. rapae), with a median tracking length of 40 m (median flight duration 13 s), and a high temporal resolution of 30 positions per second. Average flight direction varied significantly over the course of the flying season, from a northward azimuth in June and early July, to a southward azimuth in September, congruent with a trans-generational migratory behaviour that has previously been documented by field observations or experiments in flight cages. In addition, UAV imagery unlocks the possibility to measure high-resolution flight movement patterns (e.g. path tortuosity and transverse oscillations), which will possibly help understand perceptual and locomotor mechanisms underlying spatial behaviour. We explore the technical details associated with UAV tracking methodology, and discuss its limitations, in particular the biases associated with a 2D projection of 3D flight movements, the limited spatial scale, and the difficulty to distinguish between visually similar species, such as P. brassicae and P. rapae.
Section: Ecology ; Topics: Ecology

Modelling Eurasian lynx populations in Western Europe: What prospects for the next 50 years?

Bauduin, Sarah; Germain, Estelle; Zimmermann, Fridolin; Idelberger, Sylvia; Herdtfelder, Micha; Heurich, Marco; Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie; Duchamp, Christophe; Drouet-Hoguet, Nolwenn; Morand, Alain; Blanc, Laetitia; Charbonnel, Anaïs; Gimenez, Olivier

10.24072/pcjournal.543 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 5 (2025), article no. e60.
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Persistence of populations may be uncertain for large carnivore species, especially for those established in human-dominated landscapes. Here, we studied the Eurasian lynx in Western Europe established in the Upper Rhine meta-population (i.e., Jura, Vosges-Palatinian and Black Forest populations) and the Alpine population. These populations are currently considered endangered or critically endangered due to high anthropogenic mortality, small population size and low genetic diversity, and isolation. We assessed lynx persistence over a 50-year time horizon by implementing a spatially-explicit individual-based model, while accounting for road mortality and habitat selection. Forecasts showed a steady growth rapidly reaching a more stable phase for the Alpine and Jura populations, and a more heterogeneous positive growth with less precision for the Vosges-Palatinian and Black Forest populations. Exchanges of individuals between populations were limited, the Jura population playing the role of a crossroad. Finally, the persistence of lynx in Western Europe seems likely on a large scale over the next 50 years. Indeed, simulations showed high female occupancy as well as average lynx density over the core areas of the four studied populations. Nevertheless, these results should be interpreted with the model limitations in mind, concerning the absence of movement barriers and inbreeding depression.
Section: Ecology ; Topics: Ecology

On the quest for novelty in ecology

Ottaviani, Gianluigi; Martínez, Alejandro; Petit Bon, Matteo; Mammola, Stefano

10.24072/pcjournal.567 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 5 (2025), article no. e59.
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The volume of scientific publications continues to grow, making it increasingly challenging for scholars to publish papers that capture readers' attention. While making a truly significant discovery is one way to attract readership, another approach may involve tweaking the language to overemphasize the novelty of results. Using a dataset of 52,236 paper abstracts published between 1997 and 2017 in 17 ecological journals, we found that the relative frequency of novelty terms (e.g. groundbreaking, innovative) nearly doubled over time. All journals but one exhibited a positive trend in the use of novelty terms during the studied period. Conversely, we found no such trend for confirmatory terms (e.g. confirm, replicated). Importantly, only papers using novelty terms were associated with significantly higher citation counts and were more often published in journals with a higher Impact Factor. While increasing research opportunities are surely driving advances in ecology, the writing style of authors and the publishing habits of journals may better reflect the inherently confirmatory nature of ecological research. We call for an open discussion among researchers about the potential reasons and implications of this language-use and scientometrics issue.
Section: Infections

Experimental design impacts the vector competence of Ornithodoros ticks for African swine fever virus: a meta-analysis of published evaluations

Bernard, Jennifer; Vial, Laurence; Madeira, Sara; Otte, Joachim; Boinas, Fernando; Le Potier, Marie-Frédérique; Jourdan-Pineau, Hélène

10.24072/pcjournal.542 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 5 (2025), article no. e58.
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African Swine Fever (ASF) is a highly economically devastating viral disease for swine. Soft ticks of the genus Ornithodoros are involved in its epidemiology, as vectors and natural reservoirs of African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV). The vector competence of Ornithodoros ticks for ASFV has been mainly studied by mimicking natural tick-to-pig transmission pathways through experimental infections in the laboratory. By reviewing the original research studies dating back to the 1960s on the vector competence of Ornithodoros for ASFV, we estimated the vector competence of 10 tick species in association with 38 viral strains resulting in 51 tick-virus associations. This assessment emphasized the extensive range of protocol designs employed and their impact on the success of tick infection with ASFV. Our results call for standardised procedures in vector competence experiments to facilitate further investigation and reduce potential experimental bias. In particular, we recommend the use of late nymphs or adult ticks from a laboratory colony to achieve efficient infection rates. In addition, viral inoculation should be carried out by blood meal rather than by injection, and preference should be given to high titre blood. Finally, detection of viral DNA should be performed 2 months after inoculation to distinguish between successful replication and residual virus in the tick.

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The network image was drawn by Martin Grandjean: A force-based network visualization CC BY-SA