Some wildlife species can successfully adapt to urban environments. To prevent potential conflict of these species with humans or their pets, a better understanding of the presence of urban wildlife is needed. However, traditional monitoring methods are often inadequate because many privately owned properties are inaccessible. In this study, we analyse reports of European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus or E. roumanicus) and badgers (Meles meles) provided by two long-term citizen science projects in the city of Vienna, Austria – stadtwildtiere.at and roadkill.at – to assess habitat preferences and potential ecological interactions. Vienna has a human population of about 2×106 and covers an area of 415 km2, 50 % of which is green space in the form of forests, parks and private gardens. A total of 356 hedgehog and 918 badger sightings were reported between 2012 and 2023. Sightings of both species were positively associated with a mix of sealed/built-up areas and green spaces with meadows and shrubs. However, sightings of both species were negatively associated with arable land, most likely due to the avoidance of open terrain, reduced food availability or simply because both nocturnal species were more difficult to spot on dark arable land. The steeper the slope of a habitat, the fewer hedgehogs were reported, whereas for badgers, a positive correlation between slope and reports was observed in areas with built-up fractions over 15 %. Overall, we observed hardly any hedgehog reports in areas in which badgers were reported. We conclude that citizen science wildlife monitoring can be a good data source to better understand human–wildlife interactions and could therefore be a model for other urban areas and species.
Early amphibian colonizers of man-made mini-ponds: first results of a citizen science experiment
CC0 Divebabs/AmphiBiom
Involved BOKU authors: Janette Siebert, Stephan Burgstaller, Yurii V. Kornilev, Maria M. Krall, David Hamernik, Janis Kremser, Anna Loupal, Magdalena Spießberger, Johann G. Zaller, Wolfram Graf, Daniel Dörler, Florian Heigl, Lukas Landler
The loss of suitable spawning habitats is a global threat to amphibians. Thus, establishing man-made ponds may serve as a successful conservation practice to counteract this threat. In this experiment, we used a citizen science (CS) approach to create mini-ponds in private gardens and asked participants to monitor amphibian activity. We provided 302 polyethylene mini-ponds (120 L × 90 W × 40 D cm) to citizen scientists across the range of the target species, the European green toad (Bufotes viridis), in Austria. In the first year of the experiment (2024), B. viridis and 12 other amphibian taxa were recorded at 38% of the monitored sites. Signs of amphibian reproduction were detected in 10% of the mini-ponds. Bayesian occupancy models showed detection probabilities consistent with other studies. Over time, we expect more amphibians to discover the mini-ponds and more individuals to use them for reproduction. Our experiment demonstrates that the creation of relatively small ponds is a promising method for supporting and monitoring amphibian populations.
Many bird species have advanced the start of the breeding season as a response to climate change. The duration of the breeding season and how it is affected by climate change are far less studied but are important for the re-nesting potential. Re-nesting includes both the replacement of a failed breeding attempt or breeding successfully multiple times within one season and can therefore impact fitness. Some species profit from an earlier start of breeding through a higher re-nesting potential, whereas other species also advance the end of breeding season as conditions for breeding deteriorate. Here, we explored how temperature, precipitation, and snow conditions influence the start, end, and duration of the breeding season of a cold-adapted high-elevation songbird. We fitted generalized additive models with more than 12,000 citizen science observations of white-winged snowfinches (Montifringilla nivalis) to estimate breeding phenology between 2006 and 2021. Our results indicate that higher prebreeding temperatures and reduced April precipitation were associated with an earlier start of breeding. However, later during the breed- ing season higher temperatures shortened the breeding season through an earlier end of the breeding season. Despite adjusting the timing of reproduction to prevailing environmental conditions, average temperatures during the breeding season increased over the 16-year study period. Therefore, snowfinches need to move to higher elevations in order to track the thermal conditions. This study highlights the complex relationship between phenology and environmental conditions and illustrates how much the breeding conditions are currently changing for high-elevation species.
