Common pheasant

Abstract: Summary 1Energy production from wind power is increasing rapidly in Europe to help combat the threats from global warming. For example, the European Commission have set a target for 20% of EU energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. In recent decades, biodiversity on European farmland has fallen dramatically due to agricultural intensification. Agri-environment schemes (AES) have been implemented across the EU, in part at least, to combat these declines. Significant numbers of turbines are, and will be, built on farmland. There is, therefore, a potential conflict between wind turbines and AES on farmland. 2Various mechanisms potentially cause wind turbines to alter bird distribution including noise and physical structure. 3We show that turbine location (controlling for other effects such as boundary location and crop type) did not affect the distribution of four functional groups of wintering farmland birds (seed-eaters, corvids, gamebirds and Eurasian skylarks) at differing distances from wind turbines ranging from 0–150 m to 600–750 m. The only species for which distribution was related to the presence of wind turbines was the largest and least manoeuvrable (common pheasant Phasianus colchicus L.). 4In a further analysis of data collected at 0–75 m and 75–150 m from turbines, we found no evidence to suggest that farmland birds in our study avoided areas close to wind turbines. 5Synthesis and applications. This is the first evidence suggesting that the present and future location of large numbers of wind turbines on European farmland is unlikely to have detrimental effects on farmland birds (at least for those species included in our study). This should be welcome news for nature conservationists, wind energy companies and policy-makers. However, our work is only a first step, as there may be potential influences of wind turbines on bird distribution during the breeding season.

Abstract: West Nile virus (WNV), a neurovirulent mosquito-transmissible zoonotic virus, has caused recent outbreaks in Europe, including Serbia from August until October 2012. Although humans can be infected, birds are the main natural WNV reservoir. To assess WNV circulation in northern Serbia, 133 wild birds were investigated. These comprised resident and migratory birds, collected between January and September 2012 in the Vojvodina province. The birds belonged to 45 species within 27 families. Blood sera (n=92) and pooled tissues from respective birds (n=81) were tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), plaque reduction neutralisation test (PRNT) and real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). WNV antibodies were detected in seven (8%) sera: four from Mute Swans (Cygnus olor), two from White-tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicillas), and one from a Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus). Five sera neutralised WNV but not Usutu virus. For the first time in Serbia, WNV RNA was detected by RT-qPCR in pooled tissue samples of eight respective birds. WNV RNA was also derived from an additional bird, after a serum sample resulted infective in cell culture. The total nine WNV RNA positive birds included three Northern Goshawks (Accipiter gentilis), two White-tailed Eagles, one Legged Gull (Larus michahelis), one Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix), one Bearded Parrot-bill (Panarus biramicus), and one Common Pheasant. Phylogenetic analysis of partial E region sequences showed the presence of, at least, two lineage 2 Serbian clusters closely related to those responsible for recent human and animal outbreaks in Greece, Hungary and Italy. Full genomic sequence from a goshawk isolate corroborated this data. These results confirm WNV circulation in Serbia and highlight the risk of infection for humans and horses, pointing to the need for implementing WNV surveillance programmes.

Abstract: Recent studies have shown that female choice and male-male interactions in the common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) are influenced by features of some male ornaments. It is still not clear what females gain by choosing better ornamented males nor why the aggressiveness of a male decreases when he encounters a better ornamented opponent. In this paper we report the results of the administration of testosterone (T) to 36 juvenile male pheasants. The aim of the study was to investigate the extent to which T affects the male traits that have an influence on female choice and male-male competition. We found that T positively affected the vertical size of the wattle and body weight, but had no effect on the spurs. T administration also affected male agonistic behaviour; as expected, it increased male aggressiveness, male rank and the number of malemale interactions. Our data support the idea that vertical wattle size can be a reliable phenotypic indicator of male androgen levels. Thus in view of the immunocomp...