Poxvirus infections have been found in 230 species of wild and domestic birds worldwide in both terrestrial and marine environments. This ubiquity raises the question of how infection has been transmitted and globally dispersed. We present a comprehensive global phylogeny of 111 novel poxvirus isolates in addition to all available sequences from GenBank. Phylogenetic analysis of the Avipoxvirus genus has traditionally relied on one gene region (4b core protein). In this study we expanded the analyses to include a second locus (DNA polymerase gene), allowing for a more robust phylogenetic framework, finer genetic resolution within specific groups, and the detection of potential recombination. Our phylogenetic results reveal several major features of avipoxvirus evolution and ecology and propose an updated avipoxvirus taxonomy, including three novel subclades. The characterization of poxviruses from 57 species of birds in this study extends the current knowledge of their host range and provides the first evidence of the phylogenetic effect of genetic recombination of avipoxviruses. The repeated occurrence of avian family or order-specific grouping within certain clades (e.g., starling poxvirus, falcon poxvirus, raptor poxvirus, etc.) indicates a marked role of host adaptation, while the sharing of poxvirus species within prey-predator systems emphasizes the capacity for crossspecies infection and limited host adaptation. Our study provides a broad and comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the Avipoxvirus genus, an ecologically and environmentally important viral group, to formulate a genome sequencing strategy that will clarify avipoxvirus taxonomy.

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Shortage of breeding sites is an important limiting factor of bird populations. Artificial breeding platforms, nest-boxes or man-made twig nests often present solutions with remarkable results, however long-term sustainability of these populations remains to be resolved. Furthermore, the question whether the inference of results of studies conducted on birds breeding in artificial breeding sites can be generalized to other populations, still remains open. Here we present the history, and the results of a 20 year old (1995-2015) nest-box programme initiated to increase potential breeding possibilities of Red-footed Falcons in an area, where nest-site shortage was a severe limiting factor. We show how various other species (Jackdaws, Kestrels and Long-eared Owls) have utilized these resources, and present descriptive statistics on their reproductive performance. Analysing the data of a total of 1432 breeding attempts, we show that Red-footed Falcons have similar clutch sizes, and nesting success (i.e. ratio of nests with at least on fledgling), however fledging success (ratio of the number of eggs/fledged nestlings) was different in artificial nest-boxes. When we excluded closed box types from artificial nests, this difference was not apparent. In case of Kestrels (n=1626 breeding attempts) clutch size was significantly higher in artificial nests, while we found no difference in fledging or nesting success. When only comparing open boxes to natural nests, the difference in clutch size was no longer significant. We also analysed the effect of nest box design on reproductive parameters of the two species using regression trees. Inter annual effects were the most important in shaping clutch size and fledging rate of both falcon species, however we also found nest-box design effects, but only in Red-footed Falcons. In years when mean clutch size was high, these birds had lower clutch size in an older, darker nest-box type compared to an alternative design, and to open boxes. However, fledging rate in the same years was lower for both open boxes and older nest-boxes. We conclude that artificial colonies are an important and successful tool in Red-footed Falcon conservation, and that the breeding parameters measured in artificial colonies depend on nest-box design. We present correlative evidence that closed boxes have a significant positive species specific effect on reproduction, probably due to their protection against weather. We also show that birds may have a preference for a certain nest-box design, and that the breeding success in the less favoured box type may be similar to that in open nests. We recommend that future studies incorporate nest-type and nest-box design effects in all comparisons made on reproductive performance in case of Red-footed Falcons and Kestrels.

The Red-footed Falcon is a facultatively colonial species that exploits rookeries, artificial nest-box colonies and solitary corvid nests for breeding. Moreover, the remain gregarious in the post breeding period using communal roost sites prior to migration. We developed and implemented a survey protocol to allow to precisely estimate the number of breeding pairs in all three breeding types and to assess large scale spatio-temporal changes in roost site usage. Our results show that the lowest number of breeding pairs (558) was in 2006. However, in 2014 the number of pairs showed a two fold increase, mainly due to a large scale nest-box programme implemented in the past decade. We identified a total of 105 roost sites throughout the country. The number of birds peaked in the second week of September in the past 10 years. We formulate a recommendation to maintain population monitoring efficiency by reducing the frequency of full surveys to 5 years and using designated study areas to control for temporal trends in between.

Fehérvári et al.: Modeling habitat selection of the red-footed falcon (Falco vespertinus)-59 - Abstract. Due to a severe population decline and shrinkage of distribution range in the past decades, the red-footed falcon has gained top priority in both worldwide and Hungarian nature conservation. As a facultative colonial breeder, in Hungary, this species predominantly nests in rookeries. The number of rooks (Corvus frugilegus) has also dramatically fallen recently, but population decline did not affect the large scale breeding distribution of this species. In our study we analyzed the presence of red-footed falcons at a colony in the case of current and historical breeding ranges based on landscape scaled habitat variables. We used a potential colony home-range size, estimated from observed home-range sizes in order to determine the scale of influential habitat variables. According to our results, the primary cause of the observed range shift is the urbanization of rooks in definable regions of Hungary. The ratio of forests and open water surfaces within the potential home-range had negative, while the ratio of grasslands had a positive effect on the probability of red-footed falcon presence. None of our models predicted red-footed falcon presence at colonies outside the current breeding range, suggesting that a probable increase in redfooted falcon population numbers will not be accompanied by the expansion of the current breeding range.

The red-footed falcon Falco vespertinus is an enigmatic colonial raptor of high international conservation concern. One of the identified threatening factors responsible for the recent worldwide population decline is the shortage of suitable colonial nesting sites. In theory, this problem can easily be resolved by establishing artificial colonies. However, the key to a successful large scale nest-box scheme is to provide these artificial colonies in habitats suitable for the species. A Hungarian-Serbian project aimed to establish such nesting facilities in northern Serbia, although the lack of recent full-scale habitat surveys hindered the designation of the locations of these artificial nesting sites. We used five different species distribution models to model the distribution of nest sites on a 10 ¥ 10 km grid in Hungary and in Romania. We then used the ensemble predictions of the best performing models to project the probability of red-footed falcon nest site presence in northern Serbia (predicted area). The models showed that three variables (grasslands, pastures and broad-leaved forests) had the highest importance in describing the spatial pattern of nest sites in the modelling area. The extent of grasslands and pastures had positive effects, while broad-leaved forests had negative impact on the probability of nest site presence. The predictions classified all the currently known colonies in the predicted area correctly. Our results suggest that the potential breeding distribution in Serbia is similar to that of two decades ago, thus large-scale land use changes are presumably not responsible for the reported population decline. We have also reduced the extent of conservation target areas to 11.5%, allowing to pinpoint locations for these future nest box colonies, and also provided a basis for future conservation measures like allocating monitoring efforts and designating future Natura 2000 sites in Serbia. bs_bs_banner Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430 648 Animal Conservation 15 (2012) 648-657

The paper provides an empirical analysis of the macroeconomic factors that enhance revenue gap in South Africa using the multivariate cointegration techniques for the period 1965 to 2012. The results from the cointegration analysis indicate that the revenue gap in South Africa is negatively associated with the level of imports while positively related to external debt and underground economy. The former finding is consistent with the notion that imports are subjected to more taxation than domestic activities because of certain features of international trade that tend to make tax evasion difficult. On the other hand, the positive relationship between external debt and tax gap shows that the South African government relies upon external debt to finance its budget deficit resulting from missing revenues. Furthermore, the observed negative effect of the post-apartheid dummy confirms that the tax policy reforms that South Africa introduced following the liberation in 1994 have led to a reduction in missing revenues. The results from the Granger causality test also show that there is a unidirectional causality running from imports and underground economy to revenue gap, while revenue gap on the other hand is found to Granger-cause national income and external debt in South Africa.

Active conservation measures often entail supplementing scarce resources, such as food or nesting site to high conservation value species. We hypothesized that adequate nest material in reasonable distance is a scarce resource for Rooks breeding in open grassland habitats of Hungary. Here we show that Rooks willingly utilize large quantities of provided excess nesting material, and that this procedure may alter nest composition, and increase the number of successful pairs. Our results show that while nest height remains constant, twig diameter is significantly larger, the number of twigs used per nest is presumably smaller, and that the ratio of nests with fledglings is higher in a rookery where supplementary twigs were present. Providing twigs and branches in the vicinity of rookeries may serve as an active conservation measure to increase the number of nests in a rookery, and thus the potential number of nesting possibilities for Red-footed Falcons.