Biology subjects

Rubolini, D.

Publications and source records attributed to Rubolini, D..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Beyond competence: a mechanistic model of avian demographic drivers in West Nile virus dynamics

BackgroundWest Nile virus (WNV) is a vector-borne zoonotic pathogen maintained in an enzootic cycle between birds and mosquitoes which is considered a significant public health concern in Europe, particularly in relation to its recent increase in reported human cases and range expansion. While a comprehensive understanding of the viruss epidemiological dynamics is essential to inform effective prevention and control strategies, to date significant knowledge gaps remain in quantifying interspecific differences within the complex avian communities involved in WNV circulation. Globally, WNV-infection has indeed been documented across more than 300 bird species, however, whether and how inter-specific differences in avian hosts traits affect the spread of WNV is still largely unknown. A substantial body of research has investigated how epidemiological traits, such as the duration of infection and competence, influence WNV dynamics. However, much less is known about the role of avian demography. Methodology/Principal findingsWe therefore investigated through mathematical modelling the role of avian demographic traits in shaping patterns of mosquito WNV infection dynamics in northern Italy (Lombardy Region, 2016-2018). We focused on the effects of annual offspring production, timing and synchrony of breeding which ultimately affect seasonal abundance of competent avian hosts. We highlighted that timing of breeding has the greatest effect on the number of infected mosquitoes, while annual offspring production influences the timing of the infection peak. Our simulations provide evidence that non-corvid species can have a key impact on WNV transmission. Conclusion/SignificanceThese results can support future research by providing priority bird species to direct further studies and by suggesting that the acknowledgment of spatio-temporal variation in the abundance of competent avian hosts plays a key role in the development of effective surveillance strategies and mosquito control actions. Author summaryWest Nile virus (WNV) is endemic in Italy and represents a significant public health threat in Europe, with increasing cases of severe neuroinvasive disease in humans in recent years. Surveillance data reveal marked spatial and temporal variability in infection dynamics, suggesting that key drivers of WNV transmission remain poorly understood. The contribution of different bird species (over 300 are implicated in the WNV cycle) is often overlooked despite evidence that species-specific traits are critical determinants of WNV infection dynamics. Few studies have examined birds demographic traits, despite their well-established importance in shaping infection dynamics across diseases. Given the challenges in collecting detailed wildlife data, we employed mechanistic models to explore transmission scenarios and test whether avian demographic traits influence bird species roles in WNV transmission and maintenance in Lombardy. Our findings demonstrate that brood size, hatching synchrony, and hatching time significantly affect estimated WNV prevalence in mosquitoes.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Habitat partitioning and spatial segregation at multiple scales promotes year-round coexistence in a guild of forest songbirds

O_LIDespite ecological, biological, or genetic similarities, species belonging to the same guild should exhibit some degree of niche differentiation to coexist in the same area. Understanding the mechanisms promoting coexistence among ecologically similar and phylogenetically related species is crucial to improve our understanding of how biodiversity is maintained across broad temporal scales. C_LIO_LIWe examined the mechanisms driving coexistence in a guild of 5 sympatric woodland songbirds (family Paridae) in mixed forests of south-central Europe. We performed interspecific comparisons of habitat and space use considering two different phenological periods (breeding and non-breeding) and two spatial scales (home-range and foraging habitat), as well as spatial segregation of breeding territories. C_LIO_LIBased on broad-scale habitat preferences, two distinct and seasonally consistent species subgroups were identified within the guild, namely broadleaf and conifer species. During breeding, we showed that all species largely overlapped in their use of different foraging micro-habitats within the tree canopy, even within each subgroup. Yet, we detected significant spatial segregation of breeding territories among species. On the contrary, during the non-breeding period, individuals of different species within mixed flocks foraged on different and complementary sectors of the canopy, thus partitioning foraging habitats. C_LIO_LIThis study highlights that coexistence within the south-central European tit guild across different phenological periods is facilitated by a combination of distinct and complementary mechanisms, including spatial segregation of breeding territories, revealing how sympatric closely-related species coexist through both broad- and fine-scale spatial niche differentiation. C_LI

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2022

Eco-evolutionary drivers of avian migratory connectivity

Understanding how individuals redistribute after migration assists in the conservation and management of mobile species, yet the eco-evolutionary drivers of migratory connectivity remain unclear. Taking advantage of an exceptionally large (~150,000 individuals, 83 species) and more-than-a-century long dataset of bird ringing encounters, we investigated determinants of avian migratory connectivity on both short- and long-distance migrants. Most species exhibited significant connectivity likely due to the large intraspecific variability in migration strategies, which often led to the identification of distinct migratory populations. Migratory connectivity was strongly predicted by geography, especially migration distance, but it was evolutionary labile and weakly influenced by biological traits due to flexibility in migratory behaviour. By unravelling determinants of migratory connectivity we improve knowledge about the resilience of migrants to ecological perturbations. Also, our population-level analysis provides a critical tool to inform transboundary conservation and management strategies by explicitly considering the large intraspecific variability of avian migration.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Pangenomics provides insights into the role of synanthropy in barn swallow evolution

Insights into the evolution of non-model organisms are often limited by the lack of reference genomes. As part of the Vertebrate Genomes Project, we present a new reference genome and a pangenome produced with High-Fidelity long reads for the barn swallow Hirundo rustica. We then generated a reference-free multialignment with other bird genomes to identify genes under selection. Conservation analyses pointed at genes enriched for transcriptional regulation and neurodevelopment. The most conserved gene is CAMK2N2, with a potential role in fear memory formation. In addition, using all publicly available data, we generated a comprehensive catalogue of genetic markers. Genome-wide linkage disequilibrium scans identified potential selection signatures at multiple loci. The top candidate region comprises several genes and includes BDNF, a gene involved in stress response, fear memory formation, and tameness. We propose that the strict association with humans in this species is linked with the evolution of pathways typically under selection in domesticated taxa.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2019

The great tit HapMap project: a continental-scale analysis of genomic variation in a songbird

A major aim of evolutionary biology is to understand why patterns of genomic diversity vary among populations and species. Large-scale genomic studies of widespread species are useful for studying how the environment and demographic history shape patterns of genomic divergence, and with the continually decreasing cost of sequencing and genotyping, such studies are now becoming feasible. Here, we carry out one of the most geographically comprehensive surveys of genomic variation in a wild vertebrate to date; the great tit (Parus major) HapMap project. We screened ca 500,000 SNP markers across 647 individuals from 29 populations, spanning almost the entire geographic range of the European great tit subspecies. We found that genome-wide variation was consistent with a recent colonisation across Europe from a single refugium in South-East Europe, with bottlenecks and reduced genetic diversity in island populations. Differentiation across the genome was highly heterogeneous, with clear "islands of differentiation" even among populations with very low levels of genome-wide differentiation. Low local recombination rate in the genome was a strong predictor of high local genomic differentiation (FST), especially in island and peripheral mainland populations, suggesting that the interplay between genetic drift and recombination is a key driver of highly heterogeneous differentiation landscapes. We also detected genomic outlier regions that were confined to one or more peripheral great tit populations, most likely as a result of recent directional selection at the range edges of this species. Haplotype-based measures of selection were also related to recombination rate, albeit less strongly, and highlighted population-specific sweeps that likely resulted from positive selection. These regions under positive selection contained candidate genes associated with morphology, thermal adaptation and colouration, providing promising avenues for future investigation. Our study highlights how comprehensive screens of genomic variation in wild organisms can provide unique insights into evolution.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2019

A data-driven method to locate nest sites and estimate reproductive outcome from avian telemetry data

Recursive movement patterns have been used to detect behavioral structure within individual movement trajectories in the context of foraging ecology, home-ranging behavior, and predator avoidance. Some animals exhibit movement recursions to locations that are tied to reproductive functions, including nests and dens; while existing literature recognizes that, no method is currently available to explicitly target different types of revisited locations. Moreover, the temporal persistence of recursive movements to a breeding location can carry information regarding the fate of breeding attempts, but it has never been used as a metric to quantify recursive movement patterns. Here, we introduce a method to locate breeding attempts and estimate their fate from GPS-tracking data of central place foragers. We tested the performance of our method in three bird species differing in breeding ecology (wood stork (Mycteria americana), lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), Mediterranean gull (Ichthyaetus melanocephalus)) and implemented it in the R package nestR. We identified breeding sites based on the analysis of recursive movements within individual tracks. Using trajectories with known breeding attempts, we estimated a set of species-specific criteria for the identification of nest sites, which we further validated using non-reproductive individuals as controls. We then estimated individual nest survival as a binary measure of reproductive fate (success, corresponding to fledging of at least one chick, or failure) from nest-site revisitation histories during breeding attempts, using a Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach that accounted for temporally variable revisitation patterns, probability of visit detection, and missing data. Across the three species, positive predictive value of the nest-site detection algorithm varied between 87-100% and sensitivity between 88-92%, and we correctly estimated the fate of 86-100% breeding attempts. By providing a method to formally distinguish among revisited locations that serve different ecological functions and introducing a probabilistic framework to quantify temporal persistence of movement recursions, we demonstrated how the analysis of recursive movement patterns can be applied to estimate reproduction in central place foragers. Beyond avian species, the principles of our method can be applied to other central place foraging breeders such as denning mammals. Our method estimates a component of individual fitness from movement data and will help bridge the gap between movement behavior, environmental factors, and their fitness consequences.

ecology↗