Documenting the intentional structuring of space by hunter-gatherers can be challenging, especially in complex cave contexts. One approach is the spatial analysis of discard patterns. Here, the authors consider the spatial distribution of faunal remains from the Lower Magdalenian Level 115 in El Mirón Cave, Cantabria, to assess a possible structuring function for an unusual alignment of rocks. Although it is impossible to determine whether the alignment was intentionally constructed, differences in the distributions of taxa and in specimen sizes on different sides of this feature suggest that it played a role in structuring the living space of the cave's inhabitants.

Adult sex ratios (ASRs) have proved to correlate with population trends, which make them potential useful indicators of a species’ population trajectory and conservation status. We analysed ASRs and proportion of juveniles in flocks of an endangered steppe bird, the Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax, using surveys made during the non-breeding period in seven areas within its Western European range (one in Portugal, four in Spain, and two in France). We found overall male-biased ASRs, as all the seven surveyed areas showed a male-biased ASR mean value. Five areas were below the threshold median value (female sex ratio = 0.4) considered to be consistent with an increased probability of extinction, according to earlier population viability analyses for the species. We also found a significant positive correlation between female ratio and the proportion of young individuals in the non-breeding flocks surveyed. Our results (strongly male-biased ASRs) support the hypothesis that the viability of Little Bustard populations in Western Europe is threatened by an excess of female mortality, something that should be quantified in the future, and emphasise the value of monitoring sex ratio as a population viability indicator in species where monitoring survival is difficult to achieve.

The Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax is an iconic species and an indicator of healthy grassland and farmland ecosystems. It formerly ranged almost continuously from north-western Africa and Iberia to central Asia, encompassing France, Italy, southern Russia, and the Middle East, occupying natural grass steppes, pastured grasslands, and extensive cereal farmland. Today, two main distribution sub-ranges persist: a western one comprising the Iberian Peninsula, France, and Sardinia, and an eastern one encompassing mainly southern Russia and Kazakhstan but reaching north-western China and isolated spots in Turkey. We describe the changes that occurred across the species’ range and were documented during the last and current centuries and revise the status and trends of Little Bustard populations throughout that range. We provide the first global estimate of the world population, as well as those of the two sub-ranges, discussing the main threats and global conservation implications of these estimates. Historically abundant in Europe and northern Africa, the Little Bustard has strongly declined over the second half of the 20th century, becoming extinct in at least 15 countries. Such spectacular regression is mainly associated with land-use change and agricultural intensification. Other threats are legal hunting, poaching, and collision with powerlines. In the last two decades, the species has severely declined (c.6% yearly rate) in its traditional population stronghold, the Iberian Peninsula. Conversely, there is evidence of recent population growth in some areas of the Eastern range, but increases are unquantified and require further study. Many populations are probably small and scattered, with no reliable information on size and trends. Nevertheless, the Eastern range may now be considered the species’ stronghold with more than half the world’s population. The diverging dynamics and ecological differences between the two sub-ranges require a global conservation strategy that treats each as a different conservation unit to assure the species’ recovery.

In conservation biology, population monitoring is a critical step, particularly for endangered groups, such as steppe birds in European agro-ecosystems. Long-term population monitoring allows for determination of species population trends and also provides insights into the relative roles that environmental variability and human activities have on priority species. Here, we compare the population trends of two sympatric, closely related farmland bird species, the Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax and Great Bustard Otis tarda, in a protected area of Central Spain, which is their main stronghold in Europe. Over 12 years of monitoring, the abundance of Little and Great Bustards shifted in opposite directions in our study area. Little Bustard abundance decreased significantly (both males [-56%], and harder-to-detect females [-55%]), while Great Bustard abundance increased significantly (1,800%). Future surveys should be more precise and frequent for Little Bustards to facilitate evaluation of their population status and trends. We recommend annual surveys in 2–3 important locations by region throughout the breeding range for Little Bustards, while for Great Bustard the current regional monitoring programmes would be sufficient.

The Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax (Linnaeus, 1758) is a medium-sized, ‘Near Threatened’ steppe bird, whose Iberian population has been alarmingly declining over recent decades. Although this population loss has been mainly attributed to agricultural intensification, there is no information on Little Bustard adult mortality levels and their drivers. Based on a joint effort combining all the tracking data on adult Little Bustards collected over a period of 12 years by all research teams working with the species in Iberia, we found that annual anthropogenic mortality is likely to have a critical impact on the species, with values almost as high as the mortality attributed to predation. Collision with power lines was found to be the main anthropogenic threat to the adult population (3.4–3.8%/year), followed by illegal killing (2.4–3%/year), which had a higher impact than initially foreseen. Our work shows how poorly understood and previously unknown threats are affecting the survival of the most important Little Bustard population in Europe.

We investigated population productivity and habitat selection of the Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax in the late breeding period, in grassland-dominated landscapes of south-west Iberia. Specifically, our goals were to investigate how these parameters are influenced by the management of (1) grazing and (2) hay production. We conducted bird counts from 22 June to 4 July (2012 to 2016) using low speed 4x4 car surveys. The relationship between the density of the species, population productivity and farm management (grazing and haying) was evaluated using Generalized Linear Mixed Models and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Male and female densities were significantly higher in short vegetation compared to all other types of vegetation considered, but population productivity was similar in short and medium vegetation. Hay stubbles were found to be unattractive for the species. The availability of suitable habitats depends on the timing of grazing, notably of seasonal (spring) grazing. Species density was higher in fields ungrazed during winter and with moderate to high stocking rates in spring (around 0.8 LU/ha or higher), depending, at least for males and females, on each year’s weather characteristics. We conclude that low to moderate stocking rates during winter and spring are essential to ensure successful breeding and thus population persistence. Current levels of haying in our study area are detrimental for the species’ conservation.

Forest conservation incentives are a popular approach to combatting tropical deforestation. Here we consider a case where direct economic incentives for forest conservation were offered to newly titled smallholders in a buffer zone of a protected area in the northeastern Ecuadorian Amazon. We used quasi-experimental impact evaluation methods to estimate changes in forest cover for 63 smallholders enrolled in Ecuador's Socio Bosque program compared to similar households that did not enroll. Focus group interviews in 15 communities provided insight into why landowners enrolled in the program and how land use is changing. The conservation incentives program reduced average annual deforestation by 0.4–0.5% between 2011 and 2013 for those enrolled, representing as much as a 70% reduction in deforestation attributable to Socio Bosque. Focus group interviews suggested that some landowners chose to ‘invest’ in conservation because the agricultural capacity of their land was limited and economic incentives provided an alternative livelihood strategy. Interviews, however, indicated limits to increasing enrollment rates under current conditions, due to lack of trust and liquidity constraints. Overall, a hybrid public–private governance approach can lead to larger conservation outcomes than restrictions alone.

We present results on breeding parameters, nesting performance and nest habitat selection of the globally threatened Great Bustard Otis tarda, gathered during a 3-year study in Castro Verde (southern Portugal). A total of 107 nests were located. The estimated average onset of laying was 22 April (SD = 12 days, n = 8). The incubation period ranged from 25 March to 15 June. Nearly 95% of females incubated between 1 April and 31 May. Mean clutch size was 2.12 (SD = 0.69, n = 86), showing no significant inter-annual differences. There was no significant relationship between clutch size and average nest finding date, although, on average, nests were found later each year. Hatching occurred between 21 April and 26 June. The estimated proportion of eggs hatched per nest (hatching percentage) was 87.5% in 2002 (n = 8), 64.0% in 2003 (n = 33) and 75.8% in 2004 (n = 33). Overall nesting success for the three years was 71% (n = 107). The main causes of nesting failure were agricultural activities, mainly ploughing and harvesting, followed by corvid predation. Nests were spatially aggregated up to 800–1,500 m. At larger scales, the spatial distribution of nests can be considered random or uniform. Females showed a clear preference for nesting in cereal fields, followed by young fallows, old fallows, ploughed fields and then other habitats, although the intensity of selection of particular habitats varied between years. Nests were associated with both cereals and fallows, thus aggregating where those habitat types occurred within the study area. These results provide the first complete description of the nesting process in a Great Bustard population, as well as important cues to the assessment of conservation measures implemented in Castro Verde, an area holding around 80% of the Portuguese population of this species (application of EU agri-environmental schemes, power line signalling, water-point provision in dry years).

Local changes in land use can influence patterns of habitat selection by farmland birds, thus biasing predictions of population responses to land use changes based on wildlife-habitat or niche modelling. This study, based in arable farmland in south-central Spain, determined whether habitat selection (use of agricultural habitats and the distance to roads, tracks and buildings) by Great Bustards Otis tarda varied between two nearby areas with differing land uses. The western sector has experienced a process of land abandonment and infrastructure development linked to an airport project that started in 1998 and finished in 2009, while the eastern sector maintains extensive dry farmland systems. Great Bustards avoided ploughed fields and selected short- and long-term fallows. Selection of fallows was more intensive in the sector suffering recent land-use changes, where these substrates were more abundant. Great Bustards were distributed further from roads, paths and buildings than would be expected if individual birds selected habitats at random. Avoidance of infrastructure was strongest in the area suffering recent land-use changes. Local patterns of habitat selection seemed to change in relation to agricultural abandonment and infrastructure development. Consequently, conservation measures based on knowledge of broad patterns of habitat use and selection such as agri-environmental schemes may fail to ensure steppe bird conservation locally if such local effects are overlooked. Specifically, schemes should include landscape-scale restrictions on the development and use of infrastructure (roads, tracks and buildings). Analyses of the patterns and causes of local and regional changes in habitat selection are essential to conserve populations of endangered farmland birds.

The science of extra-solar planets is one of the most rapidly changing areas of astrophysics and since 1995 the number of planets known has increased by almost two orders of magnitude. A combination of ground-based surveys and dedicated space missions has resulted in 560-plus planets being detected, and over 1200 that await confirmation. NASA's Kepler mission has opened up the possibility of discovering Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around some of the 100,000 stars it is surveying during its 3 to 4-year lifetime. The new ESA's Gaia mission is expected to discover thousands of new planets around stars within 200 parsecs of the Sun. The key challenge now is moving on from discovery, important though that remains, to characterisation: what are these planets actually like, and why are they as they are?

In the past ten years, we have learned how to obtain the first spectra of exoplanets using transit transmission and emission spectroscopy. With the high stability of Spitzer, Hubble, and large ground-based telescopes the spectra of bright close-in massive planets can be obtained and species like water vapour, methane, carbon monoxide and dioxide have been detected. With transit science came the first tangible remote sensing of these planetary bodies and so one can start to extrapolate from what has been learnt from Solar System probes to what one might plan to learn about their faraway siblings. As we learn more about the atmospheres, surfaces and near-surfaces of these remote bodies, we will begin to build up a clearer picture of their construction, history and suitability for life.

The Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory, EChO, will be the first dedicated mission to investigate the physics and chemistry of Exoplanetary Atmospheres. By characterising spectroscopically more bodies in different environments we will take detailed planetology out of the Solar System and into the Galaxy as a whole.

EChO has now been selected by the European Space Agency to be assessed as one of four M3 mission candidates.

Developing a standardized survey methodology to census and estimate the size of wintering populations is a main conservation priority for the endangered Little Bustard. We present a standard and repeatable methodology to census wintering Little Bustard populations at a regional scale, and the first statistically reliable population estimate of a Little Bustard wintering population in Spain. We carried out two surveys, in 2003 and 2004, using UTM 10 km × 10 km squares as census units, which were subjected to stratified sampling over the species' potential distribution range in the region of Madrid (Central Spain). Only the areas of potentially suitable habitat within squares of known winter presence of the species were considered. The species' winter distribution in Madrid was fairly constant between years, showing a fragmented pattern in three main nuclei. The number of Little Bustards observed was consistent between surveys (752 and 786 birds, respectively), with birds grouped in an average of 32 flocks (1 to 350 birds, mean = 27.9 birds). No between-winter differences in flock size were observed, although differences between sectors were significant. The highest densities were observed in the Tagus valley (mean density = 2.9 birds km−2, 293 birds), followed by north-eastern farmland (mean density = 0.6 bird km−2, 269 birds). The estimated size of the Little Bustard population wintering in the Madrid region was 1,051 (95% CI = 1,043–1,231). This calculation was based on recorded population density, measured as the number of birds per square kilometre, and considers the potential habitats available in each sector. We propose this methodology as adequate for surveying any Little Bustard wintering area, at both regional and smaller spatial scales. Survey results are consistent with previous tentative estimates for the region of Madrid, and with available information on Little Bustard movements. Sixty-five per cent of squares with Little Bustard presence were outside any protected area, which makes the wintering Little Bustard population of Madrid highly vulnerable to habitat disappearance and may affect the viability of breeding nuclei whose individuals winter in the region.

Arthropod abundance in most places across Europe has suffered a dramatic decline induced by modifications in agricultural practices, and this could induce changes in the selection of breeding habitat and foraging behaviour of several endangered raptor species. We studied a 6,500 ha Special Protection Area (SPA) in Spain created for the benefit of its important steppe bird populations and examined the patterns of land-use selection and use of vegetation structure by the Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni in relation to prey-capture success. We also studied the spatial relationship between foraging sites and the location of colonies in that breeding area. The type of land-use most frequently used by foraging Lesser Kestrels was unploughed fallow (positively selected) while kestrels significantly avoided areas with cereal crops. The relationship between foraging sites and colonies (kestrels forage preferentially in areas close to the colonies) indicates that not only is farmland management important, but also the spatial relationships between foraging areas and breeding sites. Maintaining the Spanish traditional rotation of cultivation (called barbechos) may improve the correct habitat management for Lesser Kestrels in agricultural areas in Spain.

We studied variables affecting spatial and inter-annual variations in presence/absence and abundance of little bustard (Tetrax tetrax) males in extensive cereal farmland in central Spain. Both variables were positively influenced by the percentage of arable surface and also by substrate heterogeneity. In addition, male abundance varied significantly between years and among sectors of the study area, even when taking into account variation in landscape variables. A significant interaction between year and sector showed that abundance variations did not follow a fixed pattern, meaning that interannual variation in male abundance among sectors cannot be predicted. We discuss potential alternatives to explain such variation, as well as the implications of our results for the species' population estimates, status assessment and conservation.