P. 2004. The importance of interspecific interactions for breeding-site selection: peregrine falcons seek proximity to ravens nests. Á/ Ecography 27: 818 Á/826.The advent of GIS is initiating a rapid increase in the utilization of wildlife-habitat models as tools for species and habitat management. However, such models rarely include estimates of interspecific interactions among explanatory variables. We tested the importance of such variables by using the peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus, a medium-sized raptor frequently reported to be affected by heterospecifics, as a model species. In an Alpine population, compared to random locations, peregrines selected breeding sites farther from conspecifics, on taller cliffs, with higher availability of farmland and closer to raven Corvus corax nests. Within suitable habitat, peregrines selected sites near ravens and far from elevations associated with golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos nests. Productivity increased with cliff size, farmland availability (rich in the local main prey) and with proximity to ravens, suggesting that the observed choices were adaptive. Finally, at the regional level, peregrine density peaked at low elevation and was positively associated with raven density. The results suggested an active breeding association of peregrines with ravens, which may provide early-warning cues against predators and safe alternative nest-sites. They also confirmed the importance of including estimates of interspecific interactions among explanatory variables, which may: 1) make models more realistic; 2) increase their predictive power by lowering unexplained variance due to unmeasured factors; 3) provide unexpected results such as the cryptic, large-scale breeding association of our study; and 4) stimulate further hypothesis formulation and testing, ultimately leading to deeper ecological knowledge of the study system. F. Sergio (fabrizio.sergio8@tin.it),

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Land abandonmentNest-site selection Woodland expansion A B S T R A C T and abandonment is causing considerable woodland expansion in many mountainous areas of Europe, with potential repercussions on conservation-sensitive species typical of open habitats. We examined the potential impact of such changes on an alpine golden eagle population, by estimating the ranges potentially used by the eagles for foraging through different techniques (concentric circles of different radii and a tessellationmethod based on telemetry data). Compared to randomly located territories, eagles selected ranges farther away from conspecifics, characterised by a rugged topography and rich in main prey species and in open habitats favoured by their main prey species, such as grassland, shrubs, xerophytic vegetation and rocky outcrops. Similarly, nest spacing and breeding success were related to the availability of optimal foraging habitats, also favoured by the main prey species of the eagles. Even though woodland-variables did not enter any of the stepwise models, eagles were dependent on grassland habitats, currently lost to woodland at a rate of about 0.5-1% per year, and on shrub vegetation rapidly evolving into woodland, which accounted on average for almost 10% of the eagle ranges. Longterm loss of such habitat may imply up to a 66% woodland increase for some eagle ranges.Given the complexity of the uncovered relationships and difficulty to make firm predictions, subsidies to halt the abandonment of traditional agro-pastoral practices seem urgently needed.

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Information about distribution and habitat use of organisms is crucial for conservation. Bird distribution within the breeding season has been usually considered static, but this assumption has been questioned. Within-season movements may allow birds to track changes in habitat quality or to adjust site choice between subsequent breeding attempts. Such movements are especially likely in temperate mountains, given the substantial environmental heterogeneity and changes occurring during bird breeding season. We investigated the within-season movements of breeding songbirds in the European Alps in spring-summer 2018, using repeated point counts and dynamic occupancy models. For all the four species for which we obtained sufficient data, changes in occupancy during the season strongly indicated the occurrence of within-season movements. Species occupancy changed during the season according to fine-scale vegetation/land-cover types, while microclimate (mean temperature) affected initial occupancy in two species. The overall occupancy rate increased throughout the season, suggesting the settlement of new individuals coming from outside the area. A static distribution cannot be assumed during the breeding season for songbirds breeding in temperate mountains. This needs to be considered when planning monitoring and conservation of Alpine birds, as withinseason movements may affect the proportion of population/distribution interested by monitoring or conservation programs.Detailed information about the distribution and habitat use of organisms is essential for their conservation. Species distribution models are widely used to relate environmental and climatic variables to species occurrences, and the resulting relationships are used to predict species distributions in space and time 1 . This can provide useful information to assess the potential impact of environmental changes, identify priority areas for conservation, define ecological networks and design monitoring schemes 1,2 .Distribution models have been largely used to investigate the distribution of bird species at different scales. In spite of the generally high mobility of birds, studies have generally assumed a static distribution during the breeding season 1 . However, several studies now indicate that within-breeding season movements (hereafter 'within-season movements') may be common, at least in multi-brooded species breeding in seasonal environments 3-10 . These movements probably represent displacements to higher quality breeding sites, occurring from one to the subsequent brood, or after a reproduction failure 3,11 . Habitat quality may change throughout the season 12 , as well as the cues available to birds to select a suitable breeding site 13 ; in both cases, moving to more suitable areas would be an adaptive response. Within-season movements have been assessed in a broad variety of species with different reproductive behaviour and across many different scales (i.e. within study areas ranging from c. 1 up to c. 5000 km 2 5,7,8,14,15,23 , or even acros...