Environmental education is essential to stem current dramatic biodiversity loss, and childhood is considered as the key period for developing awareness and positive attitudes toward nature. Children are strongly influenced by the media, notably the internet, about biodiversity and conservation issues. However, most media focus on a few iconic, appealing, and usually exotic species. In addition, virtual activities are replacing field experiences. This situation may curb children knowledge and concerns about local biodiversity. Focusing our analyses on local versus exotic species, we examined the level of knowledge and the level of diversity of the animals that French schoolchildren are willing to protect, and whether these perceptions are mainly guided by information available in the internet. For that, we collected and compared two complementary data sets: 1) a questionnaire was administered to schoolchildren to assess their knowledge and consideration to protect animals, 2) an internet content analysis (i.e. Google searching sessions using keywords) was performed to assess which animals are the most often represented. Our results suggest that the knowledge of children and their consideration to protect animal are mainly limited to internet contents, represented by a few exotic and charismatic species. The identification rate of local animals by schoolchildren was meager, suggesting a worrying disconnection from their local environment. Schoolchildren were more prone to protect “virtual” (unseen, exotic) rather than local animal species. Our results reinforce the message that environmental education must also focus on outdoor activities to develop conservation consciousness and concerns about local biodiversity.

Consistent expanding urbanization dramatically transforms natural habitats and exposes organisms to novel environmental challenges, often leading to reduced species richness and diversity in cities. However, it remains unclear how individuals are affected by the urban environment and how they can or cannot adjust to the specific characteristics of urban life (e.g. food availability). In this study, we used an integrative multi-component approach to investigate the effects of urbanization on the nutritional status of house sparrows (Passer domesticus). We assessed several morphological and physiological indices of body condition in both juveniles (early post-fledging) and breeding adults from four sites with different levels of urbanization in France, Western Europe. We found that sparrows in more urbanized habitats have reduced body size and body mass compared to their rural conspecifics. However, we did not find any consistent differences in a number of complementary indices of condition (scaled mass index, muscle score, hematocrit, baseline and stress-induced corticosterone levels) between urban and rural birds, indicating that urban sparrows may not be suffering nutritional stress. Our results suggest that the urban environment is unlikely to energetically constrain adult sparrows, although other urban-related variables may constrain them. On the other hand, we found significant difference in juvenile fat scores, suggesting that food types provided to young sparrows differed highly between habitats. In addition to the observed smaller size of urban sparrows, these results suggest that the urban environment is inadequate to satisfy early-life sparrows’ nutritional requirements, growth, and development. The urban environment may therefore have life-long consequences for developing birds.

To understand the magnitude and ecological impact of predation, we need to know not only predator abundance and feeding rates, but also the area from which the prey are taken. Previous work on amphibious sea snakes (sea kraits Laticauda spp.) in New Caledonia has documented the former parameters, and suggested that these marine snakes may be major predators within coralreef ecosystems. To estimate the area over which these snakes forage, we have developed methods based on detailed assessments of (1) the eel species consumed (and, hence, their habitats of origin), (2) the state of digestion (and, hence, time since capture) of prey items inside snakes returning to their home islands after foraging trips, and (3) the rate of digestion of prey in experimental trials. In combination with data on rates of snake movement, we conclude that one species (Laticauda laticaudata) forages mostly on soft-bottom habitats within 23 km of the home island, whereas the other species (L. saintgironsi) forages on coral substrates within 38 km of the home island. The distribution of estimated foraging ranges was similar between these 2 species (about one-third of prey taken within a few kilometres of the home island; the rest from a wide range of much further sites), despite interspecific divergence in traits such as prey types, prey sizes and rates of digestion. These extensive foraging ranges suggest that sea kraits are significant predators of eels over the entire area of the lagoon; and imply that populations of these top predators can be affected by disturbance to prey resources even many kilometres from the home island. KEY WORDS: Sea snakes · Diet · Foraging range · Foraging habitatResale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher