SignificanceUrban, Westernized populations suffer extensively from noncommunicable diseases such as allergies. However, the overlapping effects of living environment and lifestyle are difficult to separate. Intriguingly, also our fellow animals, dogs, suffer from analogous diseases. Therefore, we suggest that pet dogs, sharing their environment and lifestyle with humans but having a comparatively simple life, provide a valuable model for understanding origins of noncommunicable diseases. We show that living environment and lifestyle concurrently, but still independently, shape both the skin microbiota and the risk of allergic disease in dogs. Urbanized lifestyle, featuring restricted animal contacts and small family size, is allergy promoting both in rural and urban dogs. Hence, both environment and lifestyle seem to influence the microbiota and, probably consequently, immune tolerance.

Lack of evaluation of the effectiveness of conservation practices as well as the challenge of converting scientific knowledge into conservation legislation and policy are persistent problems in conservation biology. European Union's Habitats Directive obliges member states to establish and implement a system of strict protection of animal species listed in Annex IV(a). This implies for example, that the deterioration or destruction of breeding sites or resting places of these species is prohibited. Here, we evaluate the effectiveness of the protection procedure aimed at conserving sites occupied by the Siberian flying squirrel Pteromys volans from destruction as a consequence of timber harvesting. We assess the potential effectiveness of the protection procedure by combining survey data with a simulation approach, showing that c. 97% of forests occupied by the species are harvested without authorization, as a result of inadequate information on the occurrence of the species. We assess forest structure around our study sites, visited both at the time of the protection decision and 1-6 years later, and show that clear-cut areas within 150 m of breeding sites and resting places substantially increase the risk of abandonment. In spite of this, typically only areas of radius 10-30 m are protected from logging. As the territory is abandoned in c. 50% of the cases in spite of protection of breeding sites and resting places, the total effectiveness of this conservation measure is only c. 1.5%. Therefore, the current protection measure is inadequate against the threats that forestry poses for the species in Finland, and the focus should be turned to habitat and population level solutions. We suggest that researchers and decision-makers should pay more attention to the overall effectiveness of different conservation measures, as this information is crucial for developing effective conservation policies.

The evidence of negative impacts of agricultural pesticides on non-target organisms is constantly growing. One of the most widely used group of pesticides are neonicotinoids, used in treatments of various plants, e.g. oilseed crops, corn and apples, to prevent crop damage by agricultural insect pests. Treatment effects have been found to spill over to non-target insects, such as bees, and more recently also to other animal groups, among them passerine birds. Very little is known, however, on the presence of neonicotinoids in other wild species at higher trophic levels. We present results on the presence of neonicotinoid residues in blood samples of a long-distant migratory food-specialist raptor, the European honey buzzard. Further, we investigate the spatial relationship between neonicotinoid residue prevalence in honey buzzards with that of crop fields where neonicotinoids are typically used. A majority of all blood samples contained neonicotinoids, thiacloprid accounting for most of the prevalence. While neonicotinoid residues were detected in both adults and nestlings, the methodological limit of quantification was exceeded only in nestlings. Neonicotinoids were present in all sampled nests. Neonicotinoid presence in honey buzzard nestlings' blood matched spatially with the presence of oilseed plant fields. These are the first observations of neonicotinoids in a diurnal raptor. For better understanding the potential negative sub-lethal of neonicotinoids in wild vertebrates, new (experimental) studies are needed.