Clean sweep for BES Journals in the 2016 Watson Raptor Science Prize
We are delighted to learn that the winner of the 2016 Watson Raptor Science Prize has been awarded to a paper published in Journal of Animal Ecology and the two highly commended papers were published in Journal of Applied Ecology.
The winning paper ‘Age and sex-selective predation moderate the overall impact of predators’ from Sarah Hoy and colleagues examined selective predation by goshawks on juvenile and female tawny owls, drawing on long-term data to exploit a unique situation where data from a prey species were obtained over a period of Goshawk increase. Find out more on the Journal of Animal Ecology blog.
The highly commended paper ‘Retrofitting of power lines effectively reduces mortality by electrocution in large birds: an example with the endangered Bonelli’s eagle’ from Clément Chevallier and colleagues looked at the positive effect of power cable modification on the survival of the endangered Bonelli’s eagle.
The highly commended paper ‘No effect of satellite tagging on survival, recruitment, longevity, productivity and social dominance of a raptor, and the provisioning and condition of its offspring‘ from Fabrizio Sergio and colleagues studied the effect of radio-transmitters on Black Kites and showed no effect of their use on almost every aspect of performance of the birds.
Professor Roger Crofts, Director of Watson Birds said:
“This year’s winner and runners up for the Watson Raptor Science Prize reflect the very high standards of research being undertaken on all aspects of raptor science. I am grateful to the BES for making the three articles freely accessible. Our selection panel praised the work of Sarah Hoy and her colleagues in particular for their outstanding paper on predation. Communicating the findings of top class research to scientific colleagues is a key role for the BES. Watson Birds’ role is to ensure these findings are made available to the general public and we intend to do this at events in Scotland in spring next year.”
Blog posts on both highly commended papers are available from the Applied Ecologist’s blog.
The Watson Raptor Prize is awarded by Watson Birds and was initiated in 2011 to recognise excellence in the field of raptor science. The Selection Panel comprises Professors Des Thompson, who chairs the panel, Ian Newton and Steve Redpath.
Winning paper
Age and sex-selective predation moderate the overall impact of predators
Sarah R. Hoy, Steve J. Petty, Alexandre Millon, D. Philip Whitfield, Michael Marquiss, Martin Davison and Xavier Lambin
Journal of Animal Ecology, 84: 692–701. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12310
Highly commended papers
Retrofitting of power lines effectively reduces mortality by electrocution in large birds: an example with the endangered Bonelli’s eagle
Clément Chevallier, Antonio Hernández-Matías, Joan Real, Nicolas Vincent-Martin, Alain Ravayrol and Aurélien Besnard
Journal of Applied Ecology, 52: 1465–1473. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12476
No effect of satellite tagging on survival, recruitment, longevity, productivity and social dominance of a raptor, and the provisioning and condition of its offspring
Fabrizio Sergio, Giacomo Tavecchia, Alessandro Tanferna, Lidia López Jiménez, Julio Blas, Renaud De Stephanis, Tracy A. Marchant, Nishant Kumar and Fernando Hiraldo
Journal of Applied Ecology, 52: 1665–1675. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12520
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