Spatial Analysis:
species, habitats, services

Project Summary

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HerpTrust project, tailored to the ERASMUS+ Horizontal Priorities for the environment and fight against climate change, aims to build outputs for the promotion of positive Human-Herpetofauna Interactions (HHI) while enabling citizen and professional stakeholders alike to participate in data collection that is currently lacking for many reptile and amphibian species, further contribution to their protection and management at a local level.

Project Summary

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Despite being a priority species protected by EU legislation and Cyprus law, essential information on the population dynamics and structure of the Cyprus grass snake (Natrix natrix cypriaca) is lacking, which hinders targeted conservation efforts. Recent publications, including the LIFE IP Physis Action Plan, the last three national reports under Article 17 of Directive 92/43/EC, and the limited research conducted over the past 15 years, all emphasize the urgent need for further study. The Paralimni population is at risk due to habitat fragmentation caused by urbanization, agricultural activity, hunting, and tourism. These threats are exacerbated by ophidiophobia – the fear of snakes – leading to the extermination of the species out of fear and lack of education.

This project aims to address these problems through a grassroots approach. Throughout its course, trainings and workshops will be organised, educational material will be created and “train the trainer” sessions to engage the local community in citizen science and data collection will be conducted. By promoting citizen science and initiating a volunteer monitoring scheme amongst the youth of the Paralimni and Sotira communities, the project will help to develop a greater understanding of the species’ population and will address the identified threats and pressures. The results of the project will reinforce research and guide the conservation actions to be implemented as part of LIFE IP Physis.

Project’s deliverables

• Establish communication with locals through various community groups to organize educational activities.

• Conduct workshops using citizen science to educate locals on species and monitoring techniques.

• Receive training on herpetofauna conservation through citizen science from RAVON staff.

• Create awareness material on the Cyprus grass snake for secondary education and young adults.

• Establish a volunteer group to self-organize and monitor the species long-term with support from the project’s scientific team. They will implement a “training the trainers” approach to identify and train community members to become trainers themselves, investing in a cascading effect.

Project Summary

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The Cyprus Roadkill Observation System will be used for recording citizens’ and volunteers’ observations of dead wild fauna throughout the island’s road network. Data from these observations include the group of animals and the species identified as well as the exact (GPS) location, the date and time of recording, photos of the roadkill and any relevant additional information related to the species, the road or the traffic condition. A summary of the above information is publicly available on the CyROS database, for all roadkill recorded throughout the island. Data collected will be used to understand the factors which influence road kills, and the impacts of roads on fauna in general, as well as contribute to better infrastructure planning with a view to assist nature conservation objectives.

Project Summary

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The Cyprus Atlas of Reptiles and Amphibians constitudes the first attempt to collect and organise all existing data of the Cypriot herpetofauna.

The Atlas contains more than 6,600 localities for the 23 terrestrial reptiles and amphibians of Cyprus. The aim of this attempt is that the data is constantly updated and available to the general public in an easy to use format (i.e. for visualization in Google Earth).

The data of the Atlas has been collected from a variety of sources, including books, localities from reptile recording projects, existing Cypriot databases, information granted by volunteers and the general public as well as from social media.

Project Summary

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The COST action PERIAMAR (PEsticide RIsk AssessMent for Amphibians and Reptiles) addresses, through a multidisciplinary network of scientists from academia, government, business and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the challenge of ensuring a straightforward and useful procedure to avoid unacceptable risks of pesticides to amphibians and reptiles, contributing to solve existing uncertainties and to support ongoing efforts that, at the European level, aim to improve the efficacy of the whole scheme of Environmental Risk Assessment of pesticides.

Project Summary

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Pollinator species such as Lepidoptera are threatened by land-use change, invasive non-native species and

climate change. DPLUS123 project will enhance the knowledge of pollinators in the Sovereign Base Area of Akrotiri, Cyprus, and will provide support for the implementation of citizen science schemes and the

conservation of pollinators. 

Project Summary

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Although modern technologies such as GPS and accelerometers have revolutionized the field of animal monitoring and habitat utilization, technical limitations prevent their use for small-sized reptiles. The general objective of this project is to tackle this problem and advance scientific knowledge in the fields of (a) reptile locomotion (b) behavioral analysis and (c) conservation, through the development of novel monitoring techniques and approaches. The project will take place in Cyprus using two common species, a lizard (Stellagama stellio) and a snake (Dolichophis jugularis). For achieving those objectives two innovative techniques will be established. The first aims to enable the semi-autonomous and continuous remote tracking of reptiles to obtain fine-scale locomotion data. This technique will be based on Angle-of-Arrival measurements acquired through Radio Direction Finding (RDF) technology which is able to calculate and project the location of a VHF transmitter on a digital map.

The second focuses on semi-autonomously recognizing and categorizing behavioral patterns of reptiles, tagged with small-size accelerometers. This technique relies on analyzing acceleration curves through the use of pattern recognition software and linking them with a predefined behavioral pattern database. The combination of those techniques with state-of-the-art technology in remote sensing, advance photogrammetry and image pattern recognition will allow the creation of fine scale micro-habitat utilization maps, advancing site level management through the designing of more targeted, species based management and conservation actions. For the successful implementation of this project, a number of activities are foreseen including developing of innovative tools, monitoring of reptiles, analyzing acceleration curves and developing algorithms for predicting animals’ movements. Both techniques when fully developed will be tested in the field through a case study and their abilities for enhancing conservation delivery will be evaluated.

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​​​​​Partners

• Terra Cypria

• Open University of Cyprus (OUC)

• Department of Environment (MANRE)

Project Summary

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The MarCons COST Action CA15121 will consolidate a network of scientists and stakeholders who are involved in marine conservation in European and contiguous seas. By advancing the science of integrated conservation planning, promoting regional coordination and transboundary conservation, proposing specific conservation actions, accounting for climatic change and biological invasions, and providing guidance for assessing governance issues to make marine spatially managed areas more effective, this Cost Action aims to bridge the gap between conservation science and policy makers and substantially contribute to the challenge of halting biodiversity loss in the European Seas by 2020.