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Copyright of International Journal of Medicine & Science of Physical Activity & Sport / Revista Internacional de Medicina y Ciencias de la Actividad Física y del Deporte is the property of Revista Internacional de Medicina y Ciencias de la Actividad Fisica y del Deporte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal of Medicine & Science of Physical Activity & Sport / Revista Internacional de Medicina y Ciencias de la Actividad Física y del Deporte is the property of Revista Internacional de Medicina y Ciencias de la Actividad Fisica y del Deporte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Carrion ecology, i.e. the decomposition and recycling of dead animals, has traditionally been neglected as a key process in ecosystem functioning. Similarly, despite the large threats that inland aquatic ecosystems (hereafter, aquatic ecosystems) face, the scientific literature is still largely biased towards terrestrial ecosystems. However, there has been an increasing number of studies on carrion ecology in aquatic ecosystems in the last two decades, highlighting their key role in nutrient recirculation and disease control. Thus, a global assessment of the ecological role of scavengers and carrion in aquatic ecosystems is timely. Here, we systematically reviewed scientific articles on carrion ecology in aquatic ecosystems to describe current knowledge, identify research gaps, and promote future studies that will deepen our understanding in this field. We found 206 relevant studies, which were highly biased towards North America, especially in lotic ecosystems, covering short time periods, and overlooking seasonality, a crucial factor in scavenging dynamics. Despite the low number of studies on scavenger assemblages, we recorded 55 orders of invertebrates from 179 families, with Diptera and Coleoptera being the most frequent orders. For vertebrates, we recorded 114 species from 40 families, with birds and mammals being the most common. Our results emphasise the significance of scavengers in stabilising food webs and facilitating nutrient cycling within aquatic ecosystems. Studies were strongly biased towards the assessment of the ecosystem effects of carrion, particularly of salmon carcasses in North America. The second most common research topic was the foraging ecology of vertebrates, which was mostly evaluated through sporadic observations of carrion in the diet. Articles assessing scavenger assemblages were scarce, and only a limited number of these studies evaluated carrion consumption patterns, which serve as a proxy for the role of scavengers in the ecosystem. The ecological functions performed by carrion and scavengers in aquatic ecosystems were diverse. The main ecological functions were carrion as food source and the role of scavengers in nutrient cycling, which appeared in 52.4% (N = 108) and 46.1% (N = 95) of publications, respectively. Ecosystem threats associated with carrion ecology were also identified, the most common being water eutrophication and carrion as source of pathogens (2.4%; N = 5 each). Regarding the effects of carrion on ecosystems, we found studies spanning all ecosystem components (N = 85), from soil or the water column to terrestrial vertebrates, with a particular focus on aquatic invertebrates and fish. Most of these articles found positive effects of carrion on ecosystems (e.g. higher species richness, abundance or fitness; 84.7%; N = 72), while a minority found negative effects, changes in community composition, or even no effects. Enhancing our understanding of scavengers and carrion in aquatic ecosystems is crucial to assessing their current and future roles amidst global change, mainly for water-land nutrient transport, due to changes in the amount and speed of nutrient movement, and for disease control and impact mitigation, due to the predicted increase in occurrence and magnitude of mortality events in aquatic ecosystems., (© 2024 The Authors. Biological Reviews published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Cambridge Philosophical Society.)

Expanding and managing current habitat and species protection measures is at the heart of the European biodiversity strategy. A structured approach is needed to gain insights into such issues is systematic conservation planning, which uses techniques from decision theory to identify places and actions that contribute most effectively to policy objectives given a set of constraints. Yet culturally and historically determined European landscapes make the implementation of any conservation plans challenging, requiring an analysis of synergies and trade-offs before implementation. In this work, we review the scientific literature for evidence of previous conservation planning approaches, highlighting recent advances and success stories. We find that the conceptual characteristics of European conservation planning studies likely reduced their potential in contributing to better-informed decisions. We outline pathways towards improving the uptake of decision theory and multi-criteria conservation planning at various scales, particularly highlighting the need for (a) open data and intuitive tools, (b) the integration of biodiversity-focused conservation planning with multiple objectives, (c) accounting of dynamic ecological processes and functions, and (d) better facilitation of entry-points and co-design practices of conservation planning scenarios with stakeholders. By adopting and improving these practices, European conservation planning might become more actionable and adaptable towards implementable policy outcomes. This article is part of the theme issue 'Ecological novelty and planetary stewardship: biodiversity dynamics in a transforming biosphere'.

The latest report on the state of nature in Europe (2013-2018) shows that biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate, with most protected species and habitats in poor condition. Despite an increasing volume of collected biodiversity information, urgent action is needed to integrate biodiversity data and knowledge to improve conservation efforts. We conducted a study in Catalonia (NE Spain), where we collected management measures implemented between 2013 and 2018, including allocation, budget, pressures aimed, and habitats/species potentially benefiting. We integrated information on pressures and habitats/species with the measures to identify non-spatial management gaps. Then, we integrated the spatially explicit information to determine the spatial management gap, identifying geographical areas where species/habitats are under pressure without registered measures. We demonstrated the importance of integrating existing information. Our findings revealed that resources were often not distributed adequately across species/habitats, with biases towards certain taxa being a common issue. The non-spatial management gap analysis identified taxonomic groups, especially plants and mollusks with the wider management gaps. We also identified threatened areas, especially in the northeast of the region with the larger spatial management gaps. These results could guide priority objectives to optimize conservation efforts. Integrating different information sources provided a broader view of the challenges that conservation science is facing nowadays. Our study offers a path toward bending the curve of biodiversity loss by providing an integrative framework that could optimize the use of the available information and help narrow the knowing-doing gap. In the context of the EU, this example demonstrates how information can be used to promote some environmental policy instruments, such as the Prioritized Action Frameworks (PAFs). Additionally, our findings highlight the importance of supporting decision-making with systematic assessments to identify deficiencies in the conservation process, reduce the loss of critical ecosystems and species, and avoid biases among taxa., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Mapping the drivers of change that pose negative pressures or threats to biodiversity can help to identify where biodiversity is most threatened and can be used to determine priority sites to target conservation actions. Overlapping drivers of change maps with distribution maps of sensitive species provides valuable information to identify where and when it would be better to target actions to minimize the risk. The overall aim of this study was to develop a methodology for the integration of risk mapping associated with high human frequentation to guide conservation actions in two case study: the Kentish plover ( Charadrius alexandrinus ) and Posidonia meadows ( Posidonia oceanica ), both sensitive to human frequentation. To achieve this, we used two types of geolocated mobile phone information from the STRAVA platform: mapped paths and roads number of visitors at hourly precisions and a sporting activities heatmap representative of a wider period, together with species ecological information and complementary human frequentation data. The final, monthly risk maps identified the areas for Kentish plover with null, low, moderate, high, very high risk attributed to different aspects of the breeding biology of the species, nests, nestlings, and adults. The risk thresholds for nests are lower than for nestlings and adults, thought nestlings were generally less sensitive to human frequentation than adults. Visitors number ranges between 250 and 700 approximately suppose a moderate risk for the three assessed periods, and more than 1200 visitors appeared to prevent the nesting of the species completely. The final risk maps for Posidonia meadows determine the areas with low, moderate, hight and very high risk for human marine activities. Human frequentation values in this case study are scaled between 0 and 1, the results shows that values above 0.1 imply a high risk for the species. Both types of information can be used to target concrete, spatially explicit actions to minimize the risk caused by human frequentation. Furthermore, the first case study would allow to adapt the target actions to the species breeding phenology. The proposed risk assessment workflow is flexible and may be adjusted to match the available information and eventually could be adapted to other conservation objectives arising from different threats. In addition, data gathered from mobile mobility applications show great potential to accurately identify human frequentation, both spatially and temporally., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

The realised ecological niches of species may change in response to dynamic abiotic and biotic environments, particularly under fast global change. To fully understand the dynamics of niche features and their drivers, it is essential to have a long-term view of species distributions and the factors that may have influenced them. Here, we analysed the distribution and niche dynamics of the Italian crayfish (Austropotamobius fulcisianus) in the Iberian Peninsula over the past 200 years. The Italian crayfish was introduced to Spain in the 16th century, and spread due to multiple stocking events until the 1970s, when two North American crayfish (red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii, and signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus) were introduced. Both North American species are carriers of a pathogen (Aphanomyces astaci, the causal agent of crayfish plague) lethal to the Italian crayfish. We hypothesised that the realised niche of the Italian crayfish, both in breadth and in position, has changed over time following changes in its range. The distribution of the Italian crayfish expanded from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th century, in association with an enlargement of its realised niched, mostly towards less abrupt and more coastal-influenced areas. After the introduction of the North American crayfishes, the collapse of the Italian crayfish involved a niche shift towards rough terrains in mountain areas. North American crayfish have eventually occupied most of the Italian crayfish's niche space, with the few no-coexistence areas being relegated to the most abrupt and high-elevation territories. Our historical approach allowed us to document and understand the highly dynamic distribution and niche of the Italian crayfish in the presence of invader counterparts, and to explore the environmental conditions under which their coexistence is minimised., (© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.)

The lack of high-resolution distribution maps for freshwater species across large extents fundamentally challenges biodiversity conservation worldwide. We devised a simple framework to delineate the distributions of freshwater fishes in a high-resolution drainage map based on stacked species distribution models and expert information. We applied this framework to the entire Chinese freshwater fish fauna (>1600 species) to examine high-resolution biodiversity patterns and reveal potential conflicts between freshwater biodiversity and anthropogenic disturbances. The correlations between spatial patterns of biodiversity facets (species richness, endemicity, and phylogenetic diversity) were all significant (r = 0.43-0.98, p < 0.001). Areas with high values of different biodiversity facets overlapped with anthropogenic disturbances. Existing protected areas (PAs), covering 22% of China's territory, protected 25-29% of fish habitats, 16-23% of species, and 30-31% of priority conservation areas. Moreover, 6-21% of the species were completely unprotected. These results suggest the need for extending the network of PAs to ensure the conservation of China's freshwater fishes and the goods and services they provide. Specifically, middle to low reaches of large rivers and their associated lakes from northeast to southwest China hosted the most diverse species assemblages and thus should be the target of future expansions of the network of PAs. More generally, our framework, which can be used to draw high-resolution freshwater biodiversity maps combining species occurrence data and expert knowledge on species distribution, provides an efficient way to design PAs regardless of the ecosystem, taxonomic group, or region considered., (© 2022 Society for Conservation Biology.)

Markerless motion capture systems (MCS) have been developed as an alternative solution to overcome the limitations of 3D MCS as they provide a more practical and efficient setup process given, among other factors, the lack of sensors attached to the body. However, this might affect the accuracy of the measures recorded. Thus, this study is aimed at evaluating the level of agreement between a markerless MSC (i.e., MotionMetrix) and an optoelectronic MCS (i.e., Qualisys). For such purpose, 24 healthy young adults were assessed for walking (at 5 km/h) and running (at 10 and 15 km/h) in a single session. The parameters obtained from MotionMetrix and Qualisys were tested in terms of level of agreement. When walking at 5 km/h, the MotionMetrix system significantly underestimated the stance and swing phases, as well as the load and pre-swing phases ( p < 0.05) reporting also relatively low systematic bias (i.e., ≤ -0.03 s) and standard error of the estimate (SEE) (i.e., ≤0.02 s). The level of agreement between measurements was perfect (r > 0.9) for step length left and cadence and very large (r > 0.7) for step time left, gait cycle, and stride length. Regarding running at 10 km/h, bias and SEE analysis revealed significant differences for most of the variables except for stride time, rate and length, swing knee flexion for both legs, and thigh flexion left. The level of agreement between measurements was very large (r > 0.7) for stride time and rate, stride length, and vertical displacement. At 15 km/h, bias and SEE revealed significant differences for vertical displacement, landing knee flexion for both legs, stance knee flexion left, thigh flexion, and extension for both legs. The level of agreement between measurements in running at 15 km/h was almost perfect (r > 0.9) when comparing Qualisys and MotionMetrix parameters for stride time and rate, and stride length. The agreement between the two motion capture systems varied for different variables and speeds of locomotion, with some variables demonstrating high agreement while others showed poor agreement. Nonetheless, the findings presented here suggest that the MotionMetrix system is a promising option for sports practitioners and clinicians interested in measuring gait variables, particularly in the contexts examined in the study.

As the number of introduced species keeps increasing unabatedly, identifying and prioritising current and potential Invasive Alien Species (IAS) has become essential to manage them. Horizon Scanning (HS), defined as an exploration of potential threats, is considered a fundamental component of IAS management. By combining scientific knowledge on taxa with expert opinion, we identified the most relevant aquatic IAS in the Iberian Peninsula, i.e., those with the greatest geographic extent (or probability of introduction), severe ecological, economic and human health impacts, greatest difficulty and acceptability of management. We highlighted the 126 most relevant IAS already present in Iberian inland waters (i.e., Concern list) and 89 with a high probability of being introduced in the near future (i.e., Alert list), of which 24 and 10 IAS, respectively, were considered as a management priority after receiving the highest scores in the expert assessment (i.e., top-ranked IAS). In both lists, aquatic IAS belonging to the four thematic groups (plants, freshwater invertebrates, estuarine invertebrates, and vertebrates) were identified as having been introduced through various pathways from different regions of the world and classified according to their main functional feeding groups. Also, the latest update of the list of IAS of Union concern pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 1143/2014 includes only 12 top-ranked IAS identified for the Iberian Peninsula, while the national lists incorporate the vast majority of them. This fact underlines the great importance of taxa prioritisation exercises at biogeographical scales as a step prior to risk analyses and their inclusion in national lists. This HS provides a robust assessment and a cost-effective strategy for decision-makers and stakeholders to prioritise the use of limited resources for IAS prevention and management. Although applied at a transnational level in a European biodiversity hotspot, this approach is designed for potential application at any geographical or administrative scale, including the continental one., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest Authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Information about biotic interactions (e.g. competition, predation, parasitism, diseases, mutualism, allelopathy) is fundamental to better understand species distribution and abundance, ecosystem functioning, and ultimately guide conservation efforts. However, conservation planning often overlooks these important interactions. Here, we aim to demonstrate a new framework to include biotic interactions into Marxan. For that, we use freshwater mussels and fish interaction (as mussels rely on fishes to complete their life cycle) in the Douro River basin (Iberian Peninsula) as a case study. While doing that, we also test the importance of including biotic interactions into conservation planning exercises, by running spatial prioritisation analysis considering either: 1) only the target species (freshwater mussels); 2) freshwater mussels and their obligatory hosts (freshwater fishes); 3) freshwater mussels, fishes and their interactions. With this framework we found that biotic interactions tend to be underrepresented when the data on both freshwater mussels and fishes is not simultaneously included in the spatial prioritisation. Overall, the priority areas selected across all scenarios are mostly located in the western part of the Douro River basin, where most freshwater mussels and fishes still occur. Given the low overlap of priority areas identified here and the current Natura 2000 network, our approach may be useful for establishing (or enlarging) protected areas, especially in light of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Also, this work may provide guidance for future habitat restoration and management of main threats to freshwater biodiversity., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

River conservation efforts traditionally focus on perennial watercourses (i.e., those that do not dry) and their associated aquatic biodiversity. However, most of the global river network is not perennial and thus supports both aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity. We assessed the conservation value of nonperennial rivers and streams (NPRS) in one of Europe's driest regions based on aquatic (macroinvertebrates, diatoms) and terrestrial (riparian plants, birds, and carabid beetles) community data. We mapped the distribution of taxa at 90 locations and across wide environmental gradients. Using the systematic planning tool Marxan, we identified priority conservation sites under 2 scenarios: aquatic taxa alone or aquatic and terrestrial taxa together. We explored how environmental factors (runoff, flow intermittence, elevation, salinity, anthropogenic impact) influenced Marxan's site selection frequency. The NPRS were selected more frequently (over 13% on average) than perennial rivers when both aquatic and terrestrial taxa were considered, suggesting that NPRS have a high conservation value at the catchment scale. We detected an underrepresentation of terrestrial taxa (8.4-10.6% terrestrial vs. 0.5-1.1% aquatic taxa were unrepresented in most Marxan solutions) when priority sites were identified based exclusively on aquatic biodiversity, which points to a low surrogacy value of aquatic taxa for terrestrial taxa. Runoff explained site selection when focusing on aquatic taxa (all best-fitting models included runoff, r 2  = 0.26-0.27), whereas elevation, salinity, and flow intermittence were more important when considering both groups. In both cases, site selection frequency declined as anthropogenic impact increased. Our results highlight the need to integrate terrestrial and aquatic communities when identifying priority areas for conservation in catchments with NPRS. This is key to overcoming drawbacks of traditional assessments based only on aquatic taxa and to ensure the conservation of NPRS, especially as NPRS become more prevalent worldwide due to climate change and increasing water demands., (© 2022 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

Integrated management of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) in heterogeneous landscapes requires considering the potential trade-offs between conflicting objectives. The UNESCO's Biosphere Reserve zoning scheme is a suitable context to address these trade-offs by considering multiple management zones that aim to minimise conflicts between management objectives. Moreover, in Mediterranean ecosystems, management and planning also needs to consider drivers of landscape dynamics such as wildfires and traditional farming and forestry practices that have historically shaped landscapes and the biodiversity they host. In this study, we applied a conservation planning approach to prioritise the allocation of management zones under future landscape and climate scenarios. We tested different landscape management scenarios reflecting the outcomes of climate-smart and fire-smart policies. We projected the expected landscape dynamics and associated changes on the distribution of 207 vertebrate species, 4 ES and fire hazard under each scenario. We used Marxan with Zones to allocate three management zones, replicating the Biosphere Reserves zoning scheme ("Core area", "Buffer zone" and "Transition area") to address the various management objectives within the Biosphere Reserve. Our results show that to promote ES supply and biodiversity conservation, while also minimising fire hazard, the reserve will need to: i) Redefine its zoning, especially regarding Core Areas, which need a considerable expansion to help mitigate changes in biodiversity and accommodate ES supply under expected changes in climate and species distribution. ii) Revisit current management policies that will result in encroached landscapes prone to high intensity, uncontrollable wildfires with the potential to heavily damage ecosystems and compromise the supply of ES. Our results support that both climate- and fire-smart policies in the Meseta Ibérica can help develop multifunctional landscapes that help mitigate and adapt to climate change and ensure the best possible maintenance of biodiversity and ES supply under uncertain future climate conditions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Degradation, fragmentation, and loss of tropical forests has exponentially increased in the last decades leading to unprecedented rates of species extinctions and loss of ecosystems functions and services. Forest restoration is key to recover ecosystems health and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, restoring forests at the landscape scale presents many challenges, since it requires balancing conservation goals and economic development. In this study, we used a spatial planning tool (Marxan) to identify priority areas for restoration satisfying multiple objectives across a biological corridor in Costa Rica. Biological corridors are critical conservation instruments promoting forest connectivity while acknowledging human presence. Increasing forest connectivity requires restoration initiatives that will likely conflict with other land uses, some of them of high national economic importance. Our restoration plan sought to maximize the provision of forest-related services (i.e., seed dispersal, tourism and carbon storage) while minimizing the impact on current land uses and thus avoiding potential conflicts. We quantified seed dispersal and tourism services (birdwatching potential) using species distribution models. We used the carbon sequestration model of InVEST to quantify carbon storage potential. We tested different restoration scenarios that differed in whether land opportunity costs of current uses were considered or not when identifying potential restoration areas, or how these costs were estimated. We showed how a landscape-scale forest restoration plan accounting for only forest connectivity and ecosystem service provision capacity can greatly differ from a plan that considers the potential impacts on local livelihoods. Spatial planning tools can assist at designing cost-effective landscape-scale forest restoration plans, identifying priority areas where forest restoration can maximize ecosystem provision and increase forest connectivity. Special care must be paid to the use of adequate estimates of opportunity cost, to avoid potential conflicts between restoration goals and other legitimate land uses., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Global freshwater biodiversity is declining dramatically, and meeting the challenges of this crisis requires bold goals and the mobilisation of substantial resources. While the reasons are varied, investments in both research and conservation of freshwater biodiversity lag far behind those in the terrestrial and marine realms. Inspired by a global consultation, we identify 15 pressing priority needs, grouped into five research areas, in an effort to support informed stewardship of freshwater biodiversity. The proposed agenda aims to advance freshwater biodiversity research globally as a critical step in improving coordinated actions towards its sustainable management and conservation., (© 2021 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the reliability of the RunScribe™ system to measure kinematic variables of the pelvis during walking and running., Methods: In this study, a treadmill protocol was implemented where the participants (n = 23) completed 3 sets of 1 minute at 5, 10 and 15 km/h., Results: All the recorded measurements during walking reported a low reliability with coefficients of variation (CV) greater than 10% in all variables and small-moderate intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) (<0.6) in seven out of ten variables. Similarly, the CVs reported in running were greater than 10%, except for the maximum angular rate in the obliquity of the pelvis and the vertical oscillation that together with the angular velocity variables showed almost perfect ICCs (>0.92)., Conclusions: Therefore, the data obtained suggests that the RunScribe™ system with 3 IMUs does not provide reliable metrics about the kinematics of the pelvis during locomotion (i.e., walking and running).