We generated this dataframe to model EU habitat richness at continental scale as a function of geographical, climate and anthropogenic variables (please, see Material and Method section in the published paper version for all the details). We found geographical variables were by far the most strongly correlated with habitat richness, followed by climate. However, anthropogenic variables gained importance when consindering their interactions, with important implications for conservation planning.

Among avian species, the differential cost entailed by either sex in competition for mates have been regarded as the main evolutionary influence on sex differences in mortality rates. However, empirical evidence suggests that sex-biased adult mortality is mainly related to differential energy investment in gamete production, a greater annual mass devoted to egg production leading to higher female mortality. We explicitly tested the generality of this pattern in a comparative framework. Annual egg production can...

Human activities can globally modify natural ecosystems determining ecological, demographic and range perturbations for several animal species. These changes can jeopardize native gene pools in different ways, leading either to genetic homogenization or, conversely, to the split into genetically divergent demes. In the past decades, most European wild boar (Sus scrofa) populations were heavily managed by humans. Anthropic manipulations have strongly affected also Italian populations through heavy hunting, translocations and reintroductions that might have deeply...