Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ornithology
Individual recognition and number prediction for Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) by passive acoustic monitoring
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Bioinformatics, Ornithology
Seabirds can be notoriously difficult to monitor using conventional methodology, as many breed on remote islands, are active nocturnally and many breed in underground burrows. Current census methods such as counting burrows and using playbacks are time-consuming and labour-intensive. One novel solution is to use passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) followed by individual recognition and number [...]
Relational acoustic geometry of over 20,000 common nightingale strophes: a framework for continuous vocal analysis
Published: 2026-09-15
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Ornithology
Large collections of complex animal vocalizations are often organized through predefined song categories, which provide powerful descriptive units but do not directly characterize continuous and representation-dependent relationships within the acoustic material. This study presents a field-grounded framework for examining such relationships without assigning vocalizations to categories in [...]
Suction or filter feeder? Morphology supports a combined feeding mechanism in the Little Auk (Alle alle)
Published: 2026-09-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Little Auks (Alle alle) are the most abundant seabird in the Arctic, with their largest colonies in north-west Greenland sustained by foraging nearly exclusively on plankton. Given their high metabolic demands, adults must capture an approximate 60,000 copepods per day, raising long-standing questions about how this can be achieved efficiently, and with this, questions about the anatomical basis [...]
Interacting effects of canopy geometry and display activity timing shape conditions for visual signalling in Victoria’s riflebird
Published: 2026-09-01
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Integrative Biology, Ornithology, Zoology
Lighting conditions in forests are highly variable in both space and time and depend on the interacting effects of canopy geometry, weather, and the time of day. This has strong implications for visual signalling, because different species sharing the same forest habitat may display in dramatically different microhabitats favouring disparate signal phenotypes. However, relatively little is known [...]
IUCN Red List Threatened Bird Classification from Citizen-Science Images using Fine-Tuned CNN Features and a Hierarchical Lightweight Classifier
Published: 2026-08-18
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Ornithology
To prevent bird strikes at wind farms, an approaching protected bird must be identified so that the turbine can be halted before a collision. We present a bird-species classification module intended for that real-time, low-power edge setting: a hierarchical system assigning IUCN Red List categories to in-the-wild citizen-science bird images, combining a ResNet50 feature extractor fine-tuned on a [...]
A global evidence synthesis of outcomes of urban bird conservation interventions
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Avian populations face high concentrations of threats in urban areas. Understanding the outcomes of urban conservation interventions to tackle these threats could inform more effective evidenced-based approaches. Using an evidence synthesis and meta-analysis of peer-reviewed literature on conservation interventions to tackle four leading causes of urban bird mortality in urban areas (cat [...]
An individual-based model for white storks (Ciconia ciconia) in Germany during breeding season
Published: 2026-06-26
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ornithology
Understanding how habitat selection influences individual fitness is essential for predicting species responses to environmental change. Resource Selection Functions (RSFs) are widely used to quantify habitat preferences, but they often overlook individual variation and rarely link habitat use to demographic outcomes. We combined empirical habitat-selection modelling with a spatially explicit [...]
Body condition, but not reproductive success, is associated with sociality in a colonial seabird.
Published: 2026-06-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Ornithology, Zoology
Body condition, breeding habitat quality and access to socially acquired information are generally associated with higher fitness in social animals. In colonial species that breed in dense aggregations, such as seabirds, the combined effects of these factors on reproductive success have rarely been tested together. In this study, we investigated the relationship between fledging success, body [...]
Daytime songbird migrants at sea: the influence of coastal proximity on abundance
Published: 2026-04-30
Subjects: Ornithology
Human activities at sea, including offshore energy development, along with environmental changes, are altering marine ecosystems. Their impact on land-based migratory species crossing marine areas remains poorly understood. Songbirds frequently traverse even remote ocean areas, facing risks such as drowning at sea and interactions with man-made structures. Yet, their spatial distribution at sea, [...]
Silver spoon effect: Natal noise is associated with telomere dynamics in adult birds
Published: 2026-04-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Anthropogenic noise disturbance on wildlife is of growing concern. Environmental noise during incubation can negatively impact fitness in wild animal populations. Here, we hypothesised that chronic noise introduces stress through oxidative damage to wild bird embryos, resulting in short-term fitness reductions and long-term physiological changes. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the [...]
A review of 28 Years of beach-nesting Australian Pied Oystercatcher Haematopus Longirostris conservation in the Richmond River Area, New South Wales
Published: 2026-04-06
Subjects: Ornithology, Population Biology
The Australian pied oystercatcher Haematopus longirostris is a shorebird that is Endangered in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. This study reviewed data from the Richmond River Area Pied Oystercatcher Protection Program 1997–2013 and Richmond River Area Shorebird Protection Program 2014–2024, on the north coast of NSW. The increase in breeding population size from an estimated 25 [...]
Evaluating population resilience to anticipated stressors using integrated population modeling: a case study of Peregrine Falcons
Published: 2026-03-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Population Biology
Reliable estimates of demographic parameters are fundamental to understanding population dynamics and guiding conservation efforts. Integrated population models (IPMs) provide a powerful framework for jointly analyzing diverse data sources to estimate demographic rates and population trajectories, evaluate resilience to environmental stressors, and project population dynamics info the future. We [...]
Long-lasting negative effects of poor early life conditions on cognitive performance in adulthood in a wild bird
Published: 2026-03-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Nutrition, Ornithology
Adverse conditions encountered during growth, such as stress or malnutrition, are known to affect cognitive development and functions in adulthood in humans and laboratory animals. However, how early life conditions can influence adult cognition in wild animals remains unclear. Yet cognitive abilities such as innovation can be crucial for animals to cope with rapidly changing environments. We [...]
The Individualised Niche in Motion; quantifying individualised niches with movement data
Published: 2026-02-26
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Individuals of the same species often differ consistently in their use of resources, their responses to environmental gradients, and their movement decisions. Between-individual variation across niche axes has been shown to have important ecological consequences. Yet practical frameworks that translate modern tracking data into operational, comparable measures of niche individual specialisation [...]
Age class and natal origin drive foraging patterns in a reintroduced Cinereous Vulture population
Published: 2026-02-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Ornithology
Widespread vulture population declines are often counteracted by conservation strategies including reintroduction programs and supplementary feeding schemes. However, the role of supplementary feeding – focusing on specific, predictable, feeding sites - on movement behaviour, has been little explored, especially within populations in which reintroduced and wild born birds of different age-classes [...]