Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ornithology
No time to die: Temporal patterns of nest predation in a multi-brooded Southern Hemisphere passerine bird
Published: 2024-01-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Ornithology
1. Nest predation is frequently the primary cause of early-life mortality in wild avian populations, generating selection for optimising the timing of reproduction to reduce predation risk. Investigating temporal patterns of nest predation is therefore necessary for understanding the intricate relationships between birds and their predators. 2. In this study, we considered the role of temporal [...]
Animal social networks are robust to changing association definitions
Published: 2024-01-12
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology
The interconnecting links (edges) between individuals (nodes) in an animal social network are often defined by discrete, directed behaviours (interactions). However, where interactions are difficult to observe, a network edge is instead defined as individuals sharing space or overlapping in time (an association). Despite an increasingly accessible toolkit to assemble and analyse animal social [...]
Shrinking body size may not provide meaningful thermoregulatory benefits in a warmer world
Published: 2023-12-14
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physiology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
In a recent and impressive analysis of avian morphological data (covering >250 000 male birds from 105 species), Youngflesh et al.1 report that birds breeding in North America have become significantly lighter over the last three decades, coincident with rising breeding season temperatures. Because these observations recapitulate predictions under Bergmann’s Rule (i.e., that the body size of [...]
Vocal Dimorphism in Anna’s Hummingbirds
Published: 2023-11-28
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology
Whereas vocal sexual dimorphism is widespread amongst birds, it has been historically overlooked in non-passerines such as hummingbirds. By evaluating correlations among sex, behaviors, and vocalizations, the meaning and utility of intentional sound production may be inferred. Anna's Hummingbirds (Calypte anna) exhibit pronounced sexual dimorphism, with males being larger and having more vibrant [...]
Interspecific behavioural interference and range dynamics: current insights and future directions
Published: 2023-04-25
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Novel biotic interactions in shifting communities play a key role in determining the ability of species’ ranges to track suitable habitat. To date, the impact of biotic interactions on range dynamics have predominantly been studied in the context of interactions between different trophic levels or, to a lesser extent, exploitative competition between species of the same trophic level. Yet, both [...]
Extra-pair paternity, breeding density and synchrony in natural cavities versus nestboxes in two passerine birds
Published: 2023-02-18
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Most of what is known about extra-pair paternity in hole-nesting birds derives from studies using artificial nesting sites, such as nestboxes. However, it has rarely been investigated whether inference drawn from breeding events taking place in nestboxes matches what would be observed under natural conditions, i.e. in natural cavities. We here report on a variation in promiscuity in blue tits and [...]
Use of Airborne Laser Scanning to assess effects of understorey vegetation structure on nest-site selection and breeding performance in an Australian passerine bird
Published: 2022-12-18
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology
In wild bird populations, the structure of vegetation around nest-sites can influence the risk of predation of dependent offspring, generating selection for nest-sites with vegetation characteristics associated with lower predation rates. However, vegetation structure can be difficult to quantify objectively in the field, which might explain why there remains a general lack of understanding of [...]
Neotropical Ornithology: Reckoning with historical assumptions, removing systemic barriers, and reimagining the future
Published: 2022-04-23
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Life Sciences, Ornithology
A major barrier to advancing ornithology is the systemic exclusion of professionals from the Global South. A recent special dossier, Advances in Neotropical Ornithology, and a shortfalls analysis therein, unintentionally followed a long-standing pattern of highlighting individuals, knowledge, and views from the Global North, while largely omitting the perspectives of people based within the [...]
Microclimate shifts in nest-boxes and natural cavities before, during and after nesting
Published: 2022-01-17
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physiology, Population Biology
Animals breeding in anthropogenic shelters such as nest-boxes experience nesting environment in which they did not originally evolve. Over the past decades, they are additionally challenged by climate change – a major environmental force influencing their reproductive ecology. Despite the central importance of nesting microclimate for offspring development and fitness, very little is known about [...]
Temporal patterns in prey size between sexes in a raptor with extreme size dimorphism: testing the intersexual competition hypothesis using web-sourced photographs
Published: 2021-11-28
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology
In most vertebrates, males are larger than females. For raptors, sexual size dimorphism is reversed, with females being larger. Reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) in raptors is strongly linked to diet, with species feeding on the most agile prey, for example bird-eating raptors, showing the greatest size differences between the sexes. Hypotheses for reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) include the [...]
Causes and consequences of variation in early-life telomere length in a bird metapopulation
Published: 2021-10-17
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physiology
1. Environmental conditions during early-life development can have lasting effects on individual quality and fitness. Telomere length (TL) may correlate with early-life conditions and may be an important mediator or biomarker of individual quality or pace-of-life, as periods of increased energy demands can increase telomere attrition due to oxidative stress. Thus, knowledge of the mechanisms that [...]
Matrix quality determines the strength of habitat loss filtering on bird communities at the landscape scale
Published: 2021-09-20
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Habitat loss represent a major threat to biodiversity, however, the modulation of their effects by the non-habitat matrix surrounding habitat patches is still undervalued. The landscape matrix might change community assembly in different ways. For example, low-quality matrices can accentuate environmental filtering by reducing resource availability and/or deteriorating abiotic conditions but they [...]
Nest-boxes alter the reproductive ecology of urban cavity-nesters in a species-dependent way
Published: 2021-08-26
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Population Biology
To mitigate the shortage of natural breeding sites in cities, nest-boxes are provided for cavity-nesters. However, these are not the breeding sites these animals originally evolved in and optimised their breeding performance to. It thus remains inconclusive if nest-boxes can provide adequate substitutes, ensuring equivalent fitness returns for breeding animals. Additionally, the majority of [...]
Validating morphological condition indices and their relationship with reproductive success in great-tailed grackles
Published: 2020-11-20
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Morphological and physiological variation among individuals has the potential to influence multiple life history characteristics such as dispersal, migration, reproductive success, and survival. Individuals that are in better "condition" can disperse or migrate further or more successfully, have greater reproductive success, and survive longer, particularly in years where environmental conditions [...]
Combining social information use and comfort-seeking for nest site selection in a cavity-nesting raptor
Published: 2020-09-30
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology
When selecting a breeding site, individuals can use social information to reduce the uncertainty regarding habitat quality. In particular, individuals from several bird species tend to reuse nests previously occupied by competitors. Re-occupying nests previously used by conspecifics or heterospecifics could result from exploiting social information by copying competitors’ choice (the ‘social [...]