| 1. |
- Culina, Antica, et al.
(författare)
-
Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies : The SPI-Birds data hub
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Journal of Animal Ecology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0021-8790 .- 1365-2656. ; 90:9, s. 2147-2160
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes in the wild. Furthermore, their number and global distribution provides a unique opportunity to assess the generality of patterns and to address broad-scale global issues (e.g. climate change). To solve data integration issues and enable a new scale of ecological and evolutionary research based on long-term studies of birds, we have created the SPI-Birds Network and Database ()-a large-scale initiative that connects data from, and researchers working on, studies of wild populations of individually recognizable (usually ringed) birds. Within year and a half since the establishment, SPI-Birds has recruited over 120 members, and currently hosts data on almost 1.5 million individual birds collected in 80 populations over 2,000 cumulative years, and counting. SPI-Birds acts as a data hub and a catalogue of studied populations. It prevents data loss, secures easy data finding, use and integration and thus facilitates collaboration and synthesis. We provide community-derived data and meta-data standards and improve data integrity guided by the principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), and aligned with the existing metadata languages (e.g. ecological meta-data language). The encouraging community involvement stems from SPI-Bird's decentralized approach: research groups retain full control over data use and their way of data management, while SPI-Birds creates tailored pipelines to convert each unique data format into a standard format. We outline the lessons learned, so that other communities (e.g. those working on other taxa) can adapt our successful model. Creating community-specific hubs (such as ours, COMADRE for animal demography, etc.) will aid much-needed large-scale ecological data integration.
|
|
| 2. |
- Laczi, Miklos, et al.
(författare)
-
The meaning of purely structural colour : white plumage reflectance indicates feather condition
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Ibis. - : Wiley. - 0019-1019 .- 1474-919X. ; 63:2, s. 407-416
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- White plumage areas are widespread among birds but the mechanisms generating individual differences in white feather reflectance are poorly known. Additionally, the proximate mechanisms of within-season feather colour changes in general are also poorly known. Here we explored within-individual changes in macrostructure and reflectance of the white wing-patch of female Collared Flycatchers Ficedula albicollis using data from three stages within a breeding season. Changes in brightness and UV chroma were related to changes in the neatness and size of reflective surfaces, respectively. This suggests that white feather reflectance traits may act as indicators of feather intactness and preening activity.
|
|
| 3. |
- Lambrechts, Marcel M., et al.
(författare)
-
The design of artificial nestboxes for the study of secondary hole-nesting birds: a review of methodological inconsistencies and potential biases
- 2010
-
Ingår i: Acta Ornithologica. - 0001-6454 .- 1734-8471. ; 45:1, s. 1-26
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The widespread use of artificial nestboxes has led to significant advances in our knowledge of the ecology, behaviour and physiology of cavity nesting birds, especially small passerines Nestboxes have made it easier to perform routine monitoring and experimental manipulation of eggs or nestlings, and also repeatedly to capture, identify and manipulate the parents However, when comparing results across study sites the use of nestboxes may also Introduce a potentially significant confounding variable in the form of differences in nestbox design amongst studies, such as their physical dimensions, placement height, and the way in which they are constructed and maintained However, the use of nestboxes may also introduce an unconsidered and potentially significant confounding variable clue to differences in nestbox design amongst studies, such as their physical dimensions, placement height, and the way in which they are constructed and maintained Here we review to what extent the characteristics of artificial nestboxes (e g size, shape, construction material, colour) are documented in the 'methods' sections of publications involving hole-nesting passerine birds using natural or excavated cavities or artificial nestboxes for reproduction and roosting Despite explicit previous recommendations that authors describe in detail the characteristics of the nestboxes used, we found that the description of nestbox characteristics in most recent publications remains poor and insufficient We therefore list the types of descriptive data that should be included in the methods sections of relevant manuscripts and justify this by discussing how variation in nestbox characteristics can affect or confound conclusions from nestbox studies We also propose several recommendations to improve the reliability and usefulness of research based on long-term studies of any secondary hole-nesting species using artificial nestboxes for breeding or roosting.
|
|
| 4. |
- Lemoine, Melissa, et al.
(författare)
-
Low but contrasting neutral genetic differentiation shaped by winter temperature in European great tits
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0024-4066 .- 1095-8312. ; 118:3, s. 668-685
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gene flow is usually thought to reduce genetic divergence and impede local adaptation by homogenising gene pools between populations. However, evidence for local adaptation and phenotypic differentiation in highly mobile species, experiencing high levels of gene flow, is emerging. Assessing population genetic structure at different spatial scales is thus a crucial step towards understanding mechanisms underlying intraspecific differentiation and diversification. Here, we studied the population genetic structure of a highly mobile species - the great tit Parus major - at different spatial scales. We analysed 884 individuals from 30 sites across Europe including 10 close-by sites (< 50 km), using 22 microsatellite markers. Overall we found a low but significant genetic differentiation among sites (F-ST = 0.008). Genetic differentiation was higher, and genetic diversity lower, in south-western Europe. These regional differences were statistically best explained by winter temperature. Overall, our results suggest that great tits form a single patchy metapopulation across Europe, in which genetic differentiation is independent of geographical distance and gene flow may be regulated by environmental factors via movements related to winter severity. This might have important implications for the evolutionary trajectories of sub-populations, especially in the context of climate change, and calls for future investigations of local differences in costs and benefits of philopatry at large scales.
|
|
| 5. |
- Rosivall, Balázs, et al.
(författare)
-
Effects of extrapair paternity and sex on nestling growth and condition in the collared flycatcher, Ficedula albicollis
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Animal Behaviour. - : Elsevier BV. - 1095-8282 .- 0003-3472. ; 77:3, s. 611-617
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Extrapair fertilizations (EPFs) have been found in most socially monogamous passerine species. EPFs are generally beneficial for males because they increase the number of sired offspring. The benefit accrued by females, however, is less obvious. Maternal benefits may involve fertility insurance, increased genetic variability of the offspring, and improved offspring quality via compatible genes or 'good genes'. In a Hungarian population of the collared flycatcher, we investigated whether the occurrence of extrapair young (EPY) in a brood could be predicted by the traits of the females or their social mates, and whether EPY were superior to their half sibs in terms of growth and. edging condition. We found that 55.7% of the broods contained EPY. The females' participation in extrapair copulations (EPCs) was not related to any of the characteristics of their mates (body size, condition, wing and forehead patch size). The EPY did not differ from their half sibs in any measures of offspring quality. The half sibs had similar embryonic and postembryonic growth and. edged with similar body condition. Female body size was related to extrapair paternity: larger females were less likely to produce mixed-paternity broods. This suggests that the role of female traits in EPCs deserves more attention. We also found that male nestlings grew faster than females, although females could catch up by the time of. edging, so we argue that sex-dependent development should be taken into account in studies using nestling growth as a measure of nestling quality. (C) 2008 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
|
|
| 6. |
- Smeds, Linnea, et al.
(författare)
-
Evolutionary analysis of the female-specific avian W chromosome
- 2015
-
Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 6
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The typically repetitive nature of the sex-limited chromosome means that it is often excluded from or poorly covered in genome assemblies, hindering studies of evolutionary and population genomic processes in non-recombining chromosomes. Here, we present a draft assembly of the non-recombining region of the collared flycatcher W chromosome, containing 46 genes without evidence of female-specific functional differentiation. Survival of genes during W chromosome degeneration has been highly non-random and expression data suggest that this can be attributed to selection for maintaining gene dose and ancestral expression levels of essential genes. Re-sequencing of large population samples revealed dramatically reduced levels of within-species diversity and elevated rates of between-species differentiation (lineage sorting), consistent with low effective population size. Concordance between W chromosome and mitochondrial DNA phylogenetic trees demonstrates evolutionary stable matrilineal inheritance of this nuclear-cytonuclear pair of chromosomes. Our results show both commonalities and differences between W chromosome and Y chromosome evolution.
|
|
