| 1. |
- Moller, Anders Pape, et al.
(författare)
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Clutch-size variation in Western Palaearctic secondary hole-nesting passerine birds in relation to nest box design
- 2014
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Ingår i: Methods in Ecology and Evolution. - 2041-210X. ; 5:4, s. 353-362
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Secondary hole-nesting birds that do not construct nest holes themselves and hence regularly breed in nest boxes constitute important model systems for field studies in many biological disciplines with hundreds of scientists and amateurs involved. Those research groups are spread over wide geographic areas that experience considerable variation in environmental conditions, and researchers provide nest boxes of varying designs that may inadvertently introduce spatial and temporal variation in reproductive parameters. We quantified the relationship between mean clutch size and nest box size and material after controlling for a range of environmental variables in four of the most widely used model species in the Western Palaearctic: great tit Parus major, blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus, pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca and collared flycatcher F.albicollis from 365 populations and 79610 clutches. Nest floor area and nest box material varied non-randomly across latitudes and longitudes, showing that scientists did not adopt a random box design. Clutch size increased with nest floor area in great tits, but not in blue tits and flycatchers. Clutch size of blue tits was larger in wooden than in concrete nest boxes. These findings demonstrate that the size of nest boxes and material used to construct nest boxes can differentially affect clutch size in different species. The findings also suggest that the nest box design may affect not only focal species, but also indirectly other species through the effects of nest box design on productivity and therefore potentially population density and hence interspecific competition.
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| 2. |
- Moller, Anders P., et al.
(författare)
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Variation in clutch size in relation to nest size in birds
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2045-7758. ; 4:18, s. 3583-3595
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nests are structures built to support and protect eggs and/or offspring from predators, parasites, and adverse weather conditions. Nests are mainly constructed prior to egg laying, meaning that parent birds must make decisions about nest site choice and nest building behavior before the start of egg-laying. Parent birds should be selected to choose nest sites and to build optimally sized nests, yet our current understanding of clutch size-nest size relationships is limited to small-scale studies performed over short time periods. Here, we quantified the relationship between clutch size and nest size, using an exhaustive database of 116 slope estimates based on 17,472 nests of 21 species of hole and non-hole-nesting birds. There was a significant, positive relationship between clutch size and the base area of the nest box or the nest, and this relationship did not differ significantly between open nesting and hole-nesting species. The slope of the relationship showed significant intraspecific and interspecific heterogeneity among four species of secondary hole-nesting species, but also among all 116 slope estimates. The estimated relationship between clutch size and nest box base area in study sites with more than a single size of nest box was not significantly different from the relationship using studies with only a single size of nest box. The slope of the relationship between clutch size and nest base area in different species of birds was significantly negatively related to minimum base area, and less so to maximum base area in a given study. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that bird species have a general reaction norm reflecting the relationship between nest size and clutch size. Further, they suggest that scientists may influence the clutch size decisions of hole-nesting birds through the provisioning of nest boxes of varying sizes.
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| 3. |
- Forsman, Jukka T., et al.
(författare)
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Avoiding perceived past resource use of potential competitors affects niche dynamics in a bird community
- 2014
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Ingår i: BMC Evolutionary Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2148. ; 14, s. 175-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Social information use is usually considered to lead to ecological convergence among involved con-or heterospecific individuals. However, recent results demonstrate that observers can also actively avoid behaving as those individuals being observed, leading to ecological divergence. This phenomenon has been little explored so far, yet it can have significant impact on resource use, realized niches and species co-existence. In particular, the time-scale and the ecological context over which such shifts can occur are unknown. We examined with a long-term (four years) field experiment whether experimentally manipulated, species-specific, nest-site feature preferences (symbols on nest boxes) are transmitted across breeding seasons and affect future nest-site preferences in a guild of three cavity-nesting birds. Results: Of the examined species, resident great tits (Parus major) preferred the symbol that had been associated with unoccupied nest boxes in the previous year, i.e., their preference shifted towards niche space previously unused by putative competitors and conspecifics. Conclusions: Our results show that animals can remember the earlier resource use of conspecifics and other guild members and adjust own decisions accordingly one year after. Our experiment cannot reveal the ultimate mechanism(s) behind the observed behaviour but avoiding costs of intra-or interspecific competition or ectoparasite load in old nests are plausible reasons. Our findings imply that interspecific social information use can affect resource sharing and realized niches in ecological time-scale through active avoidance of observed decisions and behavior of potentially competing species.
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| 4. |
- Kivela, Sami M., et al.
(författare)
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The past and the present in decision-making : the use of conspecific and heterospecific cues in nest site selection
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 95:12, s. 3428-3439
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nest site selection significantly affects fitness, so adaptations for assessment of the qualities of available sites are expected. The assessment may be based on personal or social information, the latter referring to the observed location and performance of both conspecific and heterospecific individuals. Contrary to large-scale breeding habitat selection, small-scale nest site selection within habitat patches is insufficiently understood. We analyzed nest site selection in the migratory Collared Flycatcher Ficedula albicollis in relation to present and past cues provided by conspecifics and by resident tits within habitat patches by using long-term data. Collared Flycatchers preferred nest boxes that were occupied by conspecifics in the previous year. This preference was strongest in breeding pairs where both individuals bred in the same forest patch in the previous year. The results also suggest preference for nest boxes close to boxes where conspecifics had a high breeding success in the previous year, and for nest boxes which are presently surrounded by a high number of breeding Great Tits Parus major. The results indicate social information use in nest site selection at a small spatial scale, where Collared Flycatchers use conspecific cues with a time lag of one year and heterospecific cues instantly.
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| 5. |
- Raitanen, Jani, et al.
(författare)
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Attraction to conspecific eggs may guide oviposition site selection in a solitary insect
- 2014
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Ingår i: Behavioral Ecology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1045-2249 .- 1465-7279. ; 25:1, s. 110-116
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Conspecific attraction is a form of social information use whereby individuals are attracted to the presence of conspecifics because they may indicate high-quality sites or resources. Conspecific attraction results in aggregation of individuals with similar needs and may therefore intensify competition, in particular, at high densities. Thus, the occurrence and strength of conspecific attraction may be dependent on density, but the effects of predicted intensity of future competition for resources on individual decisions have rarely been quantified. We studied realized early fecundity and oviposition site selection in the butterfly Pieris napi in relation to a density gradient of conspecific eggs on available host plants in an explicit laboratory experiment. Relying on conspecific assessment of host quality is expected to select for conspecific attraction, whereas competition avoidance is expected to select for avoidance of high conspecific densities. Presence of conspecific cues did not substantially affect realized fecundity as females exposed to an environment containing conspecific cues laid approximately equal number of eggs as females exposed to an environment lacking such cues. Instead, when females were able to choose among host plants with or without previously laid conspecific eggs, they preferred plants that already carried eggs in relation to egg-free host plants, independently of the initial egg density. Indeed, the maintenance of conspecific attraction, rather than avoidance, in P. napi implies that the possible benefits of conspecific attraction in oviposition site selection may outweigh the costs of competition in the wild.
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