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Correlations between female investment in egg production and age, breeding experience and laying date have been reported in several seabird species. In general, clutch and egg sizes increase with female age and breeding experience but decrease with laying date. Positive correlations of clutch and egg size with age and breeding experience can be caused by an increase in reproductive investment with...
Manipulation of clutch size during incubation has been used in a number of studies to investigate life‐history costs of incubation. We increased or decreased clutches of Common Terns Sterna hirundo during incubation and measured subsequent chick growth and productivity. Our results provide little support for the hypothesis that costs of incubation in Common Terns are substantially affected by the...
Spatial and temporal variation in prey abundance have been shown to impact the time of breeding and breeding success of birds. Understanding the ecological requirements of preferred prey can help develop management measures to improve food supply for target species. For the colonial Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni, mole crickets Gryllotalpa spp. are one of the most important prey items during the mate‐feeding...
Birds breeding on islands often exhibit lower rates of extrapair paternity than their mainland counterparts, perhaps explained by low genetic variation, ‘slower’ life histories and reduced sexual selection in island populations. Extrapair paternity was apparent in 39% (12/19) of broods, and encompassed 15% (21/137) of nestlings, in a population of African Blue Tits Cyanistes teneriffae, in Tenerife,...
Seasonal fecundity is a composite metric that is determined by component parameters such as clutch size, nest survival and re‐nesting probability. Many of these component parameters are known to vary with environmental conditions, in particular rainfall prior to or during the breeding season. In some species, seasonal fecundity is positively related to rainfall, but little is known about which component...
To assess whether relative clutch mass (RCM) in Anseriformes (wildfowl or waterfowl) is constrained by body shape, principal components (PCs) of size‐adjusted measurements of five major skeletal elements of adult males and females of 60 species of Anseriformes provided indices of body shape. PC1 accounted for 69.8% of the variance and contrasted anterior elements (cranium and sternum) to posterior...
Hatching failure negatively impacts reproductive success in birds. One reason why eggs fail to hatch is that they are not fertilized, which may be because they receive insufficient sperm. In most passerines, copulation declines in frequency or ceases altogether after the laying of the first egg, so eggs laid late in the laying sequence may be more likely to remain unfertilized. We tested this prediction...
The ecology of cavity nesting in passerine birds has been studied extensively, yet there are no phylogenetic comparative studies that quantify differences in life history traits between cavity‐ and open‐nesting birds within a passerine family. We test existing hypotheses regarding the evolutionary significance of cavity nesting in the Old World flycatchers (Muscicapidae). We used a multi‐locus phylogeny...
Sensory mechanisms controlling avian clutch size have diversified into distinct types, according to the nature of the input that is used to disrupt the growth of ovarian follicles and hence halt egg‐laying. In an article on brood parasitism, Lyon (2003) claimed that female American Coots Fulica americana can reduce their clutch size on the basis of visual cues in response to eggs laid in their nests...
Climate change elevates conservation concerns worldwide because it is likely to exacerbate many identified threats to animal populations. In recent decades, grassland birds have declined faster than other North American bird species, a loss thought to be due to habitat loss and fragmentation and changing agricultural practices. Climate change poses additional threats of unknown magnitude to these...
Despite major advances in sex ratio theory, how offspring sex should vary with hatching order remains unclear. We examine nestling sex ratio in the Southern Grey Shrike Lanius meridionalis according to hatching order and clutch size. Southern Grey Shrike nestlings present a different sex ratio with body‐mass rank order depending on clutch size. When the clutch size was five eggs (with a very low risk...
The Arctic is experiencing rapidly warming conditions, increasing predator abundance, and diminishing population cycles of keystone species such as lemmings. However, it is still not known how many Arctic animals will respond to a changing climate with altered trophic interactions. We studied clutch size, incubation duration and nest survival of 17 taxa of Arctic‐breeding shorebirds at 16 field sites...
Investigating the reproductive ecology of naturalized species provides insights into the role of the source population's characteristics vs. post‐release adaptation that influence the success of introduction programmes. Introduced and naturalized Mallards Anas platyrhynchos are widely established in New Zealand (NZ), but little is known regarding their reproductive ecology. We evaluated the nesting...
Intermittently incubating birds alternate between sessions of egg warming and recesses for foraging during the day, but stay on the nest continuously at night. Hence, energy costs of nocturnal incubation (which increase during longer and colder nights) cannot be replenished until the next day. Night conditions might therefore be expected to affect morning incubation behaviour the day after. We tested...
Global anthropogenic changes are significantly impacting the ecology and evolution of many species. Among temperate taxa, changes to reproductive phenology as a result of warming springs are apparent. However, how such responses to abiotic change interact with biotic impacts resulting from human management interventions are less clear. Here we examine the response of a range of breeding metrics (laying...
Life‐history theory predicts that whenever expensive activities overlap, there will be a trade‐off between the activities. In a field study of Blue Tits Cyanistes caeruleus in Norway, we tested whether parental energy expenditure during reproduction affected timing of moult of primary feathers. Five days after hatching, we manipulated broods to contain either two (n = 10 broods) or 9–12 nestlings...
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