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The control of generalist predator populations is increasingly adopted as a management tool to combat declines in ground‐nesting bird populations. However, compensatory predation by uncontrolled species frequently occurs, so determining the relative impacts of different predatory species, and hence the relative benefits of their control, can be difficult. Islands, with their reduced faunas, provide...
Breeding is energetically expensive and individuals face a trade‐off between current and future breeding investment. Due to their production of large eggs, female birds are thought to have substantially higher initial energetic investments than males, which decrease the female's offspring rearing capacity. The differential parental capacity hypothesis argues that this large initial investment limits...
Predator exclosure cages are designed to increase the clutch survival of ground‐nesting birds. Predator exclosures provided for the endangered St. Helena Plover Charadrius sanctaehelenae, however, did not result in differences in clutch survival between protected and control nests and may have resulted in elevated adult mortality. Exclosures did not exclude all cats, the dominant nest predator, and...
Sex‐related variation in survival is common in birds and, as it influences effective population size and population growth, is important for conservation and species management. Here we assessed incubation behaviour and sex‐related survival in a threatened sexually monomorphic shorebird, the St Helena Plover Charadrius sanctaehelenae. Males incubated at night, the period of highest activity of cats,...
The migration route of Red‐necked Phalarope populations breeding on North Atlantic islands has been subject to considerable speculation. Geolocator tags were fitted to nine Red‐necked Phalaropes breeding in northern Scotland to assess whether they migrated to Palaearctic or Nearctic wintering grounds. Of four birds known to return, two had retained their tags, of which one was recaptured. This male...
Habitat associations of farmland birds are well studied, yet few have considered relationships between species distribution and soil properties. Charadriiform waders (shorebirds) depend upon penetrable soils, rich in invertebrate prey. Many species, such as the Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus, have undergone severe declines across Europe, despite being targeted by agri‐environment measures. This...
Fennoscandian alpine tundra habitats support large numbers of breeding waders, but relatively little is known about their breeding ecology despite the fact that this habitat is threatened by climate change. We studied habitat selection, diet and prey availability of European (Eurasian) Golden Plover Pluvialis apricaria chicks at the Vindelfjällen Nature Reserve, Ammarnäs, Sweden. Information from...
Populations from different parts of a species range may vary in their genetic structure, variation and dynamics. Geographically isolated populations or those located at the periphery of the range may differ from those located in the core of the range. Such peripheral populations may harbour genetic variation important for the adaptive potential of the species. We studied the distribution‐wide population...
In species with biparental care, coordination of parental behaviour between pair members increases reproductive success. Coordination is difficult if opportunities to communicate are scarce, which might have led to the evolution of elaborate nest relief rituals in species facing a low predation risk. However, whether such conspicuous rituals also evolved in species that avoid predation by relying...
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