Pesticides and Bird Populations

Faculty Opinions recommendation of Do domestic cats impose an unsustainable harvest on urban bird populations?

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.10058956.10802066 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Fred Adler

Keyword(s):

Domestic Cats ◽

Bird Populations ◽

Urban Bird

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A comparison of breeding bird populations inside and outside of European Badger Meles meles control areas

Bird Study ◽

10.1080/00063657.2021.1889460 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Esther F. Kettel ◽

Ivan Lakin ◽

Matthew J. Heydon ◽

Gavin M. Siriwardena

Keyword(s):

Meles Meles ◽

Breeding Bird ◽

Bird Populations ◽

European Badger

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Warming Arctic summers unlikely to increase productivity of shorebirds through renesting

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-94788-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Sarah T. Saalfeld ◽

Brooke L. Hill ◽

Christine M. Hunter ◽

Charles J. Frost ◽

Richard B. Lanctot

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Survival Rates ◽

The Arctic ◽

Adult Survival ◽

Chick Survival ◽

Ecological Processes ◽

Bird Populations ◽

Phenological Mismatch ◽

Daily Survival ◽

Adequate Food

AbstractClimate change in the Arctic is leading to earlier summers, creating a phenological mismatch between the hatching of insectivorous birds and the availability of their invertebrate prey. While phenological mismatch would presumably lower the survival of chicks, climate change is also leading to longer, warmer summers that may increase the annual productivity of birds by allowing adults to lay nests over a longer period of time, replace more nests that fail, and provide physiological relief to chicks (i.e., warmer temperatures that reduce thermoregulatory costs). However, there is little information on how these competing ecological processes will ultimately impact the demography of bird populations. In 2008 and 2009, we investigated the survival of chicks from initial and experimentally-induced replacement nests of arcticola Dunlin (Calidris alpina) breeding near Utqiaġvik, Alaska. We monitored survival of 66 broods from 41 initial and 25 replacement nests. Based on the average hatch date of each group, chick survival (up to age 15 days) from replacement nests (Ŝi = 0.10; 95% CI = 0.02–0.22) was substantially lower than initial nests (Ŝi = 0.67; 95% CI = 0.48–0.81). Daily survival rates were greater for older chicks, chicks from earlier-laid clutches, and during periods of greater invertebrate availability. As temperature was less important to daily survival rates of shorebird chicks than invertebrate availability, our results indicate that any physiological relief experienced by chicks will likely be overshadowed by the need for adequate food. Furthermore, the processes creating a phenological mismatch between hatching of shorebird young and invertebrate emergence ensures that warmer, longer breeding seasons will not translate into abundant food throughout the longer summers. Thus, despite having a greater opportunity to nest later (and potentially replace nests), young from these late-hatching broods will likely not have sufficient food to survive. Collectively, these results indicate that warmer, longer summers in the Arctic are unlikely to increase annual recruitment rates, and thus unable to compensate for low adult survival, which is typically limited by factors away from the Arctic-breeding grounds.

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Misinformation tactics protect rare birds from problem predators

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.abe4164 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (11) ◽

pp. eabe4164

Author(s):

Grant L. Norbury ◽

Catherine J. Price ◽

M. Cecilia Latham ◽

Samantha J. Brown ◽

A. David M. Latham ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Threatened Species ◽

Prey Availability ◽

Free Living ◽

Bird Populations ◽

New Information ◽

Mammalian Predators ◽

Decision Making Processes ◽

Living Species ◽

Information Reliability

Efficient decision-making integrates previous experience with new information. Tactical use of misinformation can alter choice in humans. Whether misinformation affects decision-making in other free-living species, including problem species, is unknown. Here, we show that sensory misinformation tactics can reduce the impacts of predators on vulnerable bird populations as effectively as lethal control. We repeatedly exposed invasive mammalian predators to unprofitable bird odors for 5 weeks before native shorebirds arrived for nesting and for 8 weeks thereafter. Chick production increased 1.7-fold at odor-treated sites over 25 to 35 days, with doubled or tripled odds of successful hatching, resulting in a 127% increase in modeled population size in 25 years. We demonstrate that decision-making processes that respond to changes in information reliability are vulnerable to tactical manipulation by misinformation. Altering perceptions of prey availability offers an innovative, nonlethal approach to managing problem predators and improving conservation outcomes for threatened species.

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Will the EU ban on bird imports mean the demise of bird populations in EAZA collections?

International Zoo Yearbook ◽

10.1111/j.1748-1090.2008.00085.x ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 19-28 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

O. WALTER ◽

J. A. ELLIS ◽

L. BINGAMAN LACKEY

Keyword(s):

Bird Populations ◽

The Eu

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Monitoring Bird Populations by Point Counts C. John Ralph John R. Sauer S. Droege

The Auk ◽

10.2307/4089313 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 114 (4) ◽

pp. 811-813

Author(s):

Bertin W. Anderson

Keyword(s):

Point Counts ◽

Bird Populations

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Malarial parasites as geographical markers in migratory birds?

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2005.0429 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 213-216 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Sylvia M Fallon ◽

Robert C Fleischer ◽

Gary R Graves

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Migratory Birds ◽

Wide Distribution ◽

Specific Information ◽

Population Movements ◽

Site Specific ◽

Dendroica Caerulescens ◽

Bird Populations ◽

Breeding Populations ◽

Wintering Range

We tested the hypothesis that malarial parasites ( Plasmodium and Haemoproteus ) of black-throated blue warblers ( Dendroica caerulescens ) provide sufficient geographical signal to track population movements between the warbler's breeding and wintering habitats in North America. Our results from 1083 warblers sampled across the species' breeding range indicate that parasite lineages are geographically widespread and do not provide site-specific information. The wide distribution of malarial parasites probably reflects postnatal dispersal of their hosts as well as mixing of breeding populations on the wintering range. When compared to geographically structured parasites of sedentary Caribbean songbirds, patterns of malarial infections in black-throated blue warblers suggest that host–malaria dynamics of migratory and sedentary bird populations may be subject to contrasting selection pressures.

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