scholarly journals Synantropic Birds of Bukhara Region: Distribution, Number and Importance

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barotov Avazbek Hamzaevich

As a result of the study, synanthropic bird species specific to Bukhara region were identified. Preliminary materials collected to determine the seasonal dynamics of the distribution, number and number of synanthropic bird species in the region and their practical significance in human economy were analyzed.

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
L Reese ◽  
M Ladwig-Wiegard ◽  
L von Fersen ◽  
G Haase ◽  
H Will ◽  
...  

For over a century the practice of deflighting has taken place in zoological collections in order to ensure birds remain in open-topped enclosures. Over time, efforts have been made to improve or develop new (surgical) techniques, reduce risk of complications during deflighting and minimise stress and pain during the procedure. However, increased public interest in issues of animal welfare has coincided with a questioning of the practice of removing a birds ability to fly. The ensuing debate, which continues to progress among a variety of differing stakeholders, has led to various legislative adjustments across a number of countries. Despite significant legislation, the dialogue has been both subjective and highly emotive. A plethora of opinions exist as to why deflighting should be outlawed, why it is necessary, or how it has the potential to improve a birds living conditions. However, most are based on assumption or issues unrelated to welfare. To the authors knowledge, to date, no scientific data have been published on the welfare implications of deflighting for the commonly deflighted bird species, such as waterfowl, flamingos (Phoenicopteridae), pelicans (Pelecanidae), storks (Ciconiidae), cranes (Gruidae) and herons (Ardeidae). The aim of this study is to present an overview of the relevance of deflighting to zoo husbandry, the species primarily affected, the techniques currently in use, the legality in differing countries and the extent of scientific knowledge as regards potential ethological and welfare concerns. An urgent need for evidence-based studies is highlighted, to further inform this practice at a species-specific level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
René Oswaldo Silva-Castillo ◽  
Samuel Flores-Ceballos ◽  
Adriana Margarita Ducoing-Watty ◽  
Ricardo Itzcóatl Maldonado-Reséndiz

Ocular diseases are sub-diagnosed in bird species, partly because of limited diagnostic methods and lack of reference data. Placement of Schirmer tear test strips in the bottom of the conjunctival sac of birds for tear flow measurement can prove to be difficult, whereas paper tips commonly used for dental procedures may be easier to use, due to a more adequate size and shape. Hence, the aim of this study was to assess and compare tear flow values, using ABC Dental® # 30 color paper tips and TearFloTM Test strips in Red-lored Parrots (Amazona autumnalis) (n = 26). Captive birds of undetermined sex were housed in groups under similar environmental conditions and fed the same diet. All animals were deemed healthy through remote and physical examinations. Average tear flow values of 0.6365 ± 0.032 cm/min and 0.5942 ± 0.032 cm/min were obtained with the Schirmer strips test and the endodontic tips respectively. Lack of difference in observed values between measurement techniques (p = 0.3629) indicates that endodontic tips may be a good alternative for tear flow assessment in Red-lored parrots. In addition, endodontic tips are more cost effective and may be less invasive. This study stresses the need to establish species specific ophthalmic reference values for clinical practice in birds, since differences have been reported even in specimens within the same genus.Figure 1. Measurement of tear flow in Red-lored parrots using TearFloTM Test Strips


The Condor ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-948
Author(s):  
Wayne E. Thogmartin ◽  
Brian R. Gray ◽  
Maureen Gallagher ◽  
Neal Young ◽  
Jason J. Rohweder ◽  
...  

Abstract Avian point counts for population monitoring are often collected over a short timespan (e.g., 3–5 years). We examined whether power was adequate (power ≥0.80) in short-duration studies to warrant the calculation of trend estimates. We modeled power to detect trends in abundance indices of eight bird species occurring across three floodplain habitats (wet prairie, early successional forest, and mature forest) as a function of trend magnitude, sample size, and species-specific sampling and among-year variance components. Point counts (5 min) were collected from 365 locations distributed among 10 study sites along the lower Missouri River; counts were collected over the period 2002 to 2004. For all study species, power appeared adequate to detect trends in studies of short duration (three years) at a single site when exponential declines were relatively large in magnitude (more than −5% year−1) and the sample of point counts per year was ≥30. Efforts to monitor avian trends with point counts in small managed lands (i.e., refuges and parks) should recognize this sample size restriction by including point counts from offsite locations as a means of obtaining sufficient numbers of samples per strata. Trends of less than −5% year−1 are not likely to be consistently detected for most species over the short term, but short-term monitoring may still be useful as the basis for comparisons with future surveys.


2005 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. 683-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Clay Green ◽  
Paul L Leberg

It has been hypothesized that white plumage facilitates flock formation in Ardeidae. We conducted four experiments using decoys to test factors involved in attracting wading birds to a specific pond. The first three experiments tested the effects of plumage colouration, flock size, and species-specific decoys on flock formation. The fourth experiment examined intraspecific differences in flock choice between the two colour morphs of the reddish egret, Egretta rufescens (Gmelin, 1789). Wading birds landed at flocks of decoys more often than single or no decoys (P < 0.001) but exhibited no overall attraction to white plumage (P > 0.05). White-plumaged species were attracted to white decoys (P < 0.001) and dark-plumaged species were attracted to dark decoys (P < 0.001). Snowy egrets (E. thula (Molina, 1782)), great egrets (Ardea alba L., 1758), and little blue herons (E. caerulea (L., 1758)) landed more often at ponds that contained decoys resembling conspecifics. At the intraspecific level, all observed reddish egrets selected flocks with like-plumaged decoys. Our results suggest that plumage colouration is an attractant for species with similar plumage, but white plumage is not an attractant for all wading bird species. White plumage may facilitate flock formation in certain species but does not serve as a universal attractant for wading birds of varying plumage colouration and size.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (21) ◽  
pp. e2023170118
Author(s):  
Corey T. Callaghan ◽  
Shinichi Nakagawa ◽  
William K. Cornwell

Quantifying the abundance of species is essential to ecology, evolution, and conservation. The distribution of species abundances is fundamental to numerous longstanding questions in ecology, yet the empirical pattern at the global scale remains unresolved, with a few species’ abundance well known but most poorly characterized. In large part because of heterogeneous data, few methods exist that can scale up to all species across the globe. Here, we integrate data from a suite of well-studied species with a global dataset of bird occurrences throughout the world—for 9,700 species (∼92% of all extant species)—and use missing data theory to estimate species-specific abundances with associated uncertainty. We find strong evidence that the distribution of species abundances is log left skewed: there are many rare species and comparatively few common species. By aggregating the species-level estimates, we find that there are ∼50 billion individual birds in the world at present. The global-scale abundance estimates that we provide will allow for a line of inquiry into the structure of abundance across biogeographic realms and feeding guilds as well as the consequences of life history (e.g., body size, range size) on population dynamics. Importantly, our method is repeatable and scalable: as data quantity and quality increase, our accuracy in tracking temporal changes in global biodiversity will increase. Moreover, we provide the methodological blueprint for quantifying species-specific abundance, along with uncertainty, for any organism in the world.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Stoudt ◽  
Benjamin R Goldstein ◽  
Perry de Valpine

Identifying which species are perceived as charismatic can improve the impact and efficiency of conservation outreach, as charismatic species receive more conservation funding and have their conservation needs prioritized. Sociological experiments studying animal charisma have relied on stated preferences to find correlations between hypothetical "willingness to pay" or "empathy" for a species' conservation and species' size, color, and aesthetic appeal. Recognizing the increasing availability of digital records of public engagement with animals that reveal preferences, an emerging field of "culturomics" uses Google search results, Wikipedia article activities, and other digital modes of engagement to identify charismatic species and traits. In this study, we take advantage of community science efforts as another form of digital data that can reveal observer preferences. We apply a multi-stage analysis to ask whether opportunistic birders contributing to iNaturalist engage more with larger, more colorful, and rarer birds relative to a baseline, from eBird contributors, approximating unbiased detection. We find that body mass, color contrast, and range size all predict overrepresentation in the opportunistic dataset. We also find evidence that, across 473 modeled species, 52 species are significantly overreported and 158 are significantly underreported, indicating a wide variety of species-specific effects. Understanding which birds are charismatic can aid conservationists in creating impactful outreach materials and engaging new naturalists. The quantified differences between two prominent community science efforts may also be of use for researchers leveraging the data from one or both of them to answer scientific questions of interest.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amalia P. M. Bastos ◽  
Kata Horváth ◽  
Jonathan L. Webb ◽  
Patrick M. Wood ◽  
Alex H. Taylor

AbstractTooling is associated with complex cognitive abilities, occurring most regularly in large-brained mammals and birds. Among birds, self-care tooling is seemingly rare in the wild, despite several anecdotal reports of this behaviour in captive parrots. Here, we show that Bruce, a disabled parrot lacking his top mandible, deliberately uses pebbles to preen himself. Evidence for this behaviour comes from five lines of evidence: (i) in over 90% of instances where Bruce picked up a pebble, he then used it to preen; (ii) in 95% of instances where Bruce dropped a pebble, he retrieved this pebble, or replaced it, in order to resume preening; (iii) Bruce selected pebbles of a specific size for preening rather than randomly sampling available pebbles in his environment; (iv) no other kea in his environment used pebbles for preening; and (v) when other individuals did interact with stones, they used stones of different sizes to those Bruce preened with. Our study provides novel and empirical evidence for deliberate self-care tooling in a bird species where tooling is not a species-specific behaviour. It also supports claims that tooling can be innovated based on ecological necessity by species with sufficiently domain-general cognition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Hyland Bruno ◽  
Erich D. Jarvis ◽  
Mark Liberman ◽  
Ofer Tchernichovski

Unlike many species, song learning birds and humans have independently evolved the ability to communicate via learned vocalizations. Both birdsong and spoken language are culturally transmitted across generations, within species-specific constraints that leave room for considerable variation. We review the commonalities and differences between vocal learning bird species and humans, across behavioral, developmental, neuroanatomical, physiological, and genetic levels. We propose that cultural transmission of vocal repertoires is a natural consequence of the evolution of vocal learning and that at least some species-specific universals, as well as species differences in cultural transmission, are due to differences in vocal learning phenotypes, which are shaped by genetic constraints. We suggest that it is the balance between these constraints and features of the social environment that allows cultural learning to propagate and describe new opportunities for exploring meaningful comparisons of birdsong and human vocal culture that focus on the ontogeny of vocal interactivity. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 7 is January 14, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 833-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
KAZUYA KIMURA ◽  
TAKAKAZU YUMOTO ◽  
KIHACHIRO KIKUZAWA

An altitudinal survey of correspondences between fruiting phenologies of fleshy-fruited tree species and seasonal dynamics of frugivorous birds on Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo was carried out for 50 weeks across four vegetation types: a hill forest (800 m asl), a lower montane forest (1700 m), an upper montane forest (2000-3000 m) and a subalpine forest (3000-3500 m). In the hill forest, a large fruiting peak following the general flowering phenomenon was observed during October-November in 1996 and a fruitless period was observed during February-April in 1997. During the fruitless period, the number of resident frugivorous birds decreased. A bimodal fruiting pattern was observed in the lower montane forest. A large number of frugivorous temperate migrants were observed when the fruiting peak occurred. The number of resident frugivorous birds increased and several lowland bird species were observed, when the number of resident birds decreased in the hill forest. In the upper montane forest and the subalpine forest, more continuous and irregular fruiting patterns without outstanding peaks were observed and the number of resident frugivorous birds was more stable throughout the year. These suggested (1) there was a strong relationship between fruiting seasonality and seasonal dynamics of temperate migrants in the lower montane forest; (2) seasonal altitudinal movements of lowland bird species to montane vegetation might occur during the fruitless period in the lowland forest; and (3) the continuous fruiting pattern in the higher vegetation zones might be related to the scarcity of available frugivorous birds. The hypothesis that the influx of temperate migrants into the montane vegetation of Mt. Kinabalu is affected by density and habits of resident frugivorous birds is supported. Montane vegetation in Borneo plays an important role as temporal refugia for temperate and altitudinal migrants by supplying fruit resources.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-57
Author(s):  
Sofia Varriano ◽  
Julie M. Mallon ◽  
Cody Folta ◽  
Hawa Coulibaly ◽  
Kevin J. Krajcir ◽  
...  

AbstractMigrating animals are known to play an important role in nutrient transfer over short distances; however, this phenomenon has not been well studied for long-distance migrants. In this preliminary study, we focused on nitrogen (N) transfer by 44 bird species that migrate from Eurasia to two regions in sub-Saharan Africa that fall into the lowest 10% quantile of global N-deposition (mean annual deposition ≤ 10.44 mg/m2/year). We estimated the number of birds that die during the non-breeding season in these areas and then used N content and species-specific mass values to calculate annual N-deposition rates. For these two areas of low N-deposition, we found that bird mortality contributed 0.2 – 1.1% of total nitrogen deposition, which is a relatively small proportion. Therefore, we conclude that nitrogen transfer by long-distance bird migrants using the East Atlantic Flyway and the West Asian-East African Flyway currently has limited impact on the sub-Saharan nitrogen cycle. However, it is worth noting that this impact may have been more important in the past due to larger bird populations and lower background N-deposition (i.e., less anthropogenic impact).


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