Site-Specific Variation in Bacterial Loads of Wooden Nest Boxes in the Pre-Breeding Period

Among environmental factors affecting life - history traits of birds breeding in nest boxes, an influence of microbial communities is relatively poorly understood. In this study, nest boxes used for breeding by great tit (Parus major) and blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) were sampled before the start of the breeding season to assess the bacterial loads of the nest box. Samples from the entrance hole and the interior of the nest box were taken at two different study sites: an urban parkland and a natural forest. Nest boxes were sampled to check if their bacterial loads differed between habitats. The second objective of this study was to check whether the occupancy of the nest boxes during the previous season would influence the bacterial load of the nest box. To verify this prediction, two categories of nest boxes were sampled at both study sites: nest boxes occupied by any of the two tit species in the previous season for breeding and nest boxes that had remained empty that year. The bacterial load of the nest box was significantly higher in the forest study area in both the occupied and unoccupied nest boxes. The nest boxes used for breeding in the previous season had significantly higher bacterial loads, but only in the forest area. Our results suggest that the bacterial load of the nest box can vary between habitats and may be positively related to the presence of the nests in the previous breeding season.

Breeding phenology of Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) and its reproduction biology with artificial nests in Northeastern Ukraine

The paper describes investigations on the reproduction biology (nesting, clutching, hatching, fledglings` departure) of the Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) in artificial nest boxes (AN) in Northeastern Ukraine. There were three sites of research: Hetman NNP, NPP “Gomilshansky Forests”, and RLP “Feldman Ecopark”. The research was performed during the nesting period from the first week of April to the first week of July in 2015‒2020. Annually, 5‒8 bird counts were conducted at each site. The first complete egg clutches at Hetman NNP were observed from 08.05 to 17.05 (2015‒2020) and at NPP “Gomilshansky Forests” from 02.05 to28.05 (2017‒2020). Dates of the first egg laying, at various conditions, had inter-annual variability because of unstable weather conditions in May. The average parameters of nests in AN at Hetman NNP were the following: diameter of nests (D) ‒ 124.1±6.3 mm; diameter of trays (d) ‒ 61.5±1.7 mm; nest height (H) ‒ 63.5±9.4 mm; depth of trays (h) ‒ 48.6±2.7 mm; nest mass (m) ‒ 43.7±3.8 mm. The size of complete clutches in Northeastern Ukraine was calculated when eggs were incubated. According to the average indicators, during 2015‒2020, the average size of the clutch was 6.9±0.3 (5‒8) eggs at Hetman NNP, 6.2±0.4 (6‒8) eggs at NPP “Gomilshansky Forests” and 8.5±0.5 (8‒9) eggs at RLP “Feldman Ecopark”. Incubation period of Ph. phoenicurus lasted on average for 15‒20 days.

Effectiveness of using nest boxes as a form of bird protection after building modernization

Modernization of urban buildings can decrease the availability of nesting sites in buildings, leading to sudden decreases in the density of avifauna. In this study, we investigated the use of nest boxes as a bird conservation measure after buildings were thermally modernized. In a 10 ha experimental area we mounted five types of nest boxes of different sizes and dimensions (a total of 132). Nest boxes were dedicated to species that lost access to their previous nesting sites. All species associated with the buildings significantly declined or disappeared. In the first year after the modernization, the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) decreased by 66% compared with the period before the modernization, Eurasian Jackdaw (Corvus monedula) by 68%, Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) by 70%, and Common Swift (Apus apus) by 100%. In the first two years after the modernization, the birds nested only in nest boxes. Five years of monitoring showed that using nest boxes as compensation for bird nesting sites lost during the renovation of buildings can cause a population to recover to ca. 50% of its original level. To optimize deployments of nest boxes, wildlife managers should consider target species’ preferences for the dimensions and placement of boxes and limit the time boxes are used if a species prefers nesting outside nest-boxes, but in buildings (e. g. the House Sparrow) and does not require additional support.

Assessing and Enriching the Cage Environment of Laboratory Rats

<p>Public concern with the caging conditions of animals kept in laboratories led to research assessing the standard conditions of rats housed in New Zealand laboratories. A total of 113 rats were used in experiments of four basic types. The experiments presented in the first and second chapters assessed the behaviours of rats housed in enriched, standard and deprived conditions. The assessment procedures used were the emergence box, open field and Hebb William's maze as well as the T-maze and a range of operant procedures. The behaviour of rats housed in standard conditions for the emergence box, open field and maze were intermediate between the enriched and deprived rats, but more closely resembled that of the deprived rats. However, the deprived rats displayed no general cognitive deficits on procedures other than the Hebb William's maze, causing the validity of the maze in this context to be questioned. A more specific cognitive deficit relating to attention at the time of encoding was indicated. The thesis then moved from looking for behavioural damage to examining what conditions rats would prefer, and extending these findings using behavioural economics. The rats showed significant preferences for only a small number of cage modifications. They clearly preferred nesting boxes and shredded paper, and showed some preference for a larger group size of rats. The demand experiments demonstrated that the rats worked hardest for access to moderately sized environments with a group size of six. Therefore, the recommendation arising from the current study is that rats should be provided with nest boxes and paper, and provision should be made in the future for using cages suitable for groups of around six. There were also implications for the range of procedures used during the course of this investigation. The open field data suffers from an unstandardised procedure that probably allows a range of confounding variables to come into effect, specifically changes in activity across time. The preference tests (T-maze and continuous access) gave broadly equivalent data although there were small systematic differences in the results between the two tests which suggest they should be used together in order to cancel out these biases. The demand procedure is the pre-eminent option from a theoretical point of view but the detail of the procedure is in need of some development. The best way to achieve this progress would be through more extensive applied use of behavioural economics.</p>

Assessing and Enriching the Cage Environment of Laboratory Rats

<p>Public concern with the caging conditions of animals kept in laboratories led to research assessing the standard conditions of rats housed in New Zealand laboratories. A total of 113 rats were used in experiments of four basic types. The experiments presented in the first and second chapters assessed the behaviours of rats housed in enriched, standard and deprived conditions. The assessment procedures used were the emergence box, open field and Hebb William's maze as well as the T-maze and a range of operant procedures. The behaviour of rats housed in standard conditions for the emergence box, open field and maze were intermediate between the enriched and deprived rats, but more closely resembled that of the deprived rats. However, the deprived rats displayed no general cognitive deficits on procedures other than the Hebb William's maze, causing the validity of the maze in this context to be questioned. A more specific cognitive deficit relating to attention at the time of encoding was indicated. The thesis then moved from looking for behavioural damage to examining what conditions rats would prefer, and extending these findings using behavioural economics. The rats showed significant preferences for only a small number of cage modifications. They clearly preferred nesting boxes and shredded paper, and showed some preference for a larger group size of rats. The demand experiments demonstrated that the rats worked hardest for access to moderately sized environments with a group size of six. Therefore, the recommendation arising from the current study is that rats should be provided with nest boxes and paper, and provision should be made in the future for using cages suitable for groups of around six. There were also implications for the range of procedures used during the course of this investigation. The open field data suffers from an unstandardised procedure that probably allows a range of confounding variables to come into effect, specifically changes in activity across time. The preference tests (T-maze and continuous access) gave broadly equivalent data although there were small systematic differences in the results between the two tests which suggest they should be used together in order to cancel out these biases. The demand procedure is the pre-eminent option from a theoretical point of view but the detail of the procedure is in need of some development. The best way to achieve this progress would be through more extensive applied use of behavioural economics.</p>

Environmental values of California winegrape growers and the use of barn owl nest boxes as a tool for integrated pest management

Synthetic pesticides from agriculture pose threats to biodiversity, and the adoption of alternative pest management is vital to meet rising crop demands while protecting native species. For example, the use of nest boxes for barn owls (Tyto furcata and T. alba) may help control rodent pests and reduce the use of rodenticides. However, the environmental perceptions of farmers and how receptive they are to alternative pest management practices remains uncertain. Traditionally, agricultural policies and programs have focused largely on the economic self-interest of farmers, but these narrow approaches have proven insufficient to describe and predict conservation behaviors, and the study of environmental value orientations (EVOs) may better explain farmers’ adoption of novel wildlife-friendly practices. The study of EVOs can help identify people as “mutualists”, meaning those who value the environment for its own sake, and “utilitarians,” meaning those who value the environment for the services it can provide. We surveyed 71 California winegrape growers in order to better understand how their underlying environmental values relate to the use of barn owl boxes and other sustainable practices. Overall, most winegrape growers had mutualist value orientations (64%). However, there was a disconnect between the use of barn owl boxes and EVOs, with most respondents (80%) reporting the use of owl boxes regardless of underlying values. This opens the door for future research to examine whether this is true of other wildlife-friendly farming practices.

Nest decoration: birds exploit a fear of feathers to guard their nest from usurpation

Many species of birds incorporate feathers into their nest as structural support and to insulate the eggs or offspring. Here, we investigated the novel idea that birds reduce the risk of nest usurpation by decorating it with feathers to trigger a fear response in their rivals. We let prospecting birds choose between a dyad of nest-boxes in the wild, both containing some nest materials, but where one had a few white feathers and the other had none. All three species of cavity-nesting birds studied, the pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca , the blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus , and the tree swallow Tachycineta bicolor , hesitated to enter boxes with white feathers. A similar avoidance of white feathers was found when the alternative nest-box of a dyad held black feathers. However, the birds readily collected white feathers that we placed in front of their nest-box, showing the fear of such feathers was context-dependent. We suggest that naive prospecting birds may perceive feathers in nests as the result of a predation event, and that owners decorate nests with bright feathers that can be seen from the opening to deter others from entering.

Color of Artificial Light at Night Affects Incubation Behavior in the Great Tit, Parus major

Artificial light at night (ALAN) has been recognized as a biodiversity threat due to the drastic effects it can have on many organisms. In wild birds, artificial illumination alters many natural behaviors that are important for fitness, including chick provisioning. Although incubation is a key determinant of the early developmental environment, studies into the effects of ALAN on bird incubation behavior are lacking. We measured nest temperature in nest boxes of great tits during the incubation period in two consecutive years. Nest boxes were located in eight previously dark field sites that have been experimentally illuminated since 2012 with white, green, or red light, or were left dark. We tested if light treatment affected mean nest temperature, number of times birds leave the nest (off-bout frequency), and off-bout duration during the incubation period. Subsequently, we investigated if incubation behavior is related to fitness. We found that birds incubating in the white light during a cold, early spring had lower mean nest temperatures at the end of incubation, both during the day and during the night, compared to birds in the green light. Moreover, birds incubating in white light took fewer off-bouts, but off-bouts were on average longer. The opposite was true for birds breeding in the green light. Low incubation temperatures and few but long off-bouts can have severe consequences for developing embryos. In our study, eggs from birds that took on average few off-bouts needed more incubation days to hatch compared to eggs from birds that took many off-bouts. Nevertheless, we found no clear fitness effects of light treatment or incubation behavior on the number of hatchlings or hatchling weight. Our results add to the growing body of literature that shows that effects of ALAN can be subtle, can differ due to the spectral composition of light, and can be year-dependent. These subtle alterations of natural behaviors might not have severe fitness consequences in the short-term. However, in the long term they could add up, negatively affecting parent condition and survival as well as offspring recruitment, especially in urban environments where more environmental pollutants are present.