1. Currently, the deployment of tracking devices is one of the most frequently used approaches to study movement ecology of birds. Recent miniaturization of lightlevel geolocators enabled studying small bird species whose migratory patterns were widely unknown. However, geolocators may reduce vital rates in tagged birds and may bias obtained movement data.2. There is a need for a thorough assessment of the potential tag effects on small birds, as previous meta-analyses did not evaluate unpublished data and impact of multiple life-history traits, focused mainly on large species and the number of published studies tagging small birds has increased substantially.
Summary1. The capture of birds using mist nets is a widely utilized technique for monitoring avian populations. While the method is assumed to be safe, very few studies have addressed how frequently injuries and mortalities occur and the associated risks have not been formally evaluated. 2. We quantified the rates of mortality and injury at 22 banding organizations in the United States and Canada and used capture data from five organizations to determine what kinds of incidents occur most frequently. Analyses focused on passerines and near-passerines, but other groups were included. We evaluated whether body mass, age, sex, mist net mesh size, month and time of day or frequency of capture are related to the risk or type of incident. We also compared the recapture histories over time between birds that were injured and those that were never injured for 16 species. 3. The average rate of injury was 0AE59%, while mortality was 0AE23%. Birds captured frequently were less at risk to incident. Body mass was positively correlated with incident and larger birds were at greater risk to predation, leg injuries, broken legs, internal bleeding and cuts, while smaller birds were more prone to stress, tangling-related injuries and wing strain. Rates of incident varied among species, with some at greater risk than others. We found no evidence for increased mortality over time of injured birds compared with uninjured birds. 4. We provide the first comprehensive evaluation of the risks associated with mist netting. Our results indicate that (1) injury and mortality rates below one percent can be achieved during mist netting and (2) injured birds are likely to survive in comparable numbers to uninjured birds after release. While overall risks are low, this study identified vulnerable species and traits that may increase a bird's susceptibility to incident that should be considered in banding protocols aimed at minimizing injury and mortality. Projects using mist nets should monitor their performance and compare their results to those of other organizations.
The migratory biology and connectivity of passerines remains poorly known, even for those that move primarily within the temperate zone. We used light-level geolocators to describe the migratory geography of a North American temperate migrant passerine. From February to March of 2010, we attached geolocator tags to 33 Golden-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia atricapilla) wintering on the central coast of California, USA, and recovered four tags the following winter (October to December 2010). We used a Bayesian state-space model to estimate the most likely breeding locations. All four birds spent the breeding season on the coast of the Gulf of Alaska. These locations spanned approximately 1200 kilometers, and none of the individuals bred in the same location. Speed of migration was nearly twice as fast during spring than fall. The return rate of birds tagged the previous season (33%) was similar to that of control birds (39%), but comparing return rates was complicated because 7 of 11 returning birds had lost their tags. For birds that we recaptured before spring migration, we found no significant difference in mass change between tagged and control birds. Our results provide insight into the previously-unknown breeding provenance of a wintering population of Golden-crowned Sparrows and provide more evidence of the contributions that light-level geolocation can make to our understanding of the migratory geography of small passerines.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.