Age-Specific Survival and Philopatry in Three Species of European Ducks: A Long-Term Study

Blums, Peter; Mednis, Aivars; Bauga, Ilmars; Nichols, James D.; Hines, James E.

doi:10.2307/1369509

Cited by 59 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…A large fraction of the recoveries came from hunting on Engure Marsh following the breeding season. More detailed information on the study site, field methods, and breeding populations is provided elsewhere (Blums et al 1996, Viksne 2000. Previous analyses provided evidence of differences in annual survival between SY and ASY pochard females.…”

Section: Study Area and Field Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It would have been possible to write the above linear-logistic relationships with year-specific intercepts, permitting year-to-year variation in survival. However, our previous work (Blums et al 1996(Blums et al , 2002b led to the inference that full time-specific variation in survival was not needed to model these data. The model sets for each species included models with survival being a function of each covariate separately and with both linear and quadratic terms.…”

Section: Data-analytic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Individual quality, survival variation and patterns of phenotypic selection on body condition and timing of nesting in birds

Blums

Nichols²,

Hines³

et al. 2005

Oecologia

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118

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Questions about individual variation in "quality" and fitness are of great interest to evolutionary and population ecologists. Such variation can be investigated using either a random effects approach or an approach that relies on identifying observable traits that are themselves correlated with fitness components. We used the latter approach with data from 1,925 individual females of three species of ducks (tufted duck, Aythya fuligula; common pochard, Aythya ferina; northern shoveler, Anas clypeata) sampled on their breeding grounds at Engure Marsh, Latvia, for over 15 years. Based on associations with reproductive output, we selected two traits, one morphological (relative body condition) and one behavioral (relative time of nesting), that can be used to characterize individual females over their lifetimes. We then asked whether these traits were related to annual survival probabilities of nesting females. We hypothesized quadratic, rather than monotonic, relationships based loosely on ideas about the likely action of stabilizing selection on these two traits. Parameters of these relationships were estimated directly using ultrastructural models embedded within capture-recapture-band-recovery models. Results provided evidence that both traits were related to survival in the hypothesized manner. For all three species, females that tended to nest earlier than the norm exhibited the highest survival rates, but very early nesters experienced reduced survival and late nesters showed even lower survival. For shovelers, females in average body condition showed the highest survival, with lower survival rates exhibited by both heavy and light birds. For common pochard and tufted duck, the highest survival rates were associated with birds of slightly above-average condition, with somewhat lower survival for very heavy birds and much lower survival for birds in relatively poor condition. Based on results from this study and previous work on reproduction, we conclude that nest initiation date and body condition covary with both reproductive and survival components of fitness. These associations lead to a positive covariance of these two fitness components within individuals and to the conclusion that these two traits are indeed correlates of individual quality.

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Section: Study Area and Field Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data-analytic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual quality, survival variation and patterns of phenotypic selection on body condition and timing of nesting in birds

Blums

Nichols²,

Hines³

et al. 2005

Oecologia

Self Cite

118

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show abstract

“…Newly hatched ducklings were marked individually using plasticine-filled leg bands (Blums et al1994) shortly before nest exodus. More detailed information on the study site, field methods, and breeding populations is provided elsewhere (Blums et al 1996;Blums et al 2003;Viksne 2000). …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we use path analysis to test hypotheses about causes of variation in LRS of individually marked females and their offspring in three species of European ducks (tufted duck, Aythya fuligula; common pochard, Aythya ferina, hereafter pochard; northern shoveler, Anas clypeata, hereafter shoveler) with varying body size, age at first breeding, timing of nesting, annual survival and incidence of brood parasitism (Blums et al 1996(Blums et al , 1997(Blums et al , 2002aDugger and Blums 2001). Because of our ability to band large numbers of day-old ducklings (Blums et al 1994), we were able to take advantage of band returns from hunter-shot birds to obtain more complete estimates of LRS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlates of lifetime reproductive success in three species of European ducks

Blums

Clark²

2004

Oecologia

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Number of breeding attempts is a strong correlate of lifetime reproductive success (LRS) in birds, but the relative importance of potentially interacting factors affecting LRS has rarely been fully evaluated. We considered simultaneously five main factors hypothesized to influence LRS (age at first breeding, nesting date, number of breeding attempts, female traits, brood parasitism) by analyzing with path analysis 22-year data sets for 1,279 individually marked females and their offspring in tufted duck ( Aythya fuligula), common pochard ( A. ferina) and northern shoveler (Anas clypeata). We recaptured marked offspring as breeding adults (n=496 females) and obtained more complete estimates of LRS by incorporating information about banded ducklings of both sexes shot by hunters > or =12 months after banding (n=138). In tufted ducks and especially pochard (both diving duck species), late-hatched females tended to delay nesting until 2-years old. Most females (tufted duck, 74%; pochard, 71%; shoveler, 59%) apparently produced no breeding-age offspring. Number of breeding attempts (i.e., longevity) was the strongest correlate of LRS in all species, after controlling effects of age at first breeding, relative nest initiation date, wing length and body mass. Percentage of females producing recruits increased gradually with number of breeding attempts for all three species. Also, as expected, females nesting early in the breeding season had higher LRS than late-nesting individuals. In shoveler, female-specific characteristics of relatively longer wings and heavier late incubation body mass had positive effects on LRS, the latter feature being more common in 2-year-old nesters. In diving ducks, no relationships were detected between LRS and female-specific traits like wing length or body mass, and nor did acceptance of parasitic eggs have any deleterious impact on fitness estimates. Overall, number of fledged ducklings and LRS were related in tufted duck, weakly associated in pochard and unrelated in shoveler, implying that fledging success is not always a reliable measure of LRS.

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“…Vital rates have been studied in European ducks, too. For example, age-specific survival in females of the northern shoveler A. clypeata, the common pochard Aythya ferina and the tufted duck Aythya fuligula were investigated in Latvia (Blums et al 1996), and ageand sex-specific survival in Eurasian teal Anas crecca was studied in Britain (Gitay et al 1990). Survival rates in European mallards have been reported in national bird ringing recovery atlases (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Survival Estimates, Mortality Patterns, and Population Growth of Fennoscandian MallardsAnas platyrhynchos

Gunnarsson

Elmberg

Dessborn

et al. 2008

Annales Zoologici Fennici

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Long-term mallard capture-recapture data from Sweden and Finland were analyzed to describe temporal mortality patterns and reasons. We used program MARK and Seber models to estimate annual survival (S ) and recovery (r) rates. Survival rates were used in a Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the correspondence between observed and predicted annual population sizes of a Finnish sub-population. About 90% of recovered birds died from hunting. Most recoveries were from the hunting season, and more males than females were shot. Predation was the most common cause of natural mortality. Finnish capture-recapture data fitted best the global model in which survival and recovery vary with age and sex. Annual survival and recovery rates for adult and juvenile males and females were overlapping, ranging from 0.46 to 0.90 (survival) and 0.07 to 0.17 (recovery), whereas pulli had lower survival rates (0.21-0.42). Pulli that were successfully sexed at the time of ringing had higher recovery rates (female pulli: 0.23; male pulli: 0.32) than juveniles and adults. Density-dependent fledgling production was detected in the Finnish sub-population and was accounted for in the Monte Carlo simulation, which estimated predicted breeding population size quite well, although one of the observed annual values (2003) fell outside the 95% confidence limits.

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Age-Specific Survival and Philopatry in Three Species of European Ducks: A Long-Term Study

Cited by 59 publications

References 27 publications

Individual quality, survival variation and patterns of phenotypic selection on body condition and timing of nesting in birds

Individual quality, survival variation and patterns of phenotypic selection on body condition and timing of nesting in birds

Correlates of lifetime reproductive success in three species of European ducks

Survival Estimates, Mortality Patterns, and Population Growth of Fennoscandian MallardsAnas platyrhynchos

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