An analysis of nesting mortality in birds

Abstract

Ricklefs, Robert E. An Analysis of Nesting Mortality in Birds. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 9:1-48. 1969.-This study was initiated to evaluate nesting mortality of birds as a feature of the environment and as a selective force in the evolution of reproductive strategies. Representative nesting-success data from the literature for most groups of birds were transformed into daily mortality rates to eliminate differences among species in the length of the nest cycle. These data are presented by taxonomic groupings and for passerines by geographical region and nest construction and placement. The strength and pattern of various mortality factors are described in detail. Predation, starvation, desertion, hatching failure, and adverse weather are the most prevalent factors, but nestsite competition, brood parasitism, and arthropod infestation may be important in some species. It is demonstrated that the various mortality factors can be identified by characteristic patterns of nesting losses involving differences in mortality rates between the egg and nestling periods and the within-nest component of mortality rates. Among Temperate Zone passerines, field-nesting and marsh-nesting species have the highest mortality rates while those species nesting in trees, especially in cavities, enjoy higher success. Starvation is prevalent in marsh and field species but desertion is more restricted to tree-nesting species. In general, arctic species have lower mortality rates and tropical species higher rates, although there is a similar gradient from arid to humid regions within the tropics. The relative abundance of a species is related directly to its mortality rate in arctic regions, but is not in temperate and tropical regions. Birds of prey generally have low mortality rates although starvation is often a major factor. Nesting losses in seabirds are caused primarily by crowded conditions in colonies and loss of eggs due to inadequate nest construction. Chick deaths come about primarily through their wandering away from parental care which is most common in the semiprecocial Charadriiformes. Precocial shorebirds and water birds enjoy higher egg success than ground-nesting passerines but game birds exhibit similar mortality rates. Little is known of the survival of precocial chicks after hatching except that mortality rates may be initially quite high and decrease with age. The fate of altricial birds after fledging is also poorly documented. It is postulated that interspecific differences in mortality rates are determined by evolutionarily acceptable levels of adult risk to lower mortality rates of offspring through parental care, adult adaptations of morphology and behavior for foraging which result in limitations on nesting adaptations, environmental unpredictability which reduces the effectiveness of adaptations, and-most import-the diversity of predators to which a species must adapt. Official publication date is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, S...

Nest Predation and Nest Defence in European and North American Woodpeckers: A Review

“…Nest predation is a key component of offspring mortality in birds (Lack 1954, Nice 1957, Ricklefs 1969, Payevski 1985, and parents use diverse techniques to avoid it, ranging from changes in habitat distribution to direct behavioral interactions with predators (Thiollay 1988, Newton 1998, Caro 2005, Lima 2009). Breeding in tree cavities is one such frequently used solution, adopted by numerous taxa of forest birds on all continents (Newton 1998, Cockle et al 2011).…”

Striped-tailed Yellow-finch nesting success in abandoned mining pits from central Brazilian cerrado

“…Predation was the major cause of nests failure in our study, responsible for 89% of nest losses. This pattern is found in most studies worldwide and across many habitat types and different taxonomic bird groups (Ricklefs, 1969;Martin, 1993b;Howlett and Stutchbury, 1996). The lack of support of the model in the first step that considered the effect of observers' visits to the nests provided evidence for little observer bias in estimating nest survival rates in our study.…”

“…Nest predation is often the major cause of nesting failure in birds (Ricklefs, 1969;Martin, 1995). Many factors are traditionally invocated to explain patterns of nest predation in birds worldwide, such as nest physical characteristics (Møller, 1987), nest site and surrounding habitat features (Martin and Roper, 1988;Martin 1993a), nest height above ground (Møller, 1987;Martin, 1993b), and numerical predator's responses (Patnode and White, 1992;Sloan et al, 1998).…”

Nidificação colonial de Butorides striata (Linnaeus, 1758) (Ciconiiformes: Ardeidae) em área alagável no município de Porto Esperidião, Mato Grosso

“…Pelo Protocolo de Mayfield (1961Mayfield ( , 1975 (Tabela 3) o sucesso resultou em 16,43%. Estes resultados corroboram os estudos de Ricklefs (1969), o qual afirma que o sucesso reprodutivo das aves de regiões tropicais é inferior a 30%, diferindo das aves de regiões temperadas onde o sucesso reprodutivo varia de 50% a 80%. Outras espécies de Ardeidae apresentaram maiores valores de sucesso reprodutivo, por exemplo, o sucesso reprodutivo de Nyctanassa violacea foi de 76,9% (n = 17) (Cupul-Magaña, 2003).…”