Behavioural responses of breeding arctic sandpipers to ground-surface temperature and primary productivity

Abstract

Most birds incubate their eggs, which requires time and energy at the expense of other activities. Birds generally have two incubation strategies: biparental where both mates cooperate in incubating eggs, and uniparental where a single parent incubates. In harsh and unpredictable environments, incubation is challenging due to high energetic demands and variable resource availability. We studied the relationships between the incubation behaviour of sandpipers (genus Calidris) and two environmental variables: temperature and a proxy of primary productivity (i.e. NDVI). We investigated how these relationships vary between incubation strategies and across species among strategies. We also studied how the relationship between current temperature and incubation behaviour varies with previous day's temperature. We monitored the incubation behaviour of nine sandpiper species using thermologgers at 15 arctic sites between 2016 and 2019. We also used thermologgers to record the ground surface temperature at conspecificnestsites and extracted NDVI values from a remote sensing product. We found no relationship between either environmental variables and biparental incubation behaviour. Conversely , as ground-surface temperature increased, uniparental species decreased total duration of recesses (TDR) and mean duration of recesses (MDR), but increased number of recesses (NR). Moreover, small species showed stronger relationships with ground-surface temperature than large species. When all uniparental species were combined, an increase in NDVI was correlated with higher mean duration, total duration and number of recesses , but relationships varied widely across species. Finally, some uniparental species showed a lag effect with a higher nest attentiveness after a warm day while more recesses occurred after a cold day than was predicted based on current temperatures. We demonstrate the complex interplay between shorebird incubation strategies, incubation behaviour, and environmental conditions. Understanding how species respond to changes in their environment during incubation helps predict their future reproductive success.

Measuring habitat quality for waterbirds: A review

“…The effect of environmental variability on patterns in nest attendance can be dependent on reproductive strategy (biparental care vs. uniparental care) (Meyer et al, 2021 )…”

“…• Breeding site fidelity may not be a useful indicator at the individual level due to stochastic events (requires population-level data) (Blums et al, 2002) • Breeding site fidelity is likely to be a poor indicator of habitat quality in species with high breeding success due to insufficient variation across the population (Blums et al, 2002) • No effect of nesting success in one year and the distance to the nest site the following year (Lecomte et al, 2008) • (Hunt et al, 2017) • Females in good body condition were less likely to abandon their brood (Bustnes et al, 2002) • Incubation stints were shorter at sites where human disturbance levels were high (Cheng et al, 2018) • Contrary to theory, parental investment may increase in favorable conditions because density-dependent effects require parents to protect the brood from conspecifics for longer (Kosztolányi et al, 2006) • Contrary to theory, females invested less in brood defense when conditions were good, likely because females gain greater survival benefit from the good conditions than their offspring and hence behave to maximize future reproduction (Gunness et al, 2001) • The influence of nest attendance patterns on reproductive output can vary dependent on the spatial configuration of the habitat and the way that that influences foraging time (Thibault et al, 2010) • The effect of environmental variability on patterns in nest attendance can be dependent on reproductive strategy (biparental care vs. uniparental care) (Meyer et al, 2021) Note: A '-' symbol in the supporting evidence and contradictory evidence columns indicates that no data for these cells were found in the reviewed papers. The spatial (site, region, and flyway) and temporal (instantaneous, within-season, annual) scales that data collection pertains to are also given.…”

Disentangling the diet composition of chicks of Arctic shorebirds provides a new perspective on trophic mismatches

“…Chicks growing up after the overall biomass peak generally experience reduced growth rates (Lameris et al 2022) and survival chances (Meyer et al 2021), yet other studies do not find fitness reductions for late-hatching chicks (Corkery, Nol, and Mckinnon 2019;Reneerkens et al . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license available under a (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.…”

“…Growth and survival of chicks are considered to depend on the biomass of all available arthropod species. Chicks growing up after the overall biomass peak generally experience reduced growth rates (Lameris et al 2022) and survival chances (Meyer et al 2021), yet other studies do not find fitness reductions for late-hatching chicks (Corkery, Nol, and Mckinnon 2019; Reneerkens et al 2016). Before we can conclude that not all populations are equally sensitive to mismatches, it is essential to know which part of the total arthropod biomass is relevant to a certain bird species, as chicks of different shorebird species may not all rely on the same type of prey (Baker 1977; Gerik 2018; Holmes and Pitelka 1968).…”

Extended incubation recesses in sanderlings are impacted by temperature and body condition

“…Unlike species with biparental incubation, uniparental incubators cannot benefit from shared nest duties [ 9 ] and must leave their nests more frequently, a behaviour known as a recess [ 10 , 11 ]. Their nests are hence more exposed to predators and cooling [ 10 , 12 – 14 ].…”