Evolution of parental activity at the nest is shaped by the risk of nest predation and ambient temperature across bird species

Abstract

Incubation is an important component of parental care in birds, and species differ widely in their incubation rhythm. In this comparative study, we focused on factors responsible for those differences. As hypothesized by A. Skutch, increased parental activity at the nest increases the probability of nest depredation. High risk of nest predation should therefore lead to the evolution of lower frequency of parental activity at the nest. We thus expected to find a negative relationship between frequency of nest visits and the risk of nest depredation. Using a large dataset of 256 species of passerines breeding worldwide, we found that the frequency of nest visits decreased as the risk of nest depredation increased and that this effect was strongest in tropical species. Further, foraging bouts were longer in species experiencing warmer ambient temperatures during incubation and those with domed nests. Incubation bouts were longer and frequency of nest visits was lower in species with higher body mass. Our results support the view that natural selection favors lower frequency of nests visits in species under higher risk of nest predation and demonstrate the importance of other factors (temperature, geographic space, nest type, and body mass) in shaping the evolution of incubation rhythm.

Conspicuousness of passerine females is associated with the nest-building behaviour of males

“…These explanations have to be related to costs of nest building and female conspicuousness, and to benefits associated with the loss of one of the characters, depending on the state of the other. Nest building is a costly activity in terms of energy, predation and parasitism (Lee & Lima, 2016;Mainwaring & Hartley, 2013;Rendell & Verbeek, 1996), and conspicuous plumage is costly in terms of, for instance, predation (Matysioková & Remeš, 2018;Soler & Moreno, 2012). For species with conspicuous females and males that participate in nest building, the loss of nest building activity by males would result in conspicuous females compensating such activity (additional energetic costs), but also in the loss of reliable information on the willingness of males to invest in reproduction (Schaedelin & Taborsky, 2009;Soler et al, 1998).…”

Adaptation and constraint shape the evolution of growth patterns in passerine birds across the globe

“…Moreover, phylogenetic uncertainty could also affect parameter estimates. We dealt with both these problems by fitting a subset of our models also on population-level data across several phylogenies using phylogenetic mixed models implemented in the MCMCglmm package [61] as in our previous work [37]. However, results were similar to those obtained using species-level PGLS and we thus report only PGLS results and provide all data needed to replicate our analyses or use other fitting methods.…”

“…This interaction was, however, never statistically significant and thus we omitted it from all models. Third, tropical, southern temperate, and northern temperate birds (delimited by 23.5°N and 23.5°S) often differ in their life histories and behavior [8,36,37]. We thus also fitted latitudinal band (northern temperate, tropical, southern temperate) as a predictor in our models that excluded absolute latitude.…”

“…They also have lower peak growth rates of body mass [15,23,35] but better developed wings at fledging [16] which brings the benefit of better flight performance and post-fledging survival [19,21]. Moreover, tropical species often differ from species living in higher latitudes in various life-history and behavioral characteristics; for example, they have higher adult survival, longer post-fledging care, or their activity around the nest is more sensitive to depredation risk [8,36,37]. Nevertheless, a study of growth patterns including growth of both mass and all locomotor traits across latitudes has never been conducted.…”

Markers for Global Climate Change and Its Impact on Social, Biological and Ecological Systems: A Review

“…Temperature fluctuation in breeding season effect nest microclimate and disturb post hatching development and parental care in birds (Mueller et al, 2019). Therefore, physiological temperature is essentially required for egg incubation during embryonic development and post hatching periods in birds (Matysioková & Remeš, 2018). If mother birds do not find suitable incubation condition they are forced to either shift baby birds to safe locations but it increases the risk of predation (DuRant et al, 2013).…”