Habitat detection, habitat choice copying or mating benefits: What drives conspecific attraction in a nomadic songbird?

Lüpold, Shannon; Grendelmeier, Alex; Pasinelli, Gilberto

doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13844

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 87 publications

(136 reference statements)

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“…Conspecific attraction is another plausible cause, not considered by the other studies, underlying the negative association between conspecific density and niche breadth. For instance, individuals could be attracted to sites with other individuals if they use the presence of others as cues of good environmental conditions (Buxton et al, 2020), to reduce predation risk (Teunissen et al, 2021), or to increase the opportunities of mating (Luepold et al, 2023). This sort of facilitation could result in individuals occupying more similar sites that contract the ecological niche.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased density of conspecifics caused niche contraction in a multispecific passerine assemblage

Barrero,

Traba,

Tarjuelo

2024

Ecology

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Competition is a prominent mechanism driving population dynamics and structuring community assemblage, which can be investigated by linking shifts in species’ ecological niche and the densities of sympatric species because the ecological release from competitive constraints is a density‐dependent process. In this work we determine how a steppe passerine community segregates their ecological niches and evaluate the role of competition in inducing changes in the ecological niche of species. We built multidimensional ecological niches (with Gaussian kernel density estimators) using data on the habitat features used by 10 bird species collected from seven sites in the natural steppes of Central Spain over 2 consecutive years. We computed distance and niche similarity metrics to explore the ecological niche partitioning of the bird community. Next, we ran multivariate linear regression models to evaluate the effects of conspecific and heterospecific density (as proxies of intraspecific and interspecific competition, respectively) on niche breadth and/or position of the three most abundant species. We found low niche overlap in the community assemblage but varying levels of niche similarity among pairs of species, which could increase the likelihood of current competition operating in the community. However, we found no effect of heterospecific density on niche breadth or position, although conspecific density was negatively related to niche breadth. Contrary to predictions of competition theory, increased density of conspecifics caused niche contraction. Our results from a multispecies system contribute to advanced knowledge of the biotic mechanisms structuring wildlife communities within the framework of ecological niche theory.

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