Habitat Selection and Nesting Biology of Roof-Nesting Glaucous-Winged Gulls

Vermeer, Kees; Power, Damian; Smith, G. E. J.

doi:10.2307/1521000

Cited by 34 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Roof-top nesting now extends over a wide area of Europe, from northern Norway south to Portugal, and eastwards to Italy, Croatia (W. Klinger, personal communication) and Bulgaria. Gulls nesting on buildings are a common sight in coastal and, more recently, inland areas of Europe (Vincent 1987) and North America (Vermeer et al 1988).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roof nesting by gulls for better or worse?

Soldatini

Albores‐Barajas

Mainardi

et al. 2008

Italian Journal of Zoology

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Since the early 1970s in Italy, the yellow-legged gull Larus michahellis has been colonizing new kinds of nesting areas, in particular moorland and the rooftops of inhabited buildings. The incidence of rooftop colonies is now such that the yellowlegged gull has come in many urban areas to be regarded as a pest. Yet its colony structure and breeding biology in the urban situation in Italy have remained largely undocumented. This paper reports observations of yellow-legged gulls breeding in the town of Venice and in the surrounding lagoon during the 2003-2005 breeding seasons. The aim of this study was to examine the performance of birds breeding in natural and urban areas and to investigate the links between the natural and the newly established urban colony. For this, we analysed and compared factors indicative of breeder quality. Breeding performance was not substantially different in the two colonies. This suggests that gulls are successfully exploiting a new habitat, adapting to new resources, as other opportunistic species do.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roof nesting by gulls for better or worse?

Soldatini

Albores‐Barajas

Mainardi

et al. 2008

Italian Journal of Zoology

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“…For example, at Tolay Slough, the re-occurring presence of redtailed hawks, a nontraditional marsh predator (Johnston, 1956;Page & Whitacre, 1975), was likely a result of the adjacent agricultural fields and nearby power line poles that can serve as roosts (Knight & Kawashima, 1993). The large number of scavengers such as gulls observed at Arrowhead marsh are attributable to nearby urban development (e.g., parking lots, dumps, housing; Vermeer, Power, & Smith, 1988), scavengers have been shown to opportunistically forage on the eggs and nestlings of protected species (e.g., Ridgeways rail; USFWS, 2013); however, none were observed foraging in the marsh during our study. The overall high diversity of raptors observed at China Camp may be related to the adjacent oak woodland habitats (Takekawa et al, 2011).…”

Section: Community Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Flooding regimes increase avian predation on wildlife prey in tidal marsh ecosystems

Thorne

Spragens

Buffington

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Within isolated and fragmented populations, species interactions such as predation can cause shifts in community structure and demographics in tidal marsh ecosystems. It is critical to incorporate species interactions into our understanding when evaluating the effects of sea‐level rise and storm surges on tidal marshes. In this study, we hypothesize that avian predators will increase their presence and hunting activities during high tides when increased inundation makes their prey more vulnerable. We present evidence that there is a relationship between tidal inundation depth and time of day on the presence, abundance, and behavior of avian predators. We introduce predation pressure as a combined probability of predator presence related to water level. Focal surveys were conducted at four tidal marshes in the San Francisco Bay, California where tidal inundation patterns were monitored across 6 months of the winter. Sixteen avian predator species were observed. During high tide at Tolay Slough marsh, ardeids had a 29‐fold increase in capture attempts and 4 times greater apparent success rate compared with low tide. Significantly fewer raptors and ardeids were found on low tides than on high tides across all sites. There were more raptors in December and January and more ardeids in January than in other months. Ardeids were more prevalent in the morning, while raptors did not exhibit a significant response to time of day. Modeling results showed that raptors had a unimodal response to water level with a peak at 0.5 m over the marsh platform, while ardeids had an increasing response with water level. We found that predation pressure is related to flooding of the marsh surface, and short‐term increases in sea levels from high astronomical tides, sea‐level rise, and storm surges increase vulnerability of tidal marsh wildlife.

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“…Some even nest on roofs (Vermeer et al 1988). They nest on the mainland, in marshes, or on coastal or oceanic islands.…”

Section: Colony and Nesting Habitats Usedmentioning

confidence: 99%