Habitat use and tree selection of a declining Afro-Palaearctic migrant at sub-Saharan staging and wintering sites

Mallord, John W.; Orsman, Christopher J.; Roberts, Japheth T.; Skeen, Roger Q.; Sheehan, Danaë K.; Vickery, Juliet A.

doi:10.1080/00063657.2016.1214813

Cited by 16 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…That home range overlap during winter was considerable in all three species indicates a general lack of territoriality, in line with observations from the wintering area (Mallord et al, 2016;Sorensen, 2014;. In contrast, home range sizes were similar or larger.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Such a pattern was demonstrated in common cuckoos that had smaller home ranges in areas with dense forest cover, presumably directly related to habitat suitability (Williams et al, 2016). However, it does not seem to be the case in willow warblers and wood warblers which at the wintering ground are found to prefer trees taller than average (Mallord et al, 2016;Willemoes et al, 2017) and the tree cover we find is in line with the tree cover reported from a ground-based survey (Mallord et al, 2016). However, it does not seem to be the case in willow warblers and wood warblers which at the wintering ground are found to prefer trees taller than average (Mallord et al, 2016;Willemoes et al, 2017) and the tree cover we find is in line with the tree cover reported from a ground-based survey (Mallord et al, 2016).…”

Section: Contrary To Expectations Individuals Wintering In More Openmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…They are all insectivorous foliage gleaners and feed on similar prey during the breeding season (Tiainen, 1982). Their breeding ranges overlap in Europe (Hagemeijer & Blair, 1997) but they separate into different climate zones in Africa during the wintering season (Urban, Fry, & Keith, 2002) where Phylloscopus species are sometimes observed in inter-as well as intraspecific flocks (Mallord et al, 2016;Salewski, Bairlein, & Leisler, 2002;Sorensen, 2014). Because of their similarity, F I G U R E 1 Breeding (darker colors and line texture) and wintering (paler color and dotted texture) distributions of chiffchaff (blue, insert below typical individual and winter study site habitat), willow warbler (red, middle), and wood warbler (green, right).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Spatial behavior and habitat use in widely separated breeding and wintering distributions across three species of long‐distance migrant Phylloscopus warblers

Lerche‐Jørgensen

Mallord

Willemoes

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aim To investigate the ecological relationship between breeding and wintering in specialist and generalist long‐distance migratory species, and the links between densities and range sizes. Location Denmark, Senegal and Ghana. Methods We use radio tracking to study spatial behavior and habitat use in three morphologically and ecologically similar and closely related Phylloscopus species on their widely separated breeding and wintering distributions. During wintering and breeding, willow warblers P. trochilus (winter: n = 9, breeding: n = 13), chiffchaffs P. collybita (n = 11, n = 7), and wood warblers P. sibilatrix (n = 17, n = 14) were tracked. Results Willow warblers P. trochilus increased home range sizes in winter, whereas it was similar in chiffchaffs P. collybita and wood warblers P. sibilatrix, in both seasons. Home ranges overlapped more in winter than in the breeding season. In winter, home range overlap was similar among species but larger overlap during breeding was indicated for willow warblers. Tree cover was unrelated to home range size but significantly higher in breeding than in winter in all species. However, whereas willow warblers and wood warblers maintained some degree of tall tree cover inside their home ranges in winter, chiffchaffs changed from more than 80% to <1% tree cover, indicating a niche shift. Main conclusions Individuals of all three species showed changes between breeding and wintering areas in spatial behavior and habitat availability, with larger overlap in winter. The differences in patterns were potentially related to being generalist (willow warbler) or specialist (chiffchaff and wood warbler). These ecological relationships are important for the conservation of migrants and for understanding the link between breeding and wintering distributions and ecology.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Contrary To Expectations Individuals Wintering In More Openmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Spatial behavior and habitat use in widely separated breeding and wintering distributions across three species of long‐distance migrant Phylloscopus warblers

Lerche‐Jørgensen

Mallord

Willemoes

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The signal was lost from five tags, leaving 20 birds tracked for 1 day or more (for full details of the radiotracking procedure, see Mallord et al . ). Consecutive fixes of the same bird were taken a minimum of 1 h apart to ensure temporal independence of points.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…On the wintering grounds, birds favour relatively open woodland and show preferences for particular tree species, which vary by bioclimatic zone (Mallord et al . ). Whereas open‐country species may be able to take advantage of habitats newly created by degradation of wooded habitats (Cresswell et al .…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Apparent resilience of a declining Afro‐Palaearctic migrant to forest loss on the wintering grounds

Mallord

Orsman

Roberts

et al. 2018

Ibis

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Populations of long‐distance migrant birds are declining but it is unknown what role land cover change in non‐breeding areas may be playing in this process. Using compositional analysis, we assessed habitat selection by one such migrant, the Wood Warbler Phylloscopus sibilatrix, at a wintering site in the forest–savannah transition zone in Eastern Region, Ghana. There was a preference for forest, a habitat that is in marked decline at this site. Annual habitat mapping revealed that the area of forest declined by 26% between 2011/12 and 2013/14, mainly through clearance for conversion to arable land. Numbers of birds changed throughout the season, but despite the reduction in the preferred forest habitat, there was no change in the total number of birds recorded at the site over the study period. The number of birds recorded at a point was positively related to the proportion of cleared land, plantation and, to a lesser extent, dense forest within 100 m. Investigation of the fine‐scale habitat preferences of radiotagged Wood Warblers suggested that there was an optimum number of trees, around 66–143 per hectare, at which estimated probability of occupancy was 0.5, falling to a probability of 0.2 at 25 trees per hectare. We suggest that Wood Warblers may be buffered against the loss of forest habitat by their ability to utilize degraded habitats, such as well‐wooded farmland, that still retain a substantial number of trees. However, the continued loss of trees, from both forest and farmland is ultimately likely to have a negative impact on wintering Wood Warblers in the long‐term.

show abstract

Moult of overwintering Wood Warblers Phylloscopus sibilatrix in an annual-cycle perspective

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wood Warblers, an Afro-Palearctic migrant species, are declining steadily in Europe likely due to mortality outside their breeding grounds. However, little is known about their overwintering, and records about the sensitive life-cycle stage of moult in Africa are practically absent. To fill this gap, we report on moult of Wood Warblers captured over two winters (January–February) in 2019–2020 in Cameroon. We caught 14 individuals, of which 12 were monitored for flight feather moult. All inspected individuals showed advanced stages of flight feather renewal. Despite low sample sizes, Underhill-Zucchini moult models aptly explained variation in primary and secondary moult (R2 = 0.61). Estimated moult onset date was 26 December, completion date was 25 February, and moult duration was 61 days. These findings fit well with experimental data on the annual cycle and the timing of recently published migration tracks of Wood Warblers. Jointly, the data suggest that moult timing is set by an internal programme, which enables Wood Warblers to organise their multi-stage migration such that they reach suitable moulting habitat in time, and can depart in time with a fresh plumage for the breeding grounds. In our study, moult occurred during the peak of the dry season, which in Cameroon nonetheless shows high relative humidity. During our mist-netting on 28 cocoa plantations of varying shade cover, Wood Warblers were caught on 6 farms whose canopies were comparatively open. These data suggest that the birds encounter in Cameroon relatively stable climatic conditions for moult, and do not measurably prefer closed-canopy forests. Our findings are important, because successful moult increases survival prospects and because moult needs to be safely embedded in a migratory life cycle. Hence, information on moult timing and location is essential for identifying year-round vulnerabilities of Wood Warblers.

show abstract

Habitat use and tree selection of a declining Afro-Palaearctic migrant at sub-Saharan staging and wintering sites

Cited by 16 publications

References 54 publications

Spatial behavior and habitat use in widely separated breeding and wintering distributions across three species of long‐distance migrant Phylloscopus warblers

Spatial behavior and habitat use in widely separated breeding and wintering distributions across three species of long‐distance migrant Phylloscopus warblers

Apparent resilience of a declining Afro‐Palaearctic migrant to forest loss on the wintering grounds

Moult of overwintering Wood Warblers Phylloscopus sibilatrix in an annual-cycle perspective

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About