Immediate effects of capture on nest visits of breeding blue tits, Cyanistes caeruleus, are substantial

Schlicht, Emmi; Kempenaers, Bart

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.04.010

Cited by 25 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…The only difference between control and captured females was that captured females showed a tendency of increased vigilance when entering nest boxes, suggesting that they were less affected by being captured than males. These results are important because, although some of the more evident effects (e.g., nest desertion) of nest disturbance or capture and handling have received considerable attention (see the cited literature in the introduction), the more subtle impacts of capture and handling on bird behavior have rarely been quantified (but see Schlicht and Kempenaers ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of capture and video-recording on the behavior and breeding success of Great Tits in urban and forest habitats

et al. 2017

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Behavioral research often involves capturing and video‐recording birds, but these procedures may have undesired effects on the behavior of birds that have rarely been quantified. In addition, birds in urban and more natural areas may differ in their sensitivity to disturbance. We examined the possible effects of both capturing, weighing and measuring, and taking a blood sample, and the presence of video‐cameras on the behavior of male and female Great Tits (Parus major) breeding in urban and forest habitats. Using a 2 × 2 block design, we compared the behavior and breeding success of parents that either were or were not captured on their nests a few days before behavioral observations, and of parents that either were or were not habituated to the presence of a concealed video‐recorder mounted on nest boxes. We found no significant effects of habituation to the camera on bird behavior, but males captured in their nest boxes were more vigilant and hesitated longer before entering nest boxes, and also had slightly lower provisioning rates than males that had not been captured. Captured females also tended to be more vigilant than females that had not been captured, but their provisioning rates were not affected. Capturing males also influenced the behavior of their non‐captured mates, but capturing females had no effect on the behavior of their non‐captured mates. We found no difference in the effects of capture on Great Tits in urban and forest habitats, and our treatments also had no effect on the mass, size, and survival of nestlings until fledging. Our results suggest that, for Great Tits, being captured results in sex‐dependent behavioral effects that can last for at least several days. As such, we suggest that the possibility of similar effects in other species of birds should be considered in behavioral studies where birds must be captured, and recommend either that behavioral data be collected before capturing birds or that all birds in a study should be captured and handled in a standardized way.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of capture and video-recording on the behavior and breeding success of Great Tits in urban and forest habitats

et al. 2017

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“…Recent studies have shown that this trapping method greatly reduces both the percentage of nest‐boxes occupied in winter and winter nest‐box re‐use rate (Zdeněk et al ). The effect might differ between different personality types (Stuber et al ) and depend on the time of capture (Schlicht and Kempenaers ). Thus, an interesting next step is to investigate whether nightly nest‐box trapping affects individual territory use and, more importantly, individual fitness in species showing year‐round territoriality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Winter territory prospecting is associated with life‐history stage but not activity in a passerine

Sánchez‐Tójar

Winney

Girndt

et al. 2016

Journal of Avian Biology

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Finding a high quality territory is essential for many animals to reproduce successfully. Despite its importance for fitness, we know little about the process of territory prospecting in wild birds, and whether individual traits and behaviours, such as personality, co-vary with territory prospecting. Here, we use long-term data from a wild, insular house sparrow Passer domesticus population to test three hypotheses about territory fidelity and prospecting: 1) house sparrows show high territory fidelity between years and also during winter. 2) Individuals will prospect for a breeding territory during their first winter whereas older, more experienced individuals will keep a territory from previous years and will, therefore, show no or reduced winter territory prospecting. 3) More active behavioural types will prospect more than less active behavioural types. We use data from four winters from automatically, daily recorded nest-box visits of 188 birds of known age. The number of nest-boxes that each individual visited within each winter was used as a proxy of winter territory prospecting. We show that house sparrows visit multiple nest-boxes during their first winter, whereas older individuals keep territories year-round and, potentially because of this, indeed show reduced winter territory prospecting. Activity was not associated with the number of nest-boxes visited. Further research is needed to investigate whether time of territory and mate acquisition differs among individuals and the possible effect on lifetime fitness.

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“…The abandonment of a viable brood is probably rare in blue tits and other short‐lived species with low within‐year re‐nesting opportunities. Indeed, there is little evidence in tits that parents abandon broods when the nestlings are still alive, except under artificial conditions such as after parents have been captured on the nest (Cole, Morand‐Ferron, Hinks, & Quinn, ; Ouyang, Quetting, & Hau, ; five cases in our study), which results in an extreme disruption of normal provisioning behaviour (Schlicht & Kempenaers, ). Cases of brood failure should thus not be assumed to be a consequence of nest desertion unless it is known that both the nestlings and the parents were alive after disappearance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…During each breeding season, nestboxes were checked at least once a week (where necessary daily) to monitor the onset and progress of nest building, the date of the first egg, clutch size, the date of first hatching, brood size, the number of fledglings and the date of fledging. Adults in the study were equipped with a passive integrated transponder which was inserted under the skin on the back (Schlicht & Kempenaers, ). When they had not already been tagged during previous breeding attempts in our population or during the nonbreeding season (caught while sleeping in the boxes, or—from 2015 to 2016—using mist nets near feeders just outside the study area), they were caught at the nest when offspring were 8–12 days old.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complete brood failure in an altricial bird is almost always associated with the sudden and permanent disappearance of a parent

Santema

Kempenaers

2018

Journal of Animal Ecology

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A central goal in evolutionary ecology is to identify factors that explain variation in reproductive success, i.e. in the number of offspring produced. In altricial birds, a substantial part of this variation is determined by the number of nestlings that die before fledging, but surprisingly little is known about the proximate causes of offspring mortality during the nestling period. We used a uniquely comprehensive dataset of parental nestbox visits from seven breeding seasons to investigate the association between parental behaviour and nestling mortality in a population of blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus). In almost all nests that suffered complete brood mortality one of the parents had suddenly disappeared during the nestling stage. In contrast, parental disappearance in nests with partial brood mortality was rare and equally common as in nests with no brood loss. With few exceptions, parents that disappeared during the nestling stage were never observed again and never returned to breed. In contrast, parents that remained after their partner disappeared were equally likely to be observed again or return to breed as parents of nests where both parents stayed. Visit rates at nests where a parent would disappear did not differ from those at nests where both parents stayed. Taken together, our results show that - in contrast to partial brood failure - complete brood failure is almost always associated with the sudden and permanent disappearance of one of the parents, probably due to predation. Partial and complete brood mortality should be treated as distinct processes that have different underlying causes.

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Immediate effects of capture on nest visits of breeding blue tits, Cyanistes caeruleus, are substantial

Cited by 25 publications

References 83 publications

Effects of capture and video-recording on the behavior and breeding success of Great Tits in urban and forest habitats

Effects of capture and video-recording on the behavior and breeding success of Great Tits in urban and forest habitats

Winter territory prospecting is associated with life‐history stage but not activity in a passerine

Complete brood failure in an altricial bird is almost always associated with the sudden and permanent disappearance of a parent

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