Large-scale variation in the temporal patterns of the frass fall of defoliating caterpillars in oak woodlands in Britain: implications for nesting woodland birds

Smith, Kristin; Smith, Linda; Charman, Elisabeth C.; Briggs, Kevin B.; Burgess, Malcolm D.; Dennis, Chris A.; Harding, Matt; Isherwood, Catherine; Isherwood, Isabel; Mallord, John W.

doi:10.1080/00063657.2011.616186

Cited by 43 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…April temperature thus seems to have a similar influence on the timing of peak caterpillar abundance at our study site to that reported in other UK woodlands, in which peak frass biomass advances by 8.5 days per 1°C increase in spring temperature (Smith et al. ). Applying this relationship with our study site, in which April temperatures have increased by 1.9°C over the course of this study, indicates that if long‐tailed tits track caterpillar phenology there should be a 17‐day advance in breeding termination.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Phenological indices of avian reproduction: cryptic shifts and prediction across large spatial and temporal scales

Gullett

Hatchwell

Robinson

et al. 2013

Ecology and Evolution

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Climate change-induced shifts in phenology have important demographic consequences, and are frequently used to assess species' sensitivity to climate change. Therefore, developing accurate phenological predictions is an important step in modeling species' responses to climate change. The ability of such phenological models to predict effects at larger spatial and temporal scales has rarely been assessed. It is also not clear whether the most frequently used phenological index, namely the average date of a phenological event across a population, adequately captures phenological shifts in the distribution of events across the season. We use the long-tailed tit Aegithalos caudatus (Fig. 1) as a case study to explore these issues. We use an intensive 17-year local study to model mean breeding date and test the capacity of this local model to predict phenology at larger spatial and temporal scales. We assess whether local models of breeding initiation, termination, and renesting reveal phenological shifts and responses to climate not detected by a standard phenological index, that is, population average lay date. These models take predation timing/intensity into account. The locally-derived model performs well at predicting phenology at the national scale over several decades, at both high and low temperatures. In the local model, a trend toward warmer Aprils is associated with a significant advance in termination dates, probably in response to phenological shifts in food supply. This results in a 33% reduction in breeding season length over 17 years – a substantial loss of reproductive opportunity that is not detected by the index of population average lay date. We show that standard phenological indices can fail to detect patterns indicative of negative climatic effects, potentially biasing assessments of species' vulnerability to climate change. More positively, we demonstrate the potential of detailed local studies for developing broader-scale predictive models of future phenological shifts.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Phenological indices of avian reproduction: cryptic shifts and prediction across large spatial and temporal scales

Gullett

Hatchwell

Robinson

et al. 2013

Ecology and Evolution

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“…; Smith et al. ) and to have negative effects on birds that cannot time their reproduction to take advantage of it (Buse et al. ; Visser et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age‐specific responses to spring temperature in a migratory songbird: older females attempt more broods in warmer springs

Bulluck

Huber²,

Viverette

et al. 2013

Ecology and Evolution

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Increasing global temperature has led to an interest in plasticity in the timing of annual events; however, little is known about the demographic consequences of changing phenology. Annual reproductive success varies significantly among individuals within a population, and some of that variation has to do with the number of broods attempted by reproducing adults. In birds, female age and the timing of reproduction are often predictors of multiple breeding. We hypothesize that double brooding rates may be affected by spring temperature and that the response may vary with female age. We used a long-term reproductive data set for a migratory songbird, the prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea) to assess which factors influence (a) an individual female's probability of double brooding and (b) the annual variation in population-level double brooding rates. We found that older and earlier nesting birds are more likely to double brood, and that there is no evidence for senescence with regard to this trait such that the oldest females were most likely to double brood. Previous experience with double brooding (i.e., whether the female double brooded in the previous year) significantly increased the probability of doing so again. When assessing annual variation in the double brooding rate, we found an interaction between spring temperature and the proportion of older females in the population. Specifically, older females are more likely to double brood in years with warmer springs, but this relationship was not seen for younger females. Previous studies have shown that warmer temperatures lead to earlier and narrower peaks in resources and we hypothesize that these peaks are more available to older and earlier arriving females, enabling them to successfully raise more than one brood in a season. Understanding how different age classes respond to changing environmental conditions will be imperative to managing declining species.

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“…The declining daily nest survival rates at both the egg and chick stages can be related to the breeding season of this predator: increasing rates of predation, especially in June and July, coincided with the time when Jays were either feeding nestlings (Holyoak 1967;Joys & Crick 2004), or the post-fledging period when juveniles are still fed by their parents (Goodwin 1986), and the abundance of Jays is at its highest. Adult Jays predominantly provision their nestlings with Lepidopteran larvae (Owen 1956), which are past their peak in abundance by mid-June in our study woods (Smith et al 2011b). This may further increase the risk to nesting birds as Jays switch to alternative prey.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mortality of Wood WarblerPhylloscopus sibilatrixnests in Welsh Oakwoods: predation rates and the identification of nest predators using miniature nest cameras

Mallord¹,

Orsman²,

Cristinacce³

et al. 2012

Bird Study

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Large-scale variation in the temporal patterns of the frass fall of defoliating caterpillars in oak woodlands in Britain: implications for nesting woodland birds

Cited by 43 publications

References 19 publications

Phenological indices of avian reproduction: cryptic shifts and prediction across large spatial and temporal scales

Phenological indices of avian reproduction: cryptic shifts and prediction across large spatial and temporal scales

Age‐specific responses to spring temperature in a migratory songbird: older females attempt more broods in warmer springs

Mortality of Wood WarblerPhylloscopus sibilatrixnests in Welsh Oakwoods: predation rates and the identification of nest predators using miniature nest cameras

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