Rubber Band Ingestion by a Rubbish Dump Dweller, the White Stork (<i>Ciconia ciconia</i>)

Henry, Pierre-Yves; Wey, Gérard; Balança, Gilles

doi:10.1675/063.034.0414

Cited by 48 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Whether this damage implies long-term or even fertility costs is not known, but it will be crucial to identify the net fitness balance of the use of cigarette butts and potentially other novel nesting materials in the urban environment. Other studies have demonstrated that anthropogenic nesting materials (e.g., plastic twine, fishing line or metal pieces) in the nests of several species are associated with an increased frequency of nestling deaths from entanglement, strangulation and other injuries (Blem et al 2002;Parker and Blomme 2007;Antczak et al 2010;Henry et al 2011;Townsend and Barker 2014).…”

Section: Nest Design and Urbanisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanisation and nest building in birds: a review of threats and opportunities

et al. 2019

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The world is urbanising rapidly, and it is predicted that by 2050, 66% of the global human population will be living in urban areas. Urbanisation is characterised by land-use changes such as increased residential housing, business development and transport infrastructure, resulting in habitat loss and fragmentation. Over the past two decades, interest has grown in how urbanisation influences fundamental aspects of avian biology such as life-history strategies, survival, breeding performance, behaviour and individual health. Here, we review current knowledge on how urbanisation influences the nesting biology of birds, which determines important fitness-associated processes such as nest predation and community assembly. We identify three major research areas: (i) nest sites of birds in urban areas, (ii) the composition of their nests, and (iii) how these aspects of their nesting biology influence their persistence (and therefore conservation efforts) in urban areas. We show that birds inhabiting urban areas nest in a wide variety of locations, some beneficial through exploitation of otherwise relatively empty avian ecological niches, but others detrimental when birds breed in ecological traps. We describe urban-associated changes in nesting materials such as plastic and cigarette butts, and discuss several functional hypotheses that propose the adaptive value and potential costs of this new nesting strategy. Urban areas provide a relatively new habitat in which to conserve birds, and we show that nestboxes and other artificial nest sites can be used successfully to conserve some, but not all, bird species. Finally, we identify those subject areas that warrant further research attention in the hope of advancing our understanding of the nesting biology of birds in urban areas.

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Section: Nest Design and Urbanisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanisation and nest building in birds: a review of threats and opportunities

et al. 2019

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“…Furthermore, 24% of urban nests were associated with debris-related mortalities and the proportion of anthropogenic debris comprising the total nest mass impacted nestling survival. Other studies have observed mortalities due to both entanglement and ingestion of anthropogenic debris in nestling and adult land birds (Mee et al, 2007;Henry, Wey, & Balança, 2011;Theodosopoulos & Gotanda, 2019). However, few studies have examined the effect of debris on reproductive success in land birds (Jagiello et al, 2018) and only one previous study has examined passerines (Townsend & Barker, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban living influences the reproductive success of Darwin’s finches in the Galápagos Islands

Harvey

Chernicky

Simons

et al. 2020

Preprint

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AbstractUrbanization is expanding worldwide and can have major consequences for organisms. For example, urban areas can contain novel stressors that reduce the fitness of animals but may also have benefits, such as consistent human food availability. These trade-offs are particularly important in dynamic environments with unreliable annual natural food availability, such as in the Galápagos Islands. In our study, we compared the reproductive success of small ground finches (Geospiza fuliginosa; a species of Darwin’s finch) in an urban and non-urban area during a dry year (i.e. one with low natural resource availability) on San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos Islands. We also documented the abundance of anthropogenic-related material, such as human hair and plastic, in finch nests and determined whether incorporating these materials into the nest led to entanglement- or ingestion-related mortalities. Overall, urban finches built more nests, laid more eggs, and produced more nestlings than non-urban finches. However, every nest in the urban area contained anthropogenic-related material, which resulted in four mortalities (out of 17 nests with nestlings) due to entanglement or ingestion. Non-urban nests did not contain any anthropogenic-related material. Our study showed that urban living has trade-offs: urban birds have overall higher reproductive success than non-urban birds, but urban birds can also suffer a negative consequence by using anthropogenic-related material in their nests. These results suggest that despite the potential cost of urban living, finches benefit overall from urban living and urbanization may buffer the effects of limited resource availability in the Galápagos Islands.

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“…The serrations, which preclude prey fish to free themselves from the bill, become a major trouble when debris is impaled instead of fish. There are records of waterbirds such as White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) in France that ingest rubber bands while foraging in rubbish dumps, possibly mistaking the bands for earthworms (Henry et al 2011). Additionally, at the same site we studied the Anhingas, we recorded Wood Storks (Mycteria americana) handling and ingesting pliable plastic cable pieces that they likely mistook for elongate fish or snake prey (Sazima & D'Angelo 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%