The macroecology of passerine nest types, in the light of macroevolution

Abstract

trait macroevolution 9 10 Statement of authorship: JPM and JGB designed the study. JPM and ZZ compiled 11 data from the literature. JPM performed statistical analyses with input from JGB. JPM 12 and JGB wrote the manuscript, and ZZ contributed to revisions. 13 14 Data accessibility statements: Data were obtained from existing sources in the 15 literature, cited in the manuscript. Abstract: 33 34Passerine birds build a diversity of nests to lay and incubate eggs, and to house nestlings. 35Open cup, dome, and hole (or cavity) nests have distinct advantages and/or disadvantages 36 related to predation risk and thermoregulation. We used macroecological and 37 macroevolutionary approaches to test contrasting predictions from considering these 38 consequences. Patterns of prevalence across latitude and elevation for the roofed nest 39 types (holes and domes) provide no evidence that their thermoregulation benefits promote 40 colonization of colder environments. These patterns are more consistent with the role of 41 predation in determining where dome-nesting species in particular occur. 42Macroevolutionary analyses suggest that diversity patterns for nest types along major 43 ecological gradients mostly arise from how clades with conserved nest types have 44 diversified across gradients, rather than arising from local adaptation. Lastly, we reveal a 45 negative relationship between body mass and latitude in hole-nesting passerines, which 46

Linking ecological specialization to its macroevolutionary consequences: An example with passerine nest type

“…These two reconstructions represent significant evidence in favor of the specialized state hole-nesting at the origin of passerines. Previous work has emphasized that hole-nesting, dome-nesting, and open-cup nesting all appear to have occurred early in the history of passerines (Collias 1997; Price and Griffith 2017; Fang et al 2018; McEntee et al 2018), with Collias (1997) suggesting that the nest type of the earliest passerine might be unknowable because of the apparent rapid evolution of nest type in early passerines. Our ancestral state reconstruction, using an approach where we included strong species-level sampling and assessed whether differing diversification rates had to be accounted for (Maddison 2006), tips the balance in favor of hole-nesting as the ancestral state for the common ancestor of extant passerines.…”

“…Our nesting data is a slightly adapted version of a dataset originally assembled for McEntee et al (2018). This dataset was generated by scoring the nesting behavior of the passerine species using descriptions from the Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive, (Del Hoyo et al 2017, last accessed 30 June 2016, hereafter HBW).…”

“…The small number of brood parasites were excluded from analyses. McEntee et al (2018) were able to score the nest types for approximately three quarters of the 5,912 passerine species from the information in the HBW species descriptions.…”

Global diversity and adaptations of avian eggshell thickness indices

“…Passerines are generally (but not exclusively) arboreal and build a diversity of nests to incubate their eggs, from cups and domes to cavities (McEntee et al . 2018), whereas dome nests are much less common among non‐Passeriformes (Collias 1997). Furthermore, most Passeriformes lay coloured eggs, whereas most non‐Passeriformes lay white eggs, except certain ground‐nesting species that lay coloured eggs for camouflage (Gosler et al .…”

“…For example, Passeriformes (comprising 60% of the world's birds) are land birds with altricial young, whereas non-Passeriformes include water and land birds and vary in their mode of development. Passerines are generally (but not exclusively) arboreal and build a diversity of nests to incubate their eggs, from cups and domes to cavities (McEntee et al 2018), whereas dome nests are much less common among non-Passeriformes (Collias 1997). Furthermore, most Passeriformes lay coloured eggs, whereas most non-Passeriformes lay white eggs, except certain ground-nesting species that lay coloured eggs for camouflage (Gosler et al 2005).…”