Variation in nest-building behaviour in birds: a multi-species approach

Abstract

Researchers have long suggested that animals with greater behavioural flexibility will be more likely to survive in face of environmental changes. However, it is unknown how this varies across species. Nest building is a behaviour directly related to the reproduction and survival of species by conferring protection from external environmental conditions. The study of nests offers a window into the behaviour of birds, and variation in nest morphology is necessarily linked to variation in building behaviours. We test whether variation in nest morphology is phylogenetically conserved by using data on nest morphology from 55 passerine species (>700 specimens) and measuring intraspecific variability in nest structure. We found that species mean and within-species variation in nest morphology are phylogenetically conserved, and that species with domed nests presented higher levels of nest morphology variation than cup nest species. We also revealed that the capacity of species to present innovative behaviours is not linked with how they vary nest morphology. Moreover, we revealed that nests from species with larger variation in clutch size and that are built by single parents are more variable. Our results help in the understanding of how behaviour and extended phenotypes evolve, and highlight the importance of exploring the phylogenetic history of behavioural flexibility when trying to predict the capacity of species to respond to novel challenges. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The evolutionary ecology of nests: a cross-taxon approach’.

Nest traits for the world's birds

“…We found very little regularity in the reporting of nest size; other researchers, however, may still find these dimensions useful measures of parental investment. For more information on the global correlates of size of passerine cup nests, including comparisons between textual descriptions and measurements of museum specimens as well as an analysis of inter-specific versus intra-specific variation in size, see Vanadzina, Street, Healy, et al (2023) or Perez et al (2023).…”

“…We have also described basic environmental and morphological correlations between major structure and location categories, demonstrating that the placement of the nest is more closely linked to broad-scale environmental variation than is the structure of the nest itself. One possible interpretation of this is that environmental factors may have driven finer scaled variation in nest features other than gross morphological type (Medina, 2019;Ocampo et al, 2023), such as nest dimensions (Perez et al, 2023;Vanadzina, Street, Healy, et al, 2023); another explanation may be that nest structure is more closely linked to ecological and life history factors not considered here, such as clutch size (Heenan & Seymour, 2011) or predation rates (Collias & Collias, 2014;Hall et al, 2015;Mainwaring et al, 2015;Martin, 1993b;Matysioková & Remeš, 2022). There are also potentially differences in the level of genetic control governing speciesand population-level variation in nest structure versus nest location (Fang et al, 2018;Healy et al, 2023), underscoring the importance of uniting comparative work with research into the behavioural and mechanistic basis of nest building.…”

“…For example, Jetz et al (2008) inferred 'nest type' within genera, whereas Price and Griffith (2017) and Fang et al (2018) scored nest shape/structure, location and exposure/placement at the family level. While this strategy is appropriate for some types of questions, taxonomic inference ignores the tremendous intraspecific and intra-taxon variation in nest behaviour that can be found in the world's birds (Billerman et al, 2022;Collias & Collias, 2014;Hansell, 2000;Perez et al, 2023), as well as the many gaps English-language Western science has in its knowledge of biodiversity, particularly tropical natural history (e.g., Lees et al, 2020).…”

The evolutionary ecology of nests: a cross-taxon approach

“…In addition to data compiled from online data sources, there has also been a recent shift to using nests held in museum collections [18,20,52]. Perez et al [52] use more than 700 nests from 55 passerine species held in museums to examine the link between nest design and behavioural flexibility, which is likely to be an important determinant of survival for species in a changing world.…”

“…In addition to data compiled from online data sources, there has also been a recent shift to using nests held in museum collections [18,20,52]. Perez et al [52] use more than 700 nests from 55 passerine species held in museums to examine the link between nest design and behavioural flexibility, which is likely to be an important determinant of survival for species in a changing world. Intraspecific variation in nest traits was greater in those species with domed nests than those with open cup nests, and in species in which nests were built by a single parent, while also exhibiting a high phylogenetic signal.…”