0000000000427314
AUTHOR
George W. Eshiamwata
Monthly survival of African Sylvia warblers in a seasonally arid tropical environment
Latitudinal gradients of life-history traits in animals are thought to be shaped by environmental variables. For example, it has been suggested that the increase in avian clutch size from the tropics towards the northern temperate regions is caused by a reduced survival of adult birds in the north due to increasing environmental seasonality. However, the tropical savannahs of East Africa show pronounced seasonality in resources caused by distinct rainy and dry seasons. This raises the question of whether survival and other life-history traits of birds living in these tropical savannahs are influenced by this seasonality, making them more similar to northern temperate species. We used 2-year…
Bird assemblages in isolated Ficus trees in Kenyan farmland
Over the last few decades a rapid and extensive conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land has taken place resulting in mosaics of fragmented forest patches, pastures and farmland. While the effects of forest fragmentation on biodiversity have been intensively studied within the remaining forests, relatively little is known about the biodiversity in tropical farmland (Daily et al. 2001, Pimentel et al. 1992). Frugivorous birds are an important group of species in tropical farmland ecosystems. Frugivorous birds are significant seed dispersers and can play a prominent role in transporting seeds into disturbed areas and setting the stage for the regeneration of these systems. Isolated…
Life-history of two African Sylvia warblers: low annual fecundity and long post-fledging care
The investigation of factors that cause differences in life-history traits between temperate and tropical birds is often hampered by a lack of knowledge about tropical species. Even within the well-known warblers of the genus Sylvia, which include resident species from temperate and tropical regions as well as migrants, there are few data from tropical species. We investigated the breeding biology of the tropical species Sylvia lugens and S. boehmi in a 2-year study in Kenya. Both species had a clutch size of 2.0 and laid c. 3.7 clutches per year. Breeding was characterized by long incubation periods (S. lugens 14.5 days, S. boehmi 15.0 days), long nestling periods (16.0 and 12.9 days, resp…