0000000000807502
AUTHOR
Camillo Cusimano
Variation in clutch size in relation to nest size in birds
© 2014 The Authors. Nests are structures built to support and protect eggs and/or offspring from predators, parasites, and adverse weather conditions. Nests are mainly constructed prior to egg laying, meaning that parent birds must make decisions about nest site choice and nest building behavior before the start of egg-laying. Parent birds should be selected to choose nest sites and to build optimally sized nests, yet our current understanding of clutch size-nest size relationships is limited to small-scale studies performed over short time periods. Here, we quantified the relationship between clutch size and nest size, using an exhaustive database of 116 slope estimates based on 17,472 nes…
Importance of meteorological variables for aeroplankton dispersal in an urban environment
Passive wind dispersal is one of the major mechanisms through which organisms disperse and colonize new areas. The detailed comprehension of which factors affect this process may help to preserve its efficiency for years to come. This is especially important in the current context of climate change, which may seriously alter weather regimes that drive dispersal, and is crucial in urban contexts, where biodiversity is dramatically threatened by pollution and fragmentation of natural patches. Despite its interest, the analysis of factors affecting aeroplankton dispersal in urban environments is rare in literature. We sampled aeroplankton community uninterruptedly every 4 hours from 17th May t…
Interaction of climate change with effects of conspecific and heterospecific density on reproduction
We studied the relationship between temperature and the coexistence of great tit Parus major and blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus, breeding in 75 study plots across Europe and North Africa. We expected an advance in laying date and a reduction in clutch size during warmer springs as a general response to climate warming and a delay in laying date and a reduction in clutch size during warmer winters due to density-dependent effects. As expected, as spring temperature increases laying date advances and as winter temperature increases clutch size is reduced in both species. Density of great tit affected the relationship between winter temperature and laying date in great and blue tit. Specifically…
Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies: the SPI-Birds data hub
The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and eco-logical processes in the wild. Furthermore, their number and global distribution provides a unique opportunity to assess the generality of patterns and to address broad-scale global issues (e.g. climate change).
Clutch-size variation in Western Palaearctic secondary hole-nesting passerine birds in relation to nest box design.
Møller, A.P. [et al.]
Bird populations most exposed to climate change are less responsive to climatic variation
AbstractThe phenology of many species shows strong sensitivity to climate change; however, with few large scale intra-specific studies it is unclear how such sensitivity varies over a species’ range. We document large intra-specific variation in phenological sensitivity to temperature using laying date information from 67 populations of two European songbirds covering a large part of their breeding range. Populations inhabiting deciduous habitats showed stronger phenological sensitivity compared with those in evergreen and mixed habitats. Strikingly, however, the lowest sensitivity was seen in populations that had experienced the greatest change in climate. Therefore, we predict that the st…
Interspecific variation in the relationship between clutch size, laying date and intensity of urbanization in four species of hole-nesting birds
Marie Vaugoyeau [et al.]
Citizen science project to monitor wildlife: a first census of wintering Booted Eagle Hieraaetus pennatus in Sicily
Citizen science can represent an effective tool for large- scale data collection and can be used to improve scientific knowledge and define species distribution ranges before proper planning of related conservation strategies. A regional census of wintering Booted Eagle Hieraaetus pennatus in Sicily, never achieved before, was organized by GAM (Gruppo Aquila Minore - Booted Eagle Group) on 12 Janu- ary 2020, involving 90 people from several organizations. A total of 112 wintering individuals have been recorded for the whole region, col- lecting related data about their colour morph, habitat preference and altitude. A regional estimate of 180-220 wintering individuals was cal- culated, also …