Search results for "bird"
showing 10 items of 420 documents
Individual learning in the refinement of nest defence responses of the Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia)
2006
Seabird influence on ecological processes in coastal marine ecosystems: an overlooked role?
2013
Coastal marine ecosystems and especially transitional environments host a large variety of birds, functioning as nesting sites for resident species and corridors for migratory ones. Seabirds activity may trigger movement of nutrients and organic matter between coastal boundaries, affecting their availability and processing. Consequently seabirds are often labelled as biotic vectors. While attention has been focused on the study of biodiversity level and migratory patterns of avifauna, there is little information on the effects of seabirds on ecological features (i.e. trophic status, biodiversity level, food web patterns, transfer of contaminants) in coastal marine ecosystems. To address the…
Hard to catch: Experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry
2021
Most research on aposematism has focused on chemically defended prey, but the signalling difficulty of capture remains poorly explored. Similar to classical Batesian and Müllerian mimicry related to distastefulness, such ‘evasive aposematism' may also lead to convergence in warning colours, known as evasive mimicry. A prime candidate group for evasive mimicry areAdelphabutterflies, which are agile insects and show remarkable colour pattern convergence. We tested the ability of naive blue tits to learn to avoid and generalizeAdelphawing patterns associated with the difficulty of capture and compared their response to that of birds that learned to associate the same wing patterns with distast…
Innovative and Applied Research in Biology: Proceedings, Vol. 2
2020
The collection contains SCIENTIFIC articles on the topics of the LU 78 conference reports. The main focus is on innovative and applied research in biology and interdisciplinary fields.
Facing the music : a critical enquiry into 'the dodo-bird verdict' to develop music psychotherapy theory
2015
‘The dodo-bird verdict’ represents a boggling outcome of research that shows no significant difference between the outcomes of a variety of psychotherapy treatments. Not being able to scientifically discriminate between psychotherapeutic treatments, casts doubt on their theoretical underpinnings, and even on their efficacy. This in turn presents professionals who use psychotherapeutic techniques - including music therapists - with a conundrum: What can explain this inability? And what can be done to solve the problem? Conceptual research methods were used to analyse literature in order to answer these questions. Various weaknesses were identified, both in theory construction and in research…
Spatial variation in the evolutionary potential and constraints of basal metabolic rate and body mass in a wild bird
2023
An organism's energy budget is strongly related to resource consumption, performance, and fitness. Hence, understanding the evolution of key energetic traits, such as basal metabolic rate (BMR), in natural populations is central for understanding life-history evolution and ecological processes. Here we used quantitative genetic analyses to study evolutionary potential of BMR in two insular populations of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus). We obtained measurements of BMR and body mass (Mb) from 911 house sparrows on the islands of Leka and Vega along the coast of Norway. These two populations were the source populations for translocations to create an additional third, admixed ‘common ga…
The impact of weather and the phase of the rodent cycle on breeding populations of waterbirds in Finnish Lapland
2016
Climate change may affect bird populations both directly by changing the weather conditions, and indirectly through changes in the food chain. While both theoretical and empirical studies have shown climate change having drastic impacts on polar areas, its consequences on Arctic bird species are still poorly known. Here we investigated how weather and changes in predator–prey interactions affected the annual growth rates of sub-Arctic birds by monitoring the breeding numbers of three duck and seven wader species in the alpine tundra of Finnish Lapland during 2005–2015 (except for 2006). We hypothesized that growth rates of waterbirds would be positively associated with warm and dry weather …
CHECK-LIST DEGLI UCCELLI DELLA R.N.O. “SALINE DI TRAPANI E PACECO” CON LISTA COMMENTATA DEI NON PASSERIFORMES
2018
Update of the checklist of the birds of the Nature Reserve “Saline di Trapani e Paceco” (Sicily). The present work provides an update to the checklist of birds of the “Saline di Trapani e Paceco” published nine years ago by IENTILE (2008). The overall number of bird species increased from 209 to the current value of 229. The present work also includes a quantitative estimate of the breeding and wintering species. A table, detailing the number of individuals of each species present for each month of the year at the Saline di Trapani and Paceco, is included. This work aims at underscoring the importance of the Saline as an Important Bird Area (IBA), as a key area for the migration pathways of…