Adriana Maldonado-Chaparro | Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (original) (raw)

Papers by Adriana Maldonado-Chaparro

Nature Communications, 2022

Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change o... more Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change over time through cultural drift, and the resulting dialects may consequently enhance the separation of populations. However, the emergence of song dialects has been considered unlikely when songs are highly individual-specific, as in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). Here we show that machine learning can nevertheless distinguish the songs from multiple captive zebra finch populations with remarkable precision, and that ‘cryptic song dialects’ predict strong assortative mating in this species. We examine mating patterns across three consecutive generations using captive populations that have evolved in isolation for about 100 generations. We cross-fostered eggs within and between these populations and used an automated barcode tracking system to quantify social interactions. We find that females preferentially pair with males whose song resembles that of the females’ adolescent peer...

Offspring provisioning represents a major reproductive cost. However, evidence suggests that pare... more Offspring provisioning represents a major reproductive cost. However, evidence suggests that parents sometimes feed unrelated offspring. Several hypotheses could explain this puzzling phenomenon. Adults could feed unrelated offspring that are (1) of close social associates to facilitate these juveniles' integration into their social network (resulting in social inheritance), (2) potential extra-pair offspring, (3) at a similar developmental stage as their own, (4) coercing feeding by begging, or (5) less-developed and who's enhanced survival would benefit the adult or its own offspring (the group augmentation hypothesis). Colonial breeders are ideal for investigating the relative importance of these hypotheses because offspring are often kept in crèches where adults can exhibit allofeeding. Using automated monitoring of replicated captive zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) colonies, we found that while parents selectively fed their own offspring, they also consistently fed un...

Acta Biológica Colombiana, 2004

The insular town of Barú (Cartagena, Bolívar, Colombia) lacks aqueduct and sewer system services;... more The insular town of Barú (Cartagena, Bolívar, Colombia) lacks aqueduct and sewer system services; however, Barú's habitants manipulate the water to satisfy their basic necessities. In this way, we evaluated water quality and characterized the dynamic of its use in Barú during the dry season (March of 2003). We answer two basic questions: is the available water in Barú suitable for human consumption? and, which are the events, flow and processes involved in its handling? The evaluation of the quality of the water was made by comparison of some physicochemical and microbiological variables versus the standards of the Colombian law. It was found that the water in Barú is not safe, due to coliforms. The dynamics of water use in this town was studied by interviewing some of the inhabitants and recognition trips of the available infrastructure. Information about consumption practices, habits and methods of treatment of sweet water, disposition of served waters and volume consumed by p...

Revista de Biología Tropical, 2018

Los capibaras son los roedores más grandes delmundo, sin embargo, no se han realizado estudios ge... more Los capibaras son los roedores más grandes delmundo, sin embargo, no se han realizado estudios gené-tico poblacionales exhaustivos con ellos. En el presentetrabajo se analizó la estructura genética de una manadade 31 capibaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) muestreadaen Hato Corozal, Departamento de Casanare en los Llanos Orientales de Colombia, mediante cinco marcadoresmicrosatelitales. La diversidad genética se determinó en0.61 y un número promedio de alelos de 5.2, lo cual sepuede considerar medio-bajo para este tipo de marcadores. De los cinco marcadores empleados, tres mostraronproporciones genotípicas en concordancia con lo esperadoen equilibrio Hardy-Weinberg, mientras que un marcadormostró un exceso significativo de homocigotos y otro unexceso significativo de heterocigotos. No se encontrarondiferencias significativas para esos cinco marcadores entremachos y hembras de la manada muestreada. La aplicaciónde diferentes procedimientos para detectar posibles cambios demográficos hi...

bioRxiv, 2021

Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change o... more Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change over time through a process of cultural drift, and may consequently enhance the separation of populations, potentially leading to reproductive isolation1–4. Local song dialects have been identified in bird species with relatively simple songs where individuals show high cultural conformity5–10. In contrast, the emergence of cultural dialects has been regarded as unlikely11–13 for species with more variable song, such as the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). Instead, it has been proposed that selection for individual recognition and distinctiveness may lead to a complete spread across the space of acoustic and syntactical possibilities11–15. However, another possibility is that analytical limitations have meant that subtle but possibly salient group differences have not yet been discovered in such species. Here we show that machine learning can distinguish the songs from multiple captive ...

En el trabajo se presenta un panorama general del estado actual de la legislacion en materia de f... more En el trabajo se presenta un panorama general del estado actual de la legislacion en materia de fauna silvestre vertebrada terrestre en Colombia, el cual es complementado con algunas actividades de conservacion y aprovechamiento del recurso faunistico, que han sido adelantadas por las autoridades ambientales. Ademas, se exponen y analizan conceptos biologicos usados dentro de la normatividad, que son considerados claves desde el punto de vista biologico para la aplicacion de las normas.

Ecology Letters, 2018

Temporal variation in environmental conditions affects population growth directly via its impact ... more Temporal variation in environmental conditions affects population growth directly via its impact on vital rates, and indirectly through induced variation in demographic structure and phenotypic trait distributions. We currently know very little about how these processes jointly mediate population responses to their environment. To address this gap, we develop a general transient life table response experiment (LTRE) which partitions the contributions to population growth arising from variation in (1) survival and reproduction, (2) demographic structure, (3) trait values and (4) climatic drivers. We apply the LTRE to a population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to demonstrate the impact of demographic and trait-mediated processes. Our analysis provides a new perspective on demographic buffering, which may be a more subtle phenomena than is currently assumed. The new LTRE framework presents opportunities to improve our understanding of how trait variation influences population dynamics and adaptation in stochastic environments.

1.The social decisions that individuals make, in terms of where to move, who to interact with and... more 1.The social decisions that individuals make, in terms of where to move, who to interact with and how frequently, scale up to generate social structure. Such structure has profound consequences: individuals each have a unique social environment, social interactions can amplify or dampen individual differences at the population level, and population-level ecological and evolutionary processes can be governed by higher-level ‘emergent properties’ of animal societies.2.Here we review how explicitly accounting for social structure in animal populations has generated new hypotheses and has revised existing predictions in ecology and evolution. That is, we synthesize the insights gained by applying ‘network-thinking’ rather than the utility of applying social network analysis as a methodological tool. 3.We start with what has been learned about the generative mechanisms that underpin social structure. We then outline the major implications that social structure has been found to have on p...

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2019

Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Jan 13, 2018

Variation in extra-pair paternity (EPP) among individuals of the same population could result fro... more Variation in extra-pair paternity (EPP) among individuals of the same population could result from stochastic demography or from individual differences in mating strategies. Although the adaptive value of EPP has been widely studied, much less is known about the characteristics of the social environment that drive the observed patterns of EPP. Here, we demonstrate how concepts and well-developed tools for the study of social behaviour (such as social network analysis) can enhance the study of extra-pair mating decisions (focussing in particular on avian mating systems). We present several hypotheses that describe how characteristics of the social environment in which individuals are embedded might influence the levels of EPP in a socially monogamous population. We use a multi-level social approach (Hinde, 1976) to achieve a detailed description of the social structure and social dynamics of individuals in a group. We propose that the pair-bond, the direct (local) social environment ...

Journal of Mammalogy, 2015

Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of an individual to modify its phenotype according to the cond... more Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of an individual to modify its phenotype according to the conditions it experiences, is a source of between individual variation and a mechanism by which individuals can cope with environmental change. Plasticity is expected to evolve in response to environmental heterogeneity, such as seasonality and year-to-year variation. We aimed to characterize the patterns of phenotypic change in morphological (body mass), life-history (reproductive success and litter size), and social (embeddedness) traits of female marmots, in response to climatic and social variation. We used data collected over 36 years on a population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) studied in Colorado. We used mixed effect models to explore the phenotypically plastic responses and tested for individual variation in the mean trait values (i.e., intercept) and in plasticity (i.e., slope). We showed that all examined traits were plastic and that the population's average plastic response often differed: 1) between spatially distinct colonies that varied systematically in the timing of snowmelt; 2) among age classes; and 3) between females with different previous reproductive experiences. Moreover, we showed individual differences in June mass and pup mass plasticity. We suggest that plasticity plays a key role buffering the effects of continuous changes in environmental conditions.

Conservation Science and Practice

Journal of Animal Ecology

1. Recent advances in technology allow researchers to automate the measurement of animal behaviou... more 1. Recent advances in technology allow researchers to automate the measurement of animal behaviour. These methods have multiple advantages over direct observations and manual data input as they reduce bias related to human perception and fatigue, and deliver more extensive and complete data sets that enhance statistical power. One major challenge that automation can overcome is the observation of many individuals at once, enabling whole-group or wholepopulation tracking. 2. We provide a detailed description for implementing an automated system for tracking birds. Our system uses printed, machine-readable codes mounted on backpacks. This simple, yet robust, tagging system can be used simultaneously on multiple individuals to provide data on bird identity, position and directionality. Further, because our codes and backpacks are printed on paper, they are very lightweight. 3. We describe the implementation of this automated system on two flocks of zebra finches. We test different camera options, and describe their advantages and disadvantages. We show that our method is reliable, relatively easy to implement and monitor, and with proper handling, has proved to be safe for the birds over long periods of time. Further, we highlight how using single- .

Ecological Modelling, 2017

Nature Communications, 2022

Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change o... more Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change over time through cultural drift, and the resulting dialects may consequently enhance the separation of populations. However, the emergence of song dialects has been considered unlikely when songs are highly individual-specific, as in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). Here we show that machine learning can nevertheless distinguish the songs from multiple captive zebra finch populations with remarkable precision, and that ‘cryptic song dialects’ predict strong assortative mating in this species. We examine mating patterns across three consecutive generations using captive populations that have evolved in isolation for about 100 generations. We cross-fostered eggs within and between these populations and used an automated barcode tracking system to quantify social interactions. We find that females preferentially pair with males whose song resembles that of the females’ adolescent peer...

Offspring provisioning represents a major reproductive cost. However, evidence suggests that pare... more Offspring provisioning represents a major reproductive cost. However, evidence suggests that parents sometimes feed unrelated offspring. Several hypotheses could explain this puzzling phenomenon. Adults could feed unrelated offspring that are (1) of close social associates to facilitate these juveniles' integration into their social network (resulting in social inheritance), (2) potential extra-pair offspring, (3) at a similar developmental stage as their own, (4) coercing feeding by begging, or (5) less-developed and who's enhanced survival would benefit the adult or its own offspring (the group augmentation hypothesis). Colonial breeders are ideal for investigating the relative importance of these hypotheses because offspring are often kept in crèches where adults can exhibit allofeeding. Using automated monitoring of replicated captive zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) colonies, we found that while parents selectively fed their own offspring, they also consistently fed un...

Acta Biológica Colombiana, 2004

The insular town of Barú (Cartagena, Bolívar, Colombia) lacks aqueduct and sewer system services;... more The insular town of Barú (Cartagena, Bolívar, Colombia) lacks aqueduct and sewer system services; however, Barú's habitants manipulate the water to satisfy their basic necessities. In this way, we evaluated water quality and characterized the dynamic of its use in Barú during the dry season (March of 2003). We answer two basic questions: is the available water in Barú suitable for human consumption? and, which are the events, flow and processes involved in its handling? The evaluation of the quality of the water was made by comparison of some physicochemical and microbiological variables versus the standards of the Colombian law. It was found that the water in Barú is not safe, due to coliforms. The dynamics of water use in this town was studied by interviewing some of the inhabitants and recognition trips of the available infrastructure. Information about consumption practices, habits and methods of treatment of sweet water, disposition of served waters and volume consumed by p...

Revista de Biología Tropical, 2018

Los capibaras son los roedores más grandes delmundo, sin embargo, no se han realizado estudios ge... more Los capibaras son los roedores más grandes delmundo, sin embargo, no se han realizado estudios gené-tico poblacionales exhaustivos con ellos. En el presentetrabajo se analizó la estructura genética de una manadade 31 capibaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) muestreadaen Hato Corozal, Departamento de Casanare en los Llanos Orientales de Colombia, mediante cinco marcadoresmicrosatelitales. La diversidad genética se determinó en0.61 y un número promedio de alelos de 5.2, lo cual sepuede considerar medio-bajo para este tipo de marcadores. De los cinco marcadores empleados, tres mostraronproporciones genotípicas en concordancia con lo esperadoen equilibrio Hardy-Weinberg, mientras que un marcadormostró un exceso significativo de homocigotos y otro unexceso significativo de heterocigotos. No se encontrarondiferencias significativas para esos cinco marcadores entremachos y hembras de la manada muestreada. La aplicaciónde diferentes procedimientos para detectar posibles cambios demográficos hi...

bioRxiv, 2021

Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change o... more Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change over time through a process of cultural drift, and may consequently enhance the separation of populations, potentially leading to reproductive isolation1–4. Local song dialects have been identified in bird species with relatively simple songs where individuals show high cultural conformity5–10. In contrast, the emergence of cultural dialects has been regarded as unlikely11–13 for species with more variable song, such as the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). Instead, it has been proposed that selection for individual recognition and distinctiveness may lead to a complete spread across the space of acoustic and syntactical possibilities11–15. However, another possibility is that analytical limitations have meant that subtle but possibly salient group differences have not yet been discovered in such species. Here we show that machine learning can distinguish the songs from multiple captive ...

En el trabajo se presenta un panorama general del estado actual de la legislacion en materia de f... more En el trabajo se presenta un panorama general del estado actual de la legislacion en materia de fauna silvestre vertebrada terrestre en Colombia, el cual es complementado con algunas actividades de conservacion y aprovechamiento del recurso faunistico, que han sido adelantadas por las autoridades ambientales. Ademas, se exponen y analizan conceptos biologicos usados dentro de la normatividad, que son considerados claves desde el punto de vista biologico para la aplicacion de las normas.

Ecology Letters, 2018

Temporal variation in environmental conditions affects population growth directly via its impact ... more Temporal variation in environmental conditions affects population growth directly via its impact on vital rates, and indirectly through induced variation in demographic structure and phenotypic trait distributions. We currently know very little about how these processes jointly mediate population responses to their environment. To address this gap, we develop a general transient life table response experiment (LTRE) which partitions the contributions to population growth arising from variation in (1) survival and reproduction, (2) demographic structure, (3) trait values and (4) climatic drivers. We apply the LTRE to a population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to demonstrate the impact of demographic and trait-mediated processes. Our analysis provides a new perspective on demographic buffering, which may be a more subtle phenomena than is currently assumed. The new LTRE framework presents opportunities to improve our understanding of how trait variation influences population dynamics and adaptation in stochastic environments.

1.The social decisions that individuals make, in terms of where to move, who to interact with and... more 1.The social decisions that individuals make, in terms of where to move, who to interact with and how frequently, scale up to generate social structure. Such structure has profound consequences: individuals each have a unique social environment, social interactions can amplify or dampen individual differences at the population level, and population-level ecological and evolutionary processes can be governed by higher-level ‘emergent properties’ of animal societies.2.Here we review how explicitly accounting for social structure in animal populations has generated new hypotheses and has revised existing predictions in ecology and evolution. That is, we synthesize the insights gained by applying ‘network-thinking’ rather than the utility of applying social network analysis as a methodological tool. 3.We start with what has been learned about the generative mechanisms that underpin social structure. We then outline the major implications that social structure has been found to have on p...

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2019

Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Jan 13, 2018

Variation in extra-pair paternity (EPP) among individuals of the same population could result fro... more Variation in extra-pair paternity (EPP) among individuals of the same population could result from stochastic demography or from individual differences in mating strategies. Although the adaptive value of EPP has been widely studied, much less is known about the characteristics of the social environment that drive the observed patterns of EPP. Here, we demonstrate how concepts and well-developed tools for the study of social behaviour (such as social network analysis) can enhance the study of extra-pair mating decisions (focussing in particular on avian mating systems). We present several hypotheses that describe how characteristics of the social environment in which individuals are embedded might influence the levels of EPP in a socially monogamous population. We use a multi-level social approach (Hinde, 1976) to achieve a detailed description of the social structure and social dynamics of individuals in a group. We propose that the pair-bond, the direct (local) social environment ...

Journal of Mammalogy, 2015

Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of an individual to modify its phenotype according to the cond... more Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of an individual to modify its phenotype according to the conditions it experiences, is a source of between individual variation and a mechanism by which individuals can cope with environmental change. Plasticity is expected to evolve in response to environmental heterogeneity, such as seasonality and year-to-year variation. We aimed to characterize the patterns of phenotypic change in morphological (body mass), life-history (reproductive success and litter size), and social (embeddedness) traits of female marmots, in response to climatic and social variation. We used data collected over 36 years on a population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) studied in Colorado. We used mixed effect models to explore the phenotypically plastic responses and tested for individual variation in the mean trait values (i.e., intercept) and in plasticity (i.e., slope). We showed that all examined traits were plastic and that the population's average plastic response often differed: 1) between spatially distinct colonies that varied systematically in the timing of snowmelt; 2) among age classes; and 3) between females with different previous reproductive experiences. Moreover, we showed individual differences in June mass and pup mass plasticity. We suggest that plasticity plays a key role buffering the effects of continuous changes in environmental conditions.

Conservation Science and Practice

Journal of Animal Ecology

1. Recent advances in technology allow researchers to automate the measurement of animal behaviou... more 1. Recent advances in technology allow researchers to automate the measurement of animal behaviour. These methods have multiple advantages over direct observations and manual data input as they reduce bias related to human perception and fatigue, and deliver more extensive and complete data sets that enhance statistical power. One major challenge that automation can overcome is the observation of many individuals at once, enabling whole-group or wholepopulation tracking. 2. We provide a detailed description for implementing an automated system for tracking birds. Our system uses printed, machine-readable codes mounted on backpacks. This simple, yet robust, tagging system can be used simultaneously on multiple individuals to provide data on bird identity, position and directionality. Further, because our codes and backpacks are printed on paper, they are very lightweight. 3. We describe the implementation of this automated system on two flocks of zebra finches. We test different camera options, and describe their advantages and disadvantages. We show that our method is reliable, relatively easy to implement and monitor, and with proper handling, has proved to be safe for the birds over long periods of time. Further, we highlight how using single- .

Ecological Modelling, 2017

El chigüiro Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris en la Orinoquía colombiana: Ecología, manejo sostenible y conservación, 2014

Evaluamos la calidad del hábitat disponible para el chigüiro (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) en dos c... more Evaluamos la calidad del hábitat disponible para el chigüiro (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) en dos cuadrantes de 3600 ha en el municipio de Paz de Ariporo (Hato Miramar y Hato Las Taparas), Casanare. Realizamos la evaluación del hábitat y utilizamos un modelo de evaluación que incorpora algunos requerimientos básicos de la especie y características del paisaje favorables para el establecimiento de sus poblaciones. Medimos cuatro variables a nanoescala (1:1) y diez variables a mesoescala (1:25 000) durante la época de lluvias (junio-julio 2004 y julio 2005) y la época seca (marzo 2006). A nanoescala evaluamos la disponibilidad de recursos como refugio (cobertura de escape y cobertura climática) y alimento (riqueza de especies y disponibilidad de alimento), que ofrecen las coberturas vegetales presentes en el área. A mesoescala evaluamos la disponibilidad de refugio (cobertura de escape y cobertura climática), alimento (riqueza de especies y disponibilidad) y agua; así como la presión de caza, presencia de adecuaciones de agua, y la configuración del paisaje (bordes, índice de dominancia e índice de yuxtaposición). Obtuvimos seis mapas de la distribución espacial de las coberturas vegetales y su respectivo mapa con la cuantificación de hábitats de calidad alta, media y baja. En el 2004 los cuadrantes de Paz de Ariporo presentaron alto porcentaje de hábitat adecuado disponible (Miramar 85.8 %, Las Taparas 88.0 %), debido a la mayor dispo-nibilidad de los recursos agua y forraje. La calidad de hábitat aumentó del año 2004 al 2005 en los cuadrantes de Paz de Ariporo (91.1 % Miramar, 93.3 % Las Taparas), debido al cambio en la composición del paisaje, lo que afectó positivamente la disponibilidad de recursos para la especie. En el año 2006, los cuadrantes de Miramar y Las Taparas disminuyeron el área de ca-lidad alta en un 85 y 69 % respectivamente, debido principalmente a la escasez en la oferta de recursos ocasionada por la época climática. El modelo de evaluación de hábitat que usamos mostró sensibilidad para identificar los cambios en las condiciones del hábitat observados en los cuadrantes de estudio, de tal forma que los cambios en la oferta de recursos o en el arreglo del paisaje se reflejan en los valores de HSI (Habitat Suitability Index) obtenidos.

El chigüiro Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris en la Orinoquía colombiana: Ecología, manejo sostenible y conservación, 2014

Desarrollamos un modelo de evaluación del hábitat disponible para el chigüiro (Hydrochoerus hydro... more Desarrollamos un modelo de evaluación del hábitat disponible para el chigüiro (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) en las sabanas inundables de la Orinoquía colombiana, usando los Procedimientos de Evaluación de Hábitat (HEP) propuestos por la U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Aplicamos el modelo en cuatro cuadrantes de 3600 ha en los municipios de Hato Corozal (año 2004) y Paz de Ariporo (años 2004, 2005 y 2006) en el departamento de Casanare. Mediante ensayos que incluían análisis estadístico, ajustamos el modelo con la información generada cada año, con el fin de hallar una relación positiva entre calidad del hábitat y la densidad poblacional. Realizamos la evaluación de hábitat a dos escalas: Nanoescala (1:1) y mesoescala (1:25 000). A nanoescala evaluamos la disponibilidad de los recursos refugio y alimento. A mesoescala evaluamos la disponibilidad de refugio, alimento y agua; presión de caza; presencia de adecuaciones para el depósito de agua; e índices de Dominancia, Yuxtaposición y Bordes. El modelo de evaluación de hábitat logró discriminar por calidades el hábitat disponible para el chigüiro, representando así, la oferta de los recursos presentes en el área de estudio. El modelo, también consiguió relacionar positivamente la calidad del hábitat con la densidad y la distribución de la especie.