Public information affects breeding dispersal in a colonial bird: kittiwakes cue on neighbours (original) (raw)
Related papers
Public Information and Breeding Habitat Selection in a Wild Bird Population
Science, 2002
According to the "public information" hypothesis, some animal species may monitor the current reproductive success of conspecifics to assess local habitat quality and to choose their own subsequent breeding site. To test this hypothesis experimentally, we manipulated two components of public information, the mean number of offspring raised locally ("quantity") and their condition ("quality"), in the collared flycatcher Ficedula albicollis. Immigration rate decreased with local offspring quantity but did not depend on local offspring quality, suggesting that immigrants are deprived of information regarding local quality. Conversely, emigration rate increased both when local offspring quantity or quality decreased, suggesting that residents can use both components of public information.
Oikos, 2006
Breeding performance, mate fidelity, and nest site fidelity in a long-lived seabird: behaving against the current? Á Oikos 115: 263 Á276. There is evidence that breeding failure is associated with divorce and dispersal in many bird species. However, deviations from the general pattern ''success-stay/failure-leave'' seem to be common, suggesting that factors other than breeding performance may importantly influence mate and habitat selection. Moreover, variability in response to performance suggests coexistence of different evolutionary strategies of mate and site selection within a population. In this study, we assessed how individuals conform to the success-stay/failure-leave pattern in kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla), and aimed to identify categories of individuals presenting different behavioural patterns. We considered individual attributes (experience, prior residence at the nest site, performance in multiple breeding attempts), pair attributes (arrival asynchrony, timing of failure, pair duration), and productivity in habitat patches. Timing of failure was an important factor. Pair reunion probability was close to 0.5 in failed pairs, but it was consistently higher in early failed than in late failed pairs. Prior residence better explained variability in probability of reunion in failed pairs than pair duration. However, the positive influence of prior residence on the probability of reunion was perceptible only in early failed pairs. Divorce probability in successful pairs increased with arrival asynchrony, and was higher in first-time than in experienced breeders. Local productivity positively influenced site fidelity probability in early failed birds, but not in late failed ones. Using memory models, we found that dispersal decisions integrate information on individual breeding performance in a temporal scale longer than one year. This study contributed to the identification of relevant states to be considered when addressing mate and nest site choice. Natural selection may operate on slight fitness differences that cannot be detected without high levels of stratification according to the appropriate individual and habitat attributes.
Journal of Animal Ecology, 2001
The role of individual experience vs. the use of conspecific cues on breeding dispersal decisions have seldom been determined in colonial birds. We studied causes of breeding dispersal in the lesser kestrel ( Falco naumanni ), a species that breeds in colonies of variable size as well as solitarily. During a 6-year study in Spain, we gathered information on 486 subsequent breeding attempts and on 26 explanatory variables which evaluated individual experience, conspecific cues in terms of breeding performance and colony size, and different ecological and populational characteristics. 2. Two decisions were separately analysed: whether or not to disperse, and how far to move. Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) allowed us to identify the relative contribution of each explanatory variable while controlling for the non-independence of individual dispersal decisions across years. 3. Females seemed to disperse more often than males (34% vs. 19%), and both sexes apparently dispersed less with age. However, a GLMM showed that experience (i.e. the number of years a bird bred in a particular colony) was the only factor influencing breeding dispersal. Birds showed higher site fidelity the greater their experience in a colony, which could be related to benefits derived of increased local familiarity. A second GLMM showed that, before birds acquired experience in a particular colony, individual nest failure due to predation and proximity to other colonies increased the probability of dispersal, dispersal being also higher in colonies with poor conspecific breeding success. Furthermore, solitary nesting birds were more prone to disperse and dispersal probability decreased the larger the colony of origin, according to fitness expectations associated with colony size. 4. A GLMM explaining dispersal distances retained two variables -birds dispersed farther the lower the breeding density in the surroundings, and the larger the distance to the nearest colony. Dispersing birds tended to settle within their previous foraging areas (median dispersal distance = 1·6 km), being constrained by the availability of nearby colonies. 5. Lesser kestrels mainly cue on their own breeding performance and experience in a particular colony at the time of taking a dispersal decision. However, inexperienced birds also partially cue on the size and breeding success of their own colonies ( but not on the size or breeding performance of other colonies), and birds moved larger distances when dispersing from areas of low populational density. These results support some degree of conspecific attraction. . Probability of colony change as predicted by the GLMM for inexperienced birds: (a) individuals whose nests were predated; ( b) individuals whose nests were not predated. Continuous lines correspond to breeding failure of colony neighbours and discontinuous lines to colony neighbours raising an average of four fledglings. Number of pairs show probabilities for three different colony sizes. . Observed dispersal distances for male () and female (ᮀ) lesser kestrels.
Can non-breeding be a cost of breeding dispersal?
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2002
Breeding habitat selection and dispersal are crucial processes that affect many components of fitness. Breeding dispersal entails costs, one of which has been neglected: dispersing animals may miss breeding opportunities because breeding dispersal requires finding a new nesting site and mate, two time-and energy-consuming activities. Dispersers are expected to be prone to non-breeding. We used the kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) to test whether breeding dispersal influences breeding probability. Breeding probability was associated with dispersal, in that both were negatively influenced by private information (previous individual reproductive success) and public information (average reproductive success of conspecifics) about patch quality. Furthermore, the probability of skipping breeding was 1.7 times higher in birds that settled in a new patch relative to those that remained on the same patch. Finally, non-breeders that resumed breeding were 4.4 times more likely to disperse than birds that bred in successive years. Although private information may influence breeding probability directly, the link between breeding probability and public information may be indirect, through the influence of public information on breeding dispersal, non-breeding thus being a cost of dispersal. These results support the hypothesis that dispersal may result in not being able to breed. More generally, non-breeding (which can be interpreted as an extreme form of breeding failure) may reveal costs of various previous activities. Because monitoring the non-breeding portion of a population is difficult, nonbreeders have been neglected in many studies of reproduction trade-offs.
Effects of Prior Nesting Success on Site Fidelity and Breeding Dispersal: An Experimental Approach
The Auk, 1998
Based on more than 300 individually marked American Robins (Turdus migratorius) and Brown Thrashers (Toxostoma rufum), I tested three hypotheses to explain low return rates of birds whose nesting attempts are unsuccessful: (1) birds with low reproductive success are low-quality individuals that are more likely to suffer mortality between breeding seasons; (2) nesting failure increases reproductive effort by causing birds to renest, and this energetic stress increases the probability of mortality; and (3) birds use a "decision rule" based on prior experience to select nesting sites, such that individuals that experience low reproductive success are more likely to move to an alternate breeding site, whereas birds that nest successfully are more likely to breed in the same site again. Birds subjected to experimental nesting failure returned at a significantly lower rate (robins 18%, thrashers 12%) than birds that nested successfully (robins 44%, thrashers 29%). Birds that nested more than once in a season returned at rates (robins 43%, thrashers 21%) indistinguishable from birds that nested only once in a season (robins 36%, thrashers 23%). These results, as well as supplementary data, were inconsistent with hypotheses I and 2 and consistent with hypothesis 3. This study provides strong evidence that low return rates result from dispersal in response to nesting failure.
Scientific Reports, 2017
Studying colonisation is crucial to understand metapopulations, evolutionary ecology and species resilience to global change. Unfortunately, few empirical data are available because field monitoring that includes empty patches at large spatiotemporal scales is required. We examine the colonisation dynamics of a long-lived seabird over 34 years in the western Mediterranean by comparing population and individual data from both source colony and the newly-formed colonies. Since social information is not available, we hypothesize that colonisation should follow particular dispersal dynamics and personal information must be crucial in decision making. We test if adverse breeding conditions trigger colonisation events, if personal information plays a role in colonisation and if colonisers experience greater fitness. Our results show a temporal mismatch between colonisation events and both density-dependence and perturbations at the source colony, probably because colonisers needed a longe...
Animal Behaviour, 2008
The use of public information is an important component of breeding habitat selection in birds, especially for colonial species. In this way, individuals can reduce the costs of information acquisition, allowing them to make faster and better settlement decisions based on the quality of breeding sites. We studied the roles of two possible sources of public information on breeding habitat selection in the colonial lesser kestrel, Falco naumanni: number of conspecifics settled in the colony ('the social attraction hypothesis') and average brood size at fledging in the colony in the previous season ('the performance-based attraction hypothesis'). Furthermore, we analysed the time at which information is obtained. To attain this we used the rate of occupancy of the colony. We found that average number of fledglings raised in the colony, but not the number of conspecifics breeding the previous year, was correlated with the rate of occupancy, suggesting that public information on conspecific breeding performance may reveal habitat quality and determine colony selection by lesser kestrels. We also found that the number of conspecifics settled at the beginning of the current season did not determine the rate of occupancy of colonies at later stages. Overall, this study provides support for the performance-based attraction hypothesis but not for the social attraction hypothesis. These results may have important implications for management and conservation.
Breeding dispersal in black‐headed gull: the value of familiarity in a contrasted environment
Journal of Animal Ecology, 2010
1. Some species (e.g. migratory species with high movement ability) are unlikely to experience any physical cost when dispersing, at least at the landscape scale. In these species dispersal is nevertheless behaviourally constrained to avoid non-physical costs such as the loss of familiarity with the breeding environment, and these constraints can be maladaptive in a fast-changing environment. 2. We evaluated such constraints using multievent modelling of a 20-year capture-mark-recapture data set from a multisite population of Black-headed Gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus). The population undertakes seasonal migrations that are very large compared with the size of the study area.
Oecologia
Animals explore and prospect space searching for resources and individuals may disperse, targeting suitable patches to increase fitness. Nevertheless, dispersal is costly because it implies leaving the patch where the individual has gathered information and reduced uncertainty. In social species, information gathered during the prospection process for deciding whether and where to disperse is not only personal but also public, i.e. conspecific density and breeding performance. In empty patches, public information is not available and dispersal for colonisation would be more challenging. Here we study the prospecting in a metapopulation of colonial Audouin’s gulls using PTT platform terminal transmitters tagging for up to 4 years and GPS tagging during the incubation period. A large percentage of birds (65%) prospected occupied patches; strikingly, 62% of prospectors also visited empty patches that were colonised in later years. Frequency and intensity of prospecting were higher for ...