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Avian nesting associations are a prominent feature of breeding bird communities. Protective associations between a predator and prey species represent a scenario where typically antagonistic interacting species may confer benefits on each species. The outcomes of these interactions are likely to be context‐dependent and influenced by biotic and abiotic conditions. African Pygmy Falcons Polihierax semitorquatus...
When waders gather in mixed‐species flocks to feed on benthic prey, differences in morphological traits, foraging strategies and prey selection may allow different species to optimize their energy intake while reducing competition. As the effect of the fine‐scale spatial distribution of resources on energy intake is unknown, we simulated the foraging performance of two types of waders with contrasting...
Biodiversity, ecosystem services and human health are becoming increasingly integrated in the ‘One Health’ concept, including recognition of the impacts of biodiversity loss on human health. Birds have considerable potential to benefit human health through their contributions to ecosystem functioning, recreation, and provision of pest control and pollination services, commonly referred to as ecosystem...
Mountain birds face numerous challenges caused by altitude‐dependent environmental seasonality. Although elevation gradients may affect bird morphology, migration strategy and/or phenology of seasonal events (breeding and moulting), the life histories of highland compared with lowland birds have been little explored. In this study we compared the growth rate and mass of the tail feathers of six forest...
Migratory birds must fit three costly life‐history events within the annual cycle, reproduction, moult and migration, to minimize their overlap and maximize survival and breeding success. However, some seabirds, such as Cory's Shearwater Calonectris borealis, overlap body moult and breeding, with flight feather renewal occurring in late chick‐rearing. In contrast, the moult patterns of non‐breeding...
Variation in relative interspecific brain size has been correlated with cognitive capacities in different animal groups. Bird nest construction is one of the most remarkable animal abilities, and has reached the highest diversification in the Passeriformes. Yet, its relationship with brain size is not fully understood. Here, we used a dataset of 455 species to address potential correlations between...
The vocal activity and detectability of tropical birds are subject to high levels of temporal heterogeneity, but quantifying patterns of diel and day‐to‐day variation in complex systems is challenging with traditional point count methods. As a result, research concerning stochastic temporal effects on tropical bird assemblages is limited, typically offering only broad conclusions, such as that overall...
Vertebrate populations are often monitored as part of broader assessments of ecosystem status, where they are expected to provide information on the ability of the ecosystem to support higher‐level predators. However, because many vertebrates are long‐lived and often only subsets of their populations can be monitored, abundance may not be sufficiently responsive to ecosystem status to provide early...
Knowledge of seabird distributions plays a key role in seabird conservation and sustainable marine management, underpinning efforts to designate protected areas or assess the impact of human developments. Technological advances in animal tracking devices increasingly allow researchers to acquire information on the movement of birds from specific colonies. Nevertheless, most seabird colonies have not...