The atlas of birds Unwin, Mike; Unwin, Mike
2011., 20110620, 2011, 2011-06-20
eBook
The Atlas of Birds captures the breathtaking diversity of birds, and illuminates their conservation status around the world. Full-color maps show where birds are found, both by country and terrain, ...and reveal how an astounding variety of behavioral adaptations--from flight and feeding to nest building and song--have enabled them to thrive in virtually every habitat on Earth. Maps of individual journeys and global flyways chart the amazing phenomenon of bird migration, while bird classification is explained using maps for each order and many key families.
Each year shorebirds from North and South America migrate thousands of miles to spend the summer in the Arctic. There they feed in shoreline marshes and estuaries along some of the most productive ...and pristine coasts anywhere. With so much available food they are able to reproduce almost explosively; and as winter approaches, they retreat south along with their offspring, to return to the Arctic the following spring. This remarkable pattern of movement and activity has been the object of intensive study by an international team of ornithologists who have spent a decade counting, surveying, and observing these shorebirds. In this important synthetic work, they address multiple questions about these migratory bird populations. How many birds occupy Arctic ecosystems each summer? How long do visiting shorebirds linger before heading south? How fecund are these birds? Where exactly do they migrate and where exactly do they return? Are their populations growing or shrinking? The results of this study are crucial for better understanding how environmental policies will influence Arctic habitats as well as the far-ranging winter habitats used by migratory shorebirds.
No previous study has examined the large-scale distributional drivers of the entire global pool of 3,499 macrophyte species, despite the obvious importance of this for understanding the macroecology ...of these plants. To assess the hypothesis that natural rather than human-related transfer vectors act as the primary long-distance drivers of global movement of aquatic macrophytes, we analysed current macrophyte species distributions in relation to a set of human-related and natural transfer vectors. Most macrophytes (2,492 species: 71.2% of the global total) are endemic to a single ecozone, and generally lack the various functional adaptations needed for successful long-distance propagule transport. Such traits are, however, common in the 1,007 (28.8%) species native in > 1 ecozone. In total, 779 species (22.3%) are introduced, naturalised or invasive (I species) in one or more ecozones outwith their native range. The proportion of I species varies between ecozones and is best predicted by annual temperature and longitude. A migratory bird transfer vector and climatic variables strongly predict global native macrophyte species occurrence. Some native species of Miocene origin (or older) may have had their world distribution influenced by ancient vicariance events, while inter-ecozone hydrochory and Late Quaternary climate change are also relevant factors influencing a few species.
Video surveillance of nesting birds Ribic, Christine A; Thompson, Frank R., III; Pietz, Pamela J
2012., 20120513, 2012, 2012-06-12, Letnik:
43
eBook
Declining bird populations, especially those that breed in North American grasslands, have stimulated extensive research on factors that affect nest failure and reduced reproductive success. Until ...now, this research has been hampered by the difficulties inherent in observing nest activities. Video Surveillance of Nesting Birds highlights the use of miniature video cameras and recording equipment yielding new important and some unanticipated insights into breeding bird biology, including previously undocumented observations of hatching, incubation, fledging, diurnal and nocturnal activity patterns, predator identification, predator-prey interactions, and cause-specific rates of nest loss. This seminal contribution to bird reproductive biology uses tools capable of generating astonishing results with the potential for fresh insights into bird conservation, management, and theory.
Physiological Adaptations for Breeding in Birdsis the most current and comprehensive account of research on avian reproduction. It develops two unique themes: the consideration of female avian ...reproductive physiology and ecology, and an emphasis on individual variation in life-history traits. Tony Williams investigates the physiological, metabolic, energetic, and hormonal mechanisms that underpin individual variation in the key female-specific reproductive traits and the trade-offs between these traits that determine variation in fitness.
The core of the book deals with the avian reproductive cycle, from seasonal gonadal development, through egg laying and incubation, to chick rearing. Reproduction is considered in the context of the annual cycle and through an individual's entire life history. The book focuses on timing of breeding, clutch size, egg size and egg quality, and parental care. It also provides a primer on female reproductive physiology and considers trade-offs and carryover effects between reproduction and other life-history stages. In each chapter, Williams describes individual variation in the trait of interest and the evolutionary context for trait variation. He argues that there is only a rudimentary, and in some cases nonexistent, understanding of the physiological mechanisms that underpin individual variation in the major reproductive life-history traits, and that research efforts should refocus on these key unresolved problems by incorporating detailed physiological studies into existing long-term population studies, generating a new synthesis of physiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology.
The authors have obtained original material on the fauna and population structure of oribatid mites inhabiting nests of the European Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca, Passeriformes, hollow-nesting ...bird) on the territory of the taiga zone of the European North-East of Russia. Long-term research and the collection of nests were carried out in the green zone of Syktyvkar in 2017–2022. Observations were made for artificial nests (hollows) of a box type with a bottom area of 100 cmsup.2. The material of the tray was collected completely. In 135 studied nests of Pied Flycatchers, 1762 specimens were found and identified for 22 species of oribatid mites from 19 genera and 16 families. In the nests of the Pied Flycatcher, a complex of species was found that is known as an arboricolous species for this region; these are Oribatula (Zygoribatula) propinqua, Oribatula (Z.) exilis, Trichoribates (T.) berlesei, and Ameronothrus oblongus. We suggested that arboricolous species, as well as eurytopic species, can actively inhabit bird nests. Highly numerous in our collections were representatives of the Oribatulidae and Scheloribatidae families; they are Oribatula (Z.) propinqua, Oribatula (Z.) exilis, Oribatula (O.) tibialis, and Scheloribates laevigatus. Epigeic species are dominated by the species number. The fauna of oribatid mites mainly included widespread Holarctic species (54.54%).
Bachman's Sparrows (Peucaea aestivalis) have unusually large song repertoires tor New World sparrows. Answering questions about their function, evolution, and development requires thorough ...description of these repertoires in multiple populations. Here, we quantified repertoire size, song type sharing, and sequence sharing specifically, the sharing of preferred song type transitions--of primary songs within each of 2 populations of Bachman's Sparrows at northeastern and southeastern ends of the species' breeding range. We recorded 20 males in southern North Carolina (NC) and 18 males in eastern Florida (FL). Individual repertoire size had a mean of 48-49 song types in both populations. Within each population, males shared many song types, with 80% repertoire overlap between any 2 males in NC and 49% in FL. This withinpopulation song sharing was independent of distance between males' territories. The sequence in which males sang song types was neither stereotyped nor random, and within each population, preferred song transitions were shared by all (NC) or most (FL) pairs of males. The sharing of preferred song transitions was also not correlated with the distance between territories, suggesting that birds do not adjust repertoires or song sequences in adulthood to match more closely those of territory neighbors. The function and ontogeny of the repertoire features documented here in Bachman's Sparrows -large repertoires with high sharing of both song types and preferred song transitions--invite further study. Received 2 February 2022. Accepted 24 May 2022.
The young of some altricial bird species hatch asynchronously, which can lead to considerable size differences among siblings. Nestling traits such as body mass, moreover, can carry over and ...influence post-fledging survival. Despite the potential importance of nestling mass for reproductive outcomes, however, variation in nestling mass and relationships with brood size has been described and quantified rarely. We weighed 453 nestlings from 148 nests of 3 sympatric, sagebrush-associated songbird species in Wyoming, USA. to describe the range of intrabrood mass differences. Intrabrood differences in nestling mass were greatest for the largest species, the Sage Thrasher (Orcoscoptes montanus), for which the smallest nestling in a brood was on average 26.2% smaller than the largest. The smaller Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus) and Brewer's Sparrow (Spizella breweri) exhibited similar intrabrood mass ratios, with the smallest nestling being 1 7.4% and 18.4% smaller on average than the largest for the 2 species, respectively. For each additional nestling within a brood, the smallest nestling was an additional 6.6-13.6% smaller than the largest nestling, depending on species. Understanding the extent of intrabrood variation in nestling traits has important implications for the productivity of species facing unpredictable environments. Received 19 April 2021. Accepted 10 February 2022.
In an attempt to standardize elements of the station routine, the book describes the procedures used in passerine and wader ringing stations. It offers a comparative analysis of versatile evaluation ...techniques such as measurements, orientation experiments and monitoring. The authors meticulously analyze different methods used to track birds, including catching passerines with mist-nets in land and wetland habitat, as well as the use of the Heligoland trap. The monograph, as a successful bid to establish a bird station routine that is favourable to both birds and ringers, will benefit all professional and amateur ringers.
This study investigated the picobiine mites parasitising African barbets. The results showed that this bird family is more widely infested by feather mites than previously thought, with three species ...of the genus Tanopicobia found on ten African barbet species. Birds belonging to the family Lybiidae have a unique parasite fauna consisting exclusively of mites from the genus Tanopicobia, which is restricted solely to African barbets. Based on the distribution of the genus Tanopicobia on the studied barbet hosts, our results also provide indirect cues that the host genus Trachyphonus, attributed to such different avian families, e.g., Capitonidae, Ramphastidae, is part of the family Lybiidae, whereas other/related bird families have their own distinct quill mite fauna. In this study, we conducted a parasitological investigation of the quill mite fauna of the subfamily Picobiinae (Acariformes: Prostigmata: Syringophilidae) associated with African barbets (Aves: Piciformes: Lybiidae). We examined twenty-seven host species, representing 57% of the forty-seven known host species in the family Lybiidae, belonging to seven genera (70% of the ten genera in the family). Our research revealed that ten host species were infested by three species of picobiine mites belonging to the genus Tanopicobia: (1) Tanopicobia hallae Sikora and Skoracki, sp. n., from three species of the genus Lybius and two species of the genus Tricholaema, (2) Tanopicobia stactolaema Sikora and Skoracki, sp. n., from two species of the genus Stactolaema, and (3) Tanopicobia trachyphoni Skoracki et al., 2020, collected from three host species of the genus Trachyphonus. Our findings demonstrate that birds belonging to the family Lybiidae have a specific parasite fauna consisting exclusively of mites of the genus Tanopicobia; this mite genus is apparently restricted to African barbets.
