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178 results for “great tit”
Competition and climate Great and Blue tit
<p>We studied the relationship between temperature and the coexistence of great tit <i>Parus major </i>and blue tit <i>Cyanistes caeruleus</i>, breeding in 75 study plots across Europe and North Africa.</p> <p>We expected an advance in laying date and a reduction in clutch size during warmer springs as a general response to climate warming and a delay in laying date and a reduction in clutch size during warmer winters due to density-dependent effects. As expected, as spring temperature increases laying date advances and as winter temperature increases clutch size is reduced in both species. </p> <p>Density of great tit affected the relationship between winter temperature and laying date in great and blue tit. Specifically, as density of great tit increased and temperature in winter increased both species started to reproduce later. Density of blue tit affected the relationship between spring temperature and blue and great tit laying date. Thus, both species start to reproduce earlier with increasing spring temperature as density of blue tit increases, which was not an expected outcome, since we expected that increasing spring temperature should advance laying date, while increasing density should delay it cancelling each other out.</p> <p>Climate warming and its interaction with density affects clutch size of great tits but not of blue tits. As predicted, great tit clutch size is reduced more with density of blue tits as temperature in winter increases. The relationship between spring temperature and density on clutch size of great tits depends on whether the increase is in density of great tit or blue tit. Therefore, an increase in temperature negatively affected the coexistence of blue and great tits differently in both species. Thus, blue tit clutch size was unaffected by the interaction effect of density with temperature, while great tit clutch size was affected in multiple ways by these interactions terms.</p>
Weather effects on nestling survival of great tits vary according to the developmental stage
<p class="CxSpFirst">Organisms change breeding investments as a function of the environment, thereby maximizing reproductive success. Climate change studies of avian life-history have long focused on plasticity of laying dates and clutch sizes in response to weather conditions prior to clutch initiation. By contrast, effects of unpredictable weather events occurring after initial reproductive decisions are made have largely been ignored, despite becoming increasingly important with ongoing climate change. We studied the detrimental effects of fluctuations in temperature and precipitation during various nesting phases of great tits (<em>Parus major</em>), identifying the developmental age windows where weather fluctuations affected hatching, nestling mass and fledging success. We used a longitudinal (8-year) dataset of great tits breeding in next boxes in southern Germany and applied a recently introduced explorative approach that does not require a priori assumptions on the time windows (range of ages) over which weather may affect reproductive parameters. Lower temperatures and higher precipitation during the nestling phase negatively affected nestling mass and survival: nestlings between the ages 6-9 days were most susceptible to this form of variation in weather. Effects of weather did not differ between years, i.e., there was no evidence for 'good' versus 'bad' years. Future research should focus on the mechanisms underpinning effects of weather on nestling growth and survival in other populations and consider whether age-dependent weather consequences occur in a wide variety of taxa, as specific developmental stages may serve as weak spots in a scenario of increasing recurrence of weather extremes.</p>
Data from: Heterozygosity is linked to the costs of immunity in nestling great tits (Parus major)
There is growing evidence that heterozygosity–fitness correlations (HFCs) are more pronounced under harsh conditions. Empirical evidence suggests a mediating effect of parasite infestation on the occurrence of HFCs. Parasites have the potential to mediate HFCs not only by generally causing high stress levels but also by inducing resource allocation tradeoffs between the necessary investments in immunity and other costly functions. To investigate the relative importance of these two mechanisms, we manipulated growth conditions of great tit nestlings by brood size manipulation, which modifies nestling competition, and simultaneously infested broods with ectoparasites. We investigated under which treatment conditions HFCs arise and, second, whether heterozygosity is linked to tradeoff decisions between immunity and growth. We classified microsatellites as neutral or presumed functional and analyzed these effects separately. Neutral heterozygosity was positively related to the immune response to a novel antigen in parasite-free nests, but not in infested nests. For nestlings with lower heterozygosity levels, the investments in immunity under parasite pressure came at the expenses of reduced feather growth, survival, and female body condition. Functional heterozygosity was negatively related to nestling immune response regardless of the growth conditions. These contrasting effects of functional and neutral markers might indicate different underlying mechanisms causing the HFCs. Our results confirm the importance of considering marker functionality in HFC studies and indicate that parasites mediate HFCs by influencing the costs of immune defense rather than by a general increase in environmental harshness levels.
Data from: Human recreation reduces clutch size in great tits Parus major regardless of risk-taking personality
Recreation negatively affects wildlife by influencing animal behaviour vital to reproduction and survival. Such non-consumptive effects of perceived predation risk are mainly studied in ground-breeding birds. However, if anti-predator responses characterize bird species generally, so should non-consumptive effects of perceived predation associated with human recreation. Moreover, as individuals consistently differ in behaviours linked to anti-predator responses, they should also differ in responses to recreation, with bolder birds being less affected. To test this key prediction, we quantified effects of human recreation pressure on a cavity-breeding passerine. We uniquely quantified human recreation pressure over a substantial (8-year) period within twelve nest-box populations of the great tit Parus major, assayed annually for reproductive parameters. We detected considerable spatial variation in recreation pressure. In plots with high recreation pressure, we found strong support for birds breeding further away from highly frequented paths and birds producing smaller clutches; we also found moderate support for birds producing fewer fledglings. These detrimental effects did not vary with behavioural proxies of an individual's risk-taking phenotype (exploratory activity). This implies that effects of recreation pressure apply to the average bird, and extend to species (like forest birds) not previously considered.
Data from: Eggshell spotting pattern is related to hatching asynchrony, hematocrit value and growth of nestling great tits (Parus major)
Eggshell pigmentation may signal the quality of the egg, that of the female and the environment, and thus nestling development may be related to this egg trait. However, so far, few studies have investigated the relationship between eggshell pigmentation and nestling development. Our aim was to study in a partial cross-fostering experiment whether the protoporphyrin-based eggshell pigmentation (spot intensity and spot distribution) showed any significant associations with several traits related to the development of nestling great tits (Parus major). We found that nestlings from clutches with darker spotted eggshells hatched more synchronously, had higher hematocrit value and shorter wings. Females under adverse environmental circumstances were previously shown to lay darker-spotted eggs, and these females probably delayed the start of incubation due to energetic constraints, resulting in a more synchronous hatching. The shorter wings of fledglings originating from clutches with darker-spotted eggs may be caused by the lower general quality of their mothers, mediated through either genetic factors or early maternal effects. Darker spotted eggs may contain different levels of some biomolecules than paler spotted eggs, which could have an effect on nestling metabolism and activity, resulting in an elevated hematocrit value. More aggregated eggshell spotting was related to faster bone growth and slightly longer fledging tarsus length. Eggs with aggregated spotting may have thinner eggshells that could lead to hatchlings with smaller bones due to the lower availability of calcium during development. Neslings may increase bone growth rate to compensate for their smaller initial size. Overall, our results indirectly suggest lower fitness for nestlings hatched from darker spotted eggs and for nestlings hatched from eggs with more aggregated spotting distribution due to the possible long-term costs of synchronous hatching, shorter wings, and accelerated tarsus growth rate.
Data from: The preference and costs of sleeping under light at night in forest and urban great tits
Artificial light at night (ALAN) is an increasing phenomenon associated with worldwide urbanisation. In birds, broad-spectrum white ALAN can have disruptive effects on activity patterns, metabolism, stress response and immune function. There has been growing research on whether the use of alternative light spectra can reduce these negative effects, but surprisingly, there has been no study to determine which light spectrum birds prefer. To test such a preference, we gave urban and forest great tits (Parus major) the choice where to roost using pairwise combinations of darkness, white or green dim light at night (1.5 lux). Birds preferred to sleep under artificial light instead of darkness, and green was preferred over white light. In a subsequent experiment, we investigated the consequence of sleeping under a particular light condition, and measured birds' daily activity levels, daily energy expenditure (DEE), oxalic acid as a biomarker for sleep debt, and cognitive abilities. White light affected activity patterns more than green light. Moreover, there was an origin-dependent response to spectral composition: in urban birds the total daily activity and night activity did not differ between white and green light, while forest birds were more active under white than green light. We also found that individuals who slept under white and green light had higher DEE. However, there were no differences in oxalic acid levels or cognitive abilities between light treatments. Thus, we argue that in naïve birds that never encountered light at night, white light might disrupt circadian rhythms more than green light. However, it is possible that negative effects of ALAN on sleep and cognition might be observed only under intensities higher than 1.5 lux. These results suggest that reducing the intensity of light pollution as well as tuning the spectrum towards long wavelengths may considerably reduce its impact.
Data from: Personality and gonadal development as sources of individual variation in response to GnRH challenge in female great tits
Seasonal timing of reproduction is a key life-history trait, but we know little about the mechanisms underlying individual variation in female endocrine profiles associated with reproduction. In birds, 17β-estradiol is a key reproductive hormone that links brain neuroendocrine mechanisms, involved in information processing and decision making, to downstream mechanisms in the liver, where egg-yolk is produced. Here we test, using a simulated induction of the reproductive system through a GnRH-challenge, whether the ovary of pre-breeding female great tits responds to a brain stimulation by increasing estradiol. We also assess how this response is modified by individual-specific traits like age, ovarian follicle size and personality, using females from lines artificially selected for divergent levels of exploratory behaviour. We show that a GnRH injection leads to a rapid increase in circulating concentrations of estradiol but responses varied among individuals. Females with more developed ovarian follicles showed stronger responses and females from lines selected for fast exploratory behaviour showed stronger increases compared to females from the slow line, indicating a heritable component. This study shows that the response of the ovary to a reproductive stimulation from the brain greatly varies among individuals and that this variation can be attributed to several commonly measured individual traits, which sheds light on the mechanisms shaping heritable endocrine phenotypes.
Behavioral data for Great tit responses to alarm calls under high temperatures
<p>This README accompanies the file "data_high temperatures alarm calls.txt"<br> <br> ********************************** CONTENTS ***********************************<br> The data are in table form with TABs as variables field delimiters so they can <br> be readily imported in any statistical package or spreadsheet program. Please, <br> contact us if you need the file formatted otherwise. </p> <p>This file includes a description of the variables.<br> <br> *******************************************************************************<br> Variable names and descriptions</p> <p>ID ID of the behavioral test <br> Date Date of the test experiment<br> Hour Date of the test experiment<br> Playback Playback ID of mobbing calls of great tits or Chaffinch songs used for the experiment <br> Treatment Control (Chaffinch songs) or Call (mobbing calls of great tits) treatment<br> Sex Sex of the focal individual<br> Ncalls Number of mobbing vocalizations emitted by the focal individual during 1 min of playback<br> Mindist Minimum distance to the speaker reached by the focal individual during 1 min of playback<br> T0 Air temperature during the experiment<br> T5 Mean temperature observed for the 5 hours before the test <br> T12 Mean temperature observed for the 12 hours before the test<br> T24 Mean temperature observed for the 24 hours before the test<br> T48 Mean temperature observed for the 48 hours before the test<br> Wind-km.h-1 Wind speed during the experiment<br> Humidity Air humidity during the experiment<br> P-hPa Atmospheric pressure during the experiment</p> <p>********************************* CONTACT **********************************<br> Please contact me at:</p> <p>Marion Cordonnier<br> e-mail: marion.cordonnier@hotmail.com<br> *******************************************************************************</p>
Territorial response predictability in radio-tagged great tits Parus major
<p>Territorial animals often use signals to advertise territorial occupancy within their larger home ranges. Songbirds are among the best-studied territorial signaling taxa, and when competitors start singing during a territorial intrusion, residents usually show elevated spatial and vocal responses. These responses could be used by intruders and distant eavesdroppers to predict future responses or to compare responses across competitors. Yet, the extent to which responses of a resident to a territorial intrusion predict its future responses and its overall spatial behavior (home range) within a neighborhood is less well understood. We used wild great tits (<em>Parus major</em>) as a model species in repeated song playback trials, simulating territorial intrusions combined with radio-tracking before and during playback trials. The time spent close to the loudspeaker in response to an initial simulated intrusion predicted the same response variable during a second simulated intrusion on the next day, whereas singing activity during the first simulated intrusion did not predict singing during the second simulated intrusion. We also show that more explorative males (as determined by a novel environment test) and males with smaller home ranges sang more and spent more time near the loudspeaker in response to both simulated intrusions. Thus, by probing residents, intruders can obtain reliable information about subsequent response probabilities, while eavesdroppers from a distance, who can use auditory information only, would not receive sufficient predictive information. Our findings also suggest that males with larger home ranges are more tolerant towards intruders, which could reflect a trade-off between tendencies to respond strongly and to range widely. The lack of predictability of singing activity with regard to responses to future intrusions might explain why territorial animals continuously exchange vocal signals and regularly foray into neighboring territories, as a way to obtain regular information updates.</p>
Data from: A longitudinal analysis of the growth rate and mass of tail feathers in a great tit population: ontogeny, genetic effects and relationship between traits
<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Feathers have a diversity of functions in birds and are costly to produce, so their growth rate and mass can be reliable indicators of nutritional condition at the time of production. Despite the potential for feather metrics to advance our understanding of foraging, they are underused in avian ecology. One reason for this is the difficulty of interpreting whether individual variation is driven by ontogenetic, genetic, or environmental effects, which is exacerbated by the fact that most analyses have been done on cross-sectional data. We addressed this deficit using a longitudinal dataset of tail feathers collected from Great tits <em>Parus major</em> to test for ontogenetic and genetic effects on growth rate, mass and length, while controlling for body/feather size differences and other confounding factors. First, we found that the type of moult episode and experimentally-induced replacement differentially affected the length, mass and growth of feathers, providing evidence of an ontogenetic effect that should be considered when comparing these feather traits across individuals as a measure of condition. Second, we detected moderate to high repeatability and heritability values from parent-offspring regression for these three feather traits, which are suggestive of an underlying genetic component of variation. Third, we used a mean centring within-individual approach to test whether feather growth rate and feather mass (length-corrected) are indeed positively correlated with each other as overlapping indicators of body condition in birds, and found that this association, although positive, is weak and only significant between individuals. This suggests that both metrics are not so intimately linked as originally thought, and probably have different sensitivities to variation in foraging performance and ecological conditions. Together with the higher plasticity of feather growth rate compared to feather mass, our results support the idea that feather growth rate is better suited for examining short-term responses to environmental variation.</p>
Data from: A time series model for estimating temporal variation in phenotypic selection on laying dates in a Dutch great tit population
[No abstract entered]
Great tit (Parus major) nestlings have longer telomeres in old-growth forests than in young forests
<p>Modification and deterioration of old-growth forests by industrial forestry have seriously threatened species diversity worldwide. The loss of natural habitats increases the concentration of circulating glucocorticoids and incurs chronic stress in animals, influencing the immune system, growth, survival, and lifespan of animals inhabiting such areas. In this study, we tested whether great tit (Parus major) nestlings grown in old-growth unmanaged coniferous forests have longer telomeres than great tit nestlings developing in young managed coniferous forests. This study showed that the patches of young managed coniferous forests had lower larval biomass than old-growth forests. Since insect larvae are the preferred food for great tit nestlings, the shortage of food may divert energy resources away from growth, which can show up as physiological stress, often raising the heterophil/lymphocyte (H/L) ratio. The H/L ratio revealed a significant difference in stress levels, being the highest in great tit nestlings developing in young-managed pine forests. We also found that the development of great tit nestlings in young managed forests had significantly shorter telomeres than in old-growth forests. Although nestling survival did not differ between the habitats, nestlings growing up in old-growth forests had greater telomere lengths, which can positively affect their lifespan. Our results suggest that the forest habitats affected by industrial forestry may represent ecological traps as the development of young birds in deteriorated environments can affect the age structure of populations.</p>
Data from: Distribution and abundance of glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors throughout the brain of the great tit Parus major
The glucocorticoid stress response, regulated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, enables individuals to cope with stressors through transcriptional effects in cells expressing the appropriate receptors. The two receptors that bind glucocorticoids—the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR)—are present in a variety of vertebrate tissues, but their expression in the brain is especially important. Neural receptor patterns have the potential to integrate multiple behavioral and physiological traits simultaneously, including self-regulation of glucocorticoid secretion through negative feedback processes. In the present work, we quantified the expression of GR and MR mRNA throughout the brain of a female great tit (Parus major), creating a distribution map encompassing 48 regions. This map, the first of its kind for P. major, demonstrated a widespread but not ubiquitous distribution of both receptor types. In the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) and the hippocampus (HP)—the two brain regions that we sampled from a total of 25 birds, we found high GR mRNA expression in the former and, unexpectedly, low MR mRNA in the latter. We examined the covariation of MR and GR levels in these two regions and found a strong, positive relationship between MR in the PVN and MR in the HP and a similar trend for GR across these two regions. This correlation supports the idea that hormone pleiotropy may constrain an individual's behavioral and physiological phenotype. In the female song system, we found moderate GR in hyperstriatum ventrale, pars caudalis (HVC), and moderate MR in robust nucleus of the arcopallium (RA). Understanding intra- and interspecific patterns of glucocorticoid receptor expression can inform us about the behavioral processes (e.g. song learning) that may be sensitive to stress and stimulate future hypotheses concerning the relationships between receptor expression, circulating hormone concentrations and performance traits under selection, including behavior.
Figure 1. A in A contribution to avian ectoparasite fauna of Turkey: the reports of feather mites and tick on the Great tit (Parus major L.)
Figure 1. A. Analges mucronatus (female), B. Analges mucronatus (male), C. Proctophyllodes stylifer (female).
Social network centrality predicts dietary decisions in wild great tits
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Data from: A longitudinal analysis of the growth rate and mass of tail feathers in a great tit population: ontogeny, genetic effects and relationship between traits
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Data from: Human recreation reduces clutch size in great tits Parus major regardless of risk-taking personality
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Weather effects on nestling survival of great tits vary according to the developmental stage
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Data from: Nest height is affected by lamppost lighting proximity in addition to nestbox size in urban great tits
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Data from: Eggshell spotting pattern is related to hatching asynchrony, hematocrit value and growth of nestling great tits (Parus major)
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