Find research datasets worth reusing
Search datasets from major research repositories and use ShareScore to quickly assess how well each record supports discovery, access, and reuse.
26
datasets available to search
ShareScore release 0.9.0
Dataset results
26 results for “Kestrel”
Figure 1 in Home range and foraging habitat selection by breeding lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni) in Greece
Figure 1. Minimum convex polygon home ranges (outer: 100%, interior: 95% of locations) of male (A) and female (B) lesser kestrels during the breeding season in central Greece, 2008.
Disentangling relationships between physiology, morphology, diet, and gut microbial diversity in American Kestrel nestlings
<p>Gut microbiota are increasingly recognized as important drivers of host health and fitness across vertebrate taxa. Given that gut microbial composition is directly influenced by the environment, gut microbiota may also serve as an eco-physiological mechanism connecting host ecology, such as diet, and physiology. Although gut microbiota have been well-studied in mammalian systems, little is known about how gut microbial diversity and composition impact morphological and physiological development in wild birds. Here, we characterized both diet and gut microbial diversity of free-living American kestrel (<em>Falco sparverius</em>) nestlings throughout development to test whether gut microbial diversity predicts host morphological and physiological traits in either contemporary or time-lagged manners. Gut microbial alpha diversity on day 21 of nestling development was positively correlated with diet alpha diversity representative of the majority of nestling development (days 5–20). Gut microbial alpha diversity early in development was negatively correlated with body mass in both contemporary and time-lagged manners. Gut microbial alpha diversity early in development was positively correlated with blood glucose later in development. As nestlings experience rapid growth demands in preparation to fledge, these time-lagged associations may indicate that gut microbial diversity at early critical developmental windows may determine the future trajectory of morphological and physiological traits underlying metabolism that ultimately impact fitness.</p>
Sex, body size, and winter weather explain migration strategies in a partial migrant population of American Kestrels (Falco sparverius)
<p>Given increasing evidence that climate change affects the annual cycles of birds, it is important to understand the mechanisms underlying individual migration strategies and population-level patterns in partial migrants. In this study, we found that thermoregulation (body size and winter temperatures) was a key driver of American Kestrel (<em>Falco</em> <em>sparverius</em>) migration decisions. The annual proportion of migrants in the population, however, was not explained by winter weather and may be the result of differential survival. We measured stable hydrogen isotope values (δD) of talon tissues collected from 501 breeding and overwintering birds to distinguish migrant from resident kestrels in a partially migratory population of American Kestrels in southwestern Idaho in 2013–2021. We then evaluated drivers of migration decisions by assessing potential correlates of migration strategies, whether individuals switched migration strategies between years, and whether the proportion of migrants in the population changed over time or was correlated with winter weather. Male kestrels were 1.6 times more likely to migrate than females, and in colder than average winters, smaller birds of both sexes were more likely to migrate than larger birds. Only 27% of 26 recaptured individuals showed evidence of switching their migration strategies on an annual basis. There was no temporal trend in the proportion of migrants in the population, but proportions varied between years. Interestingly, there was no association between winter minimum temperature anomalies and annual migrant proportions in the population, suggesting that differential over-winter survival, or other stochastic processes, may play an important role in population composition. As winters continue to warm, fewer kestrels may migrate and more may remain resident on breeding grounds. However, it is unclear how changes in migration strategies might affect population-level patterns and resilience to climate change.</p>
Disentangling relationships between physiology, morphology, diet, and gut microbial diversity in American Kestrel nestlings
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Sex, body size, and winter weather explain migration strategies in a partial migrant population of American Kestrels (Falco sparverius)
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Grooming time predicts survival in American kestrels
<p>Animals have evolved a variety of adaptations to care for the body surface, such as grooming behavior, which keeps the integument clean, parasite-free, and properly arranged. Despite extensive research on the grooming of mammals, birds, and arthropods, the survival value of grooming has never been measured directly in natural populations. We monitored grooming and survival in a population of marked American kestrels (<em>Falco sparverius</em>) on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. We found a strong association between time spent grooming and survival over a two-year period. The quadratic relationship we show is consistent with stabilizing natural selection on grooming time. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence for a correlation between grooming time and survival in a natural population. Grooming time may predict the survival of many animal taxa, but additional studies are needed to determine the shape and strength of the relationship among birds, mammals and arthropods.</p>
Itinerant lifestyle and congregation of lesser kestrels in West Africa
<p>Trans-Saharan migrants often spend a large proportion of their annual cycle wintering in the Sahel. Advances in fieldwork and tracking technology have greatly enhanced our ability to study their ecology in these areas. Using GPS-tracking we aimed to investigate the little-known non-breeding movements of the lesser kestrel <em>Falco</em> <em>naumanni</em> in sub-Saharan Africa. We segment non-breeding tracks (n = 79 tracks by 54 individuals) into staging events (131± 25 days per non-breeding cycle), itinerant movements between staging sites (11 ± 10 days), and non-directed exploratory movements (6 ± 5 days). We then describe timing and directionality of itinerant movements by male and female kestrels throughout the non-breeding season. Regardless of sex, lesser kestrels spent on average 89% of the non-breeding season staging at 2 (range = 1–4) sites in West Africa. At the end of September, kestrels arrived along a broad front throughout the northern Sahel. By December, however, they congregated into two distinct clusters in Senegal and along the Malian-Mauritanian border. The birds stayed for longer periods and showed greater daily activity in the latter areas, compared to their first and intermediate ones. Among 24 individuals tracked along multiple annual cycles, 20 individuals consistently used the Senegalese or Malian-Mauritanian cluster. The remaining four birds used these clusters only after 2-3 years of tracking or switched between clusters across years. The eastward and westward itinerant movements of lesser kestrels during the non-breeding season, coupled with their tendency to cluster geographically towards the end, differ from the southward movements of other insectivorous raptors in West Africa. While 31% of Spanish lesser kestrels converged in Senegal, where roosts of > 20,000 birds are known, 68% moved into the Malian-Mauritanian border region where more groundwork is needed.</p>
Data from: Grooming time predicts survival in American kestrels
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Itinerant lifestyle and congregation of lesser kestrels in West Africa
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Extra food provisioning reduces extra-pair paternity in the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni)
<p><span>Female promiscuity can function to acquire both direct and indirect benefits from their social mate and extra-pair males. In many raptor species, intense mate-feeding significantly contributes to female energy requirements before and during egg laying. Moreover, females may use mate-feeding effort to assess male quality. In this study of the lesser kestrel (<i>Falco naumanni</i>), we aimed at experimentally manipulating the female's perception of mate quality by providing females with extra food during egg laying, and evaluated the occurrence of extra-pair paternity in food-supplemented and control broods by parentage analyses. No extra-pair offspring (EPO) was found among 19 food-supplemented broods, whereas EPO occurred in five out of 17 control broods. No significant differences in morphological traits, body condition and reproductive success were found between faithful and unfaithful females. However, clutches containing EPO were laid later in the breeding season. Moreover, un-cuckolded males had longer tarsi than cuckolded ones, indicating larger body size. Hence, extra food provisioning and early breeding reduced the occurrence of EPO in lesser kestrels. In addition, we confirmed the occurrence of intraspecific brood parasitism, as five nestlings were not the offspring of the brooding female. The results of our food-provisioning experiment support the idea that mate-feeding ability is a reliable indicator of male quality, and are in accordance with the hypothesis that male mate-feeding behaviour is a sexually selected trait.</span></p>
Data from: Broad-front migration leads to strong migratory connectivity in the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni)
Aim: Migratory animals regularly move between often distant breeding and non-breeding ranges. Knowledge about how these ranges are linked by movements of individuals from different populations is crucial for unravelling temporal variability in population spatial structuring and for identifying environmental drivers of population dynamics acting at different spatio-temporal scales. We performed a large-scale individual-based migration tracking study of the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), an Afro-Palearctic migratory raptor, to determine the patterns of migratory connectivity of European breeding populations. Location: Europe, Africa. Methods: Migration data were recorded using different devices (geolocators, Argos PTTs, GPS loggers) from 87 individuals breeding in the three core European populations, located in the Iberian, Italian and Balkan peninsulas. We estimated connectivity by the Mantel correlation coefficient (rM), and computed both the degree of separation between the non-breeding areas of individuals from the same population (i.e., the population spread) and the relative size of the non-breeding range (i.e., the non-breeding range spread). Results: European lesser kestrels migrated on a broad-front across the Mediterranean Sea and Sahara Desert, with different populations using different routes. Iberian birds migrated to western Sahel (Senegal, Mauritania, western Mali), Balkan birds migrated chiefly to central-eastern Sahel (Niger, Nigeria, Chad), whereas Italian ones spread from eastern Mali to Nigeria. Spatial differentiation of non-breeding areas led to a strong migratory connectivity (rM = 0.58), associated with a relatively high population (637 km) and non-breeding range (1149 km) spread. Main conclusions: Our comprehensive analysis of the non-breeding distribution of European lesser kestrel populations revealed a strong migratory connectivity, a rare occurrence in long-distance avian migrants. The geographic conformation of the species' breeding and non-breeding ranges, together with broad-front migration across ecological barriers, promoted the differentiation of migratory routes and non-breeding areas. Strong connectivity could then arise because of both high population spread and broad non-breeding range.
Data from: Plasma carotenoid concentrations of incubating American kestrels (Falco sparverius) show annual, seasonal, and individual variation and explain reproductive outcome
In wild birds, the proximate and ultimate factors that affect circulating carotenoid concentrations remain poorly understood. We studied variation in plasma carotenoid concentrations across several scales: annual, seasonal, pair, territory and individual, and evaluated whether plasma carotenoid concentrations explained reproductive outcome of wild American kestrels (Falco sparverius). We sampled plasma carotenoid concentrations of 99 female and 80 male incubating kestrels from April to June in 2008 to 2012. Plasma carotenoid concentrations were explained by an interaction between year and sex, date, and random effects for pair and individual identity. In general, plasma carotenoid concentrations of males were significantly higher than females, but this depended on year. Within a breeding season, earlier nesting kestrels had higher carotenoid concentrations than later nesting kestrels, a pattern that is coincident with seasonal trends in local fitness. Pair and individual identity explained variation in carotenoid concentrations suggesting that carotenoid concentrations of mated birds were correlated, and some individuals consistently maintained higher carotenoid levels than others. Male carotenoid concentrations were positively associated with number of young fledged per pair. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that higher quality individuals have higher carotenoid levels compared to lower quality individuals, despite annual variations in carotenoid availability.
Figure A2 in Trophic segregation of the Burrowing Owl and the American Kestrel in fragmented desert in Mexico
Figure A2. Cumulative identified taxa (%) according to the number of egested pellets of F. sparverius in Valle Santo Domingo, in Baja California Sur, Mexico during the 2017 breeding season.
Figure A1 in Trophic segregation of the Burrowing Owl and the American Kestrel in fragmented desert in Mexico
Figure A1. Cumulative identified taxa (%) according to the number of egested pellets of A. cunicularia in Valle Santo Domingo, in Baja California Sur, Mexico during the 2017 breeding season.
Figure 3 in Trophic segregation of the Burrowing Owl and the American Kestrel in fragmented desert in Mexico
Figure 3. Area (km2) covered by natural vegetation around (0.5 km, 1 km, or 2 km radii buffers) nests of the Burrowing Owl and American Kestrel in Valle Santo Domingo, in Baja California Sur, Mexico during the 2017 breeding season.
Figure 2 in Trophic segregation of the Burrowing Owl and the American Kestrel in fragmented desert in Mexico
Figure 2. Plot of the Percent Contribution to Differences (PCD) in the diets of the Burrowing Owl and the American Kestrel, for relative frequency (F%) and relative biomass (B%) data, as per the SIMPER analysis. Valle Santo Domingo, in Baja California Sur, Mexico during the 2017 breeding season.
Figure 1 in Trophic segregation of the Burrowing Owl and the American Kestrel in fragmented desert in Mexico
Figure 1. Fragmented and natural scrubland surroundings in Valle de Santo Domingo, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Dots mark the spots where pellets casted by A. cunicularia (white dots) and F. sparverius (black dots) were collected. Influence areas (0.5 km, 1 km, or 2 km radii) around nests of the Burrowing Owl (dotted circles) and American Kestrel (continuous-line circles) within the agriculture matrix. Patches of natural vegetation are shown in white.
Data from: Plasma carotenoid concentrations of incubating American kestrels (Falco sparverius) show annual, seasonal, and individual variation and explain reproductive outcome
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Extra food provisioning reduces extra-pair paternity in the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni)
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Climate determinants of breeding and wintering ranges of lesser kestrels in Italy and predicted impacts of climate change
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
ScienceDex guides
Understand access before you commit
These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.