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Full-Text Articles in Ornithology

Fear Of Predators Compromises Parental Care And Juvenile Survival In A Songbird, Philip Blair Dudeck Dec 2015

Fear Of Predators Compromises Parental Care And Juvenile Survival In A Songbird, Philip Blair Dudeck

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Predators kill, but the risk of being killed is also a powerful force affecting survival because scared prey eat less, thereby increasing the likelihood of starvation. Young of most animals are extremely vulnerable to predators and may alter their behaviour to limit detection. I investigated the previously unexplored effects that predation risk has on the behaviour of newly fledged offspring and their parents, and the impact this has on offspring survival. I manipulated predation risk using sound and found that parent song sparrows reduced their feedings, providing 60% less food overall. Critically, not only did this parental response estimate survival …


Consequences Of Homeothermic Capacity Of Nestlings On Parental Care In The European Starling, Larry Clark Jan 1984

Consequences Of Homeothermic Capacity Of Nestlings On Parental Care In The European Starling, Larry Clark

Larry Clark

The homeothermic capacity of chicks varied as a function of brood size, age, and air temperature. Commitment to rooding by parents also varied as a function of brood size, age of the young brooded, and prevailing air temperature. It was experimentally determined that parents altered their brooding commitment in direct response to the achieved mean homeothermic capacity of the brood rather than energy demands of the brood per se. Because larger broods achieved a given level of homeothermic capacity earlier than smaller broods, parents spent less time brooding larger broods. This "freed" time represented an increase in potential foraging time …