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Sugar Concentrations, Hummingbird Aggressiveness, And Community Composition In Monteverde, Costa Rica, August 2006, Paul Brooks, Jennifer M. Gillen

Tropical Ecology and Conservation [Monteverde Institute]

We studied hummingbird communities in Cañitas, Monteverde, Puntarenas, Costa Rica to observe territorial tendencies when given high and low percentage sugar concentration of food resources at artificial feeders along the edge of a forest patch. We wanted to determine if community composition was disproportionately affected by more aggressive, and therefore territorial species. We observed interactions of hummingbirds at artificial feeders of 20 and 33% sugar concentration. We found a disproportionately high number of visits by Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds (Amazilia tzacatl) at both sets of feeders (52.5% at 20% feeders and 89.4% at 33% feeders). We found a higher frequency of visits …