Ornithology Commons^™

Ornamentation, Behavior, And Maternal Effects In The Female Northern Cardinal, Caitlin Winters

Master's Theses

This study seeks to understand the relationship between ornamentation, maternal effects, and behavior in the female Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis). Female birds possess ornaments that indicate a number of important known aspects of quality and are usually costly to maintain. However, the extent to which female specific traits, such as maternal effects, are indicated is less clear. It is predicted by the Good Parent Hypothesis that this information should be displayed through intraspecific signal communication. Specifically, androgens and carotenoids are of interest in this study because both are linked to ornamentation, and are also important egg components that …

Multistate Mark-Recapture Analysis Reveals No Effect Of Blood Sampling On Survival And Recapture Of Eastern Kingbirds (Tyrannus Tyrannus), Lucas J. Redmond, Michael T. Murphy

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The experimentally supported and prevailing opinion is that blood sampling has few to no long-term effects on survival of birds when conducted properly, and blood sampling has become a vital addition to the toolbox of many ornithologists. However, many of the studies that concluded that blood sampling had negligible effects on birds used approaches that did not account for temporary emigration and probability of capture. To date, the only study to have done so found that blood sampling had a strong negative effect on survival. We conducted a mark–recapture analysis of 8 years of banding and bleeding data on Eastern …

Information Acquisition And Sociality Among Migratory Birds, Zoltán Németh

Dissertations

Information use is a key feature of adaptive behavior: the better informed an individual, the better it is able to adjust its behavior to meet the demands of a variable world. Therefore, most animals attempt to reduce environmental uncertainty by gathering information when it is available. However, tracking unpredictable ecological factors may carry costs as individuals invest valuable time and energy in the process of information acquisition. Social learning (i.e., use of social information inadvertently produced by other individuals) enables the individual to gain rapid and more complete assessment of its novel environment. This process may be particularly important for …

Evaluating Captive-Breeding Techniques And Reintroduction Success Of The California Condor (Gymnogyps Californianus), Amy C. Utt

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

In this dissertation, I present two original research studies on the behavior and survival of the critically endangered California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus). I also provide a comprehensive review of the role of captive-rearing to the conservation of birds.

The first study examined the behavioral differences of puppet- and parent-reared condor juveniles reared in captivity. This study further defined and examined the behaviors of adult conspecific mentors and their interactions with juveniles. Dominance hierarchy analyses for two cohorts of juveniles and their adult mentors indicated the establishment of a linear hierarchy. Although puppet-reared juveniles engaged in fewer social behaviors in …

Fecal-Sac Ingestion By Spotted Towhees, Jenny E. Mckay, Michael T. Murphy, Sarah Bartos Smith, Jennifer K. Richardson

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Altricial nestlings encase excrement in fecal sacs that parents remove by either ingesting them or transporting them away from the nest. Ingestion may allow energetically or nutritionally deprived parents to recapture energy or nutrients that might be lost because of nestlings' inefficient digestion (the "parental-nutrition hypothesis"), but ingestion may also permit parents to avoid flights from the nest that interfere with parental care (e.g., brooding young; the "economic-disposal hypothesis"). We used a hypothetico-deductive approach to test the two hypotheses' ability to account for fecal-sac ingestion by the Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus). We confirmed the parental-nutrition hypothesis' predictions that …

Great Curassow And Crested Guan Near Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Timothy Brush

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Great Curassow (Crax rubra) and Crested Guan (Penelope purpurascens) were rediscovered in the Ciudad Victoria area of southwestern Tamaulipas, Mexico for the first time since 1909. Birds were found in low elevation canyons containing permanent running water, with riparian forest dominated by Montezuma bald-cypress (Taxodium mucronatum) and steep scrub-covered slopes. These records represent the northernmost known points of the ranges of both species. Additional field work will be needed to determine whether these small populations are isolated from the nearest known populations in the El Cielo/Gómez Farías area of southern Tamaulipas.

A Songbird Forebrain Area Potentially Involved In Auditory Discrimination And Memory Formation, Raphael Pinaud, Thomas A. Terleph

Biology Faculty Publications

Songbirds rely on auditory processing of natural communication signals for a number of social behaviors, including mate selection, individual recognition and the rare behavior of vocal learning - the ability to learn vocalizations through imitation of an adult model, rather than by instinct. Like mammals, songbirds possess a set of interconnected ascending and descending auditory brain pathways that process acoustic information and that are presumably involved in the perceptual processing of vocal communication signals. Most auditory areas studied to date are located in the caudomedial forebrain of the songbird and include the thalamo-recipient field L (subfields L1, L2 and L3), …

Additions To The Breeding Avifauna Of The Lower Rio Grande Valley Of Texas, Timothy Brush

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

The breeding avifauna of the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) of Texas has experienced many changes during the 20th century, primarily because of declines in native habitats due to land being converted to agriculture and urban habitats. This paper summarizes changes in breeding avifauna from 2003–2007 in the area. Breeding has been confi rmed for Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii), Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto), and Mangrove Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia oraria) for the fi rst time, and for Gray-crowned Yellowthroat (Geothlypis poliocephala) and Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (Glaucidium brasilianum) after periods of apparent absence. Short-tailed Hawk (Buteo brachyurus) is a possible breeder, based …

Lifetime Reproductive Success Of Female Eastern Kingbirds (Tyrannus Tyrannus): Influence Of Lifespan, Nest Predation And Body Size, Michael T. Murphy

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

I report on the lifetime reproductive success (LRS) of female Eastern Kingbirds (Tyrannus tyrannus) in central New York. I investigated the major correlates of LRS and specifi cally tested the hypothesis that small body size yields reproductive benefi ts. Lifetime reproductive success varied widely: 15–20% of females failed to fledge young over their life, whereas 50% of young were fledged by 20% of females. Female lifespan varied between one and eight years, and females that died after one breeding season tended to be smaller-bodied than long-lived females (≥2 seasons). I therefore conducted analyses of LRS for the entire sample and …

First Slaty-Backed Gull For Minnesota, Philip C. Chu

Biology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Cautionary Tale: Cryptic Sexual Size Dimorphism In A Socially Monogamous Passerine, Michael T. Murphy

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Among socially monogamous birds, standard metrics suggest that males are only ∼5% larger than females. An untested assumption is that, with the exception of reproductive systems, males and females are scaled mirror images of one another. I used external morphological and skeletal data, and information on muscle mass and organ size, to test this assumption in a population of breeding Eastern Kingbirds (Tyrannus tyrannus). Male and female Eastern Kingbirds exhibited no differences in body mass or standard measures of size, except in a longer (∼6%) wing chord and tail in males. However, keel length, a character rarely measured …

First Breeding Of The Snowy Plover In Minnesota, Philip C. Chu

Biology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nest Reuse By Eastern Kingbirds: Adaptive Behavior Or Ecological Constraint?, Lucas J. Redmond, Michael T. Murphy, Amy C. Dolan

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The reuse of old nests by open-cup nesting passerines is a seemingly rare but potentially adaptive behavior if, as a consequence, females begin to breed earlier, lay larger clutches, or fledge more young. We report an unusually high rate of nest reuse (~10% of 341 nests) for Eastern Kingbirds (Tyrannus tyrannus) breeding at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon. We found no difference in availability of nesting habitat or food abundance in territories in which nests were and were not reused. We also found no support for the hypotheses that kingbirds benefited from nest reuse by breeding earlier, laying …

Effects Of Prescribed Burning On Breeding Bird Populations Of The Daniel Boone National Forest Pioneer Weapons Area, Jimmy Mains

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Jimmy Mains on January 3, 2006.

The Winter Ecology Of The Piping Plover (Charadrius Melodus) In Coastal Georgia, Brandon Lennon Noel

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Author's abstract: The Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) is a federally listed species with three distinct breeding populations, including Great Plains (threatened), Great Lakes (endangered), and Atlantic Coast (threatened), all of which winter along the Atlnatic and Gulf coasts of the United States. I studied the winter ecology of the Piping Plovers on Little St. Simons Island (LSSI), Georgia, from 2003-2006, with emphasis on the conservation significance of this site for the endangered Great Lakes population. During 2003-2004 and 2004-2005, LSSI supported up to 100 Piping Plovers during peak migration, and approximately 40 birds wintered at this site. All populations had …

Glucocorticoid Hormone Levels Increase With Group Size And Parasite Load In Cliff Swallows, Samrrah A. Raouf, Linda C. Smith, Mary Bomberger Brown, John C. Wingfield, Charles R. Brown

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Animals often cope with adverse events by releasing glucocorticoid hormones, which in turn promote increased energy assimilation. In captive animals, crowding also leads to increased glucocorticoid activity, probably because of increased levels of social competition. We investigated how group size and ectoparasite infestations affected endogenous levels of the glucocorticoid hormone, corticosterone, in colonial cliff swallows, Petrochelidon pyrrhonota, in southwestern Nebraska, USA. Parasites were removed from some colonies by fumigating nests. Baseline levels of corticosterone in breeding adults varied significantly with whether parasites were present, colony size (measured by total number of active nests at a site), and nesting stage. …

Plumage Convergence In Picoides Woodpeckers Based On A Molecular Phylogeny, With Emphasis On Convergence In Downy And Hairy Woodpeckers, Amy C. Weibel, William S. Moore

Biological Sciences Faculty Research Publications

Adult and juvenile plumage characters were traced onto a well-resolved molecular based phylogeny for Picoides woodpeckers, and a simple phylogenetic test of homology, parallelism, and convergence of plumage characters was performed. Reconstruction of ancestral character states revealed multiple events of independent evolution of derived character states in most characters studied, and a concentrated changes test revealed that some plumage characters evolved in association with habitat type. For example, there was a statistically significant association between loss of dorsal barring and use of densely vegetated habitats among Picoides species. Two analyses indicated that convergence, as opposed to parallel evolution or shared …

First Confirmed Breeding Of The Rock Wren In Minnesota, Philip C. Chu

Biology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Endogenous Steroid Hormone Levels On Annual Survival In Cliff Swallows, Charles R. Brown, Mary Bomberger Brown, Samrrah A. Raouf, Linda C. Smith, John C. Wingfield

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The hormone corticosterone is an important part of animals’ response to environmental stress, modulating short-term adaptive changes in behavior and physiology. The hormone testosterone is also critical, especially for males, in regulating the expression of sexual behavior and parental care. These hormones can have costly consequences, however, and within populations individuals show variation in endogenous levels of both corticosterone and testosterone. We studied how annual survival varied as a function of natural levels of these hormones in colonially breeding Cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) in southwestern Nebraska, USA, in 2000–2003. We sampled hormone levels of birds caught at colonies …

Testosterone And Group Size In Cliff Swallows: Testing The “Challenge Hypothesis” In A Colonial Bird, Linda C. Smith, Samrrah A. Raouf, Mary Bomberger Brown, John C. Wingfield, Charles R. Brown

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The “challenge hypothesis” states that increases in testosterone levels of male animals during the breeding season are directly related to the extent of intrasexual competition for resources or mates that they experience. Although often tested in territorial species, the challenge hypothesis has not been evaluated for colonial animals that live in groups of different sizes and that thus experience different intensities of intrasexual competition. We measured circulating testosterone levels of male and female cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) in southwestern Nebraska, where these birds nest in colonies of widely different sizes. Males had significantly higher testosterone levels than females, …

Juvenile And Adult Survival In The Sociable Weaver (Philetairus Socius), A Southern-Temperate Colonial Cooperative Breeder In Africa, Rita Covas, Charles R. Brown, Mark D. Anderson, Mary Bomberger Brown

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

We used capture–recapture analyses to describe juvenile and adult survival from 1993 to 2001 in a population of Sociable Weavers (Philetairus socius), a colonial, cooperatively breeding passerine of southern Africa. We examined temporal variation in survival and the role that the breeding season’s length and environmental factors play in determining survival patterns in the population. Annual survival probability (mean ± SE) was 0.66 ± 0.02. In contrast to most passerines, juveniles and adults had similar survival probabilities; survival rates did not vary significantly between years. We found no relationship among temperature, rainfall, and survival. Relatively high survival rates …

Breeding Abundance And Nest-Site Distribution Of The Altamira Oriole At Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Texas, Timothy Brush, Christopher R. Hathcock

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

The distribution of the Altamira oriole (Icterus gularis) in the United States is restricted to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of southernmost Texas. Our objective was to assess the current breeding status of this species at and near Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge (SANWR), a principal nesting area in the region. During each breeding season from 1997 to 1999, we attempted to find and monitor all Altamira oriole nests in and within 0.5 km of SANWR to determine annual breeding-pair abundance, annual nest-site distribution, and nest distribution among tree species. We estimated that there were 6 or 7, 8 or …

Hooded Oriole Nest Failure Associated With A Novel Nest Site, Kevin Ellison, Timothy Brush

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Ecological traps occur where species are attracted to use a resource that exposes them to greater than normal risk of mortality or reproductive failure. We observed complete failure of Hooded Oriole (Icterus cucullatus) nests in streetlights in a south Texas suburb where use of such nest sites was relatively common. This is of concern as streetlights functioned essentially as traps: orioles built their nests within them but all these nests failed, evidently because the eggs were exposed to lethal temperatures. Moreover, Hooded Oriole nesting success on all other substrates in this area was low (31%, n -- 69). Therefore, sufficient …

Thermoregulation In Swimming Mallard Ducklings (Anas Platyrhynchos), Aaron James Lynott

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Temperature regulation in birds has been studied for several decades. However, most studies have been limited to the thermal effects of air. This is surprising considering the abundance of waterfowl and the significant amount of time that many birds spend immersed in water. While we do know that water has a thermal conductivity that is 23 times that of air, the effect of water temperature on temperature regulation remains unknown. Though the thermal effect of water seemingly has a strong influence on the thermoregulation of birds, neonatal aquatic birds seem particularly susceptible. Many aquatic neonates, such as mallard ducklings, enter …

Temperature Regulation And The Constraints Of Climate In The Eared Grebe, Hugh I. Ellis, Joseph R. Jehl Jr

Biology: Faculty Scholarship

Eared Grebes (Podiceps nigricollis) encounter a variety of climatic regimes in their annual cycle. The most dramatic occur while on staging areas in autumn. We investigated the thermoregulatory abilities of the Eared Grebe to determine how they coped with these climate changes during staging. The basal metabolic rate (BMR) was higher than predicted. Mass-specific BMR was 1.212 mL O2/g·h for birds averaging 317 g. The thermoneutral zone is wide and extended from 15°C to 38°C. Minimal thermal conductance and average body temperature were not unusual. We conclude that Eared Grebes live most of the year under thermoneutral conditions and that …

Avian Population Trends Within The Evolving Agricultural Landscape Of The Eastern And Central United States, Michael T. Murphy

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

State-level Breeding Bird Survey (1980-1998) and U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics were used to test the hypothesis that changes in agricultural land use within the eastern and central U.S. have driven population trends of grassland and shrub habitat birds over the past two decades. The degree to which population trends differed between grassland and shrub habitats was evaluated with respect to migratory and nesting behavior. Grassland birds declined significantly between 1980 and 1999, but, on average, shrub habitat species did not. Grassland-breeding, long-distance migrants exhibited the strongest negative trends. Most species (78%; n = 63) exhibited at least one significant …

First Nesting Attempt Of Yellow-Faced Grassquit (Tiaris Olivacea) In The United States, Timothy Brush

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

No abstract provided.

Contributions To The Mammalogy Of Mongolia, With A Checklist Of The Species Of The Country, David S. Tinnin, Jon L. Dunnum, Jorge A. Salazar-Bravo, Nyamsuren Batsaikhan, M. Scott Burt, Scott Lyell Gardner, Terry L. Yates

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Faculty Publications

We present accounts for 40 species of mammals collected from 15 localities in the Mongolian People's Republic. Accounts include taxonomic, morphometric, reproductive and ecological information, as well as trap effort and success. In addition, we include a brief history of mammalogical work within Mongolia, a taxonomically updated species list for the country, and a list of institutions with holdings of Mongolian mammals.

Energetics Of Free-Ranging Seabirds, Hugh I. Ellis, Geir Wing Gabrielsen

Biology: Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

High Frequency Of Extra-Pair Paternity In Eastern Kingbirds, Diane L. Rowe, Michael T. Murphy, Robert C. Fleischer, Paul G. Wolf

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Genetic parentage in the socially monogamous and territorial Eastern Kingbird( Tyrannust tyrannus) was examined in a central New York population by multilocus DNA fingerprinting. Extra-pair young were identified in 60% (12 of 20) of nests. Of the 64 nestlings profiled, 42% were sired by extra-pair males, but no cases of conspecific brood parasitism were detected. These results are markedly different from a previous electrophoretic study of the same species in a Michigan population, which reported 39% of nestlings were unrelated to one (typically the mother, quasiparasitismo)r both (conspecificb roodp arasitism) of the putative parents. In the New York population, extra-pairp …