Poultry or Avian Science Commons^™

Ecology And Flock-Following Behavior Of The Wedge-Billed Woodcreeper In Eastern Ecuador, Abigail Darrah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The wedge-billed woodcreeper (Glyphorynchus spirurus) is a common understory suboscine passerine of lowland Neotropical rainforests. It frequently joins mixed-species understory flocks but also regularly forages alone, and thus is an excellent model species on which to conduct comparative behavioral observations to examine the hypothesized costs and benefits of flock-following. Individuals exhibit variable flocking propensities (proportion of time spent with flocks), and thus observing the correlations between flocking propensity and physical and environmental factors can provide further insight into the importance of flock-following to the ecology of this species. Despite its abundance at many sites and its wide geographic range, surprisingly …

Life History Variation Of Common Terns In The Gulf Of Maine, Jeffery Bryant Kimmons

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Life history is the inheritable rules that determine energy and time allocation towards different competing functions in the energy budget of an organism. Reproductive effort varies as organisms make reproductive decisions based on available energy. Factors influencing life histories are those that change energy and time budgets such as diet, competition, and environmental conditions.

Common tern (Sterna hirundo) life history phenotypes vary between islands in the Gulf of Maine. Common terns on offshore islands (>10km from mainland) and nearshore islands (5 to 10km from mainland) lay smaller clutches, hatching chicks with slower growth rates than common terns …