Date: June 12, 2018
Source: British Ecological Society
Summary:
Complete brood failure in blue
tits is almost always associated with the sudden and permanent disappearance of
one of the parents. Scientists show in their study that the remaining parent
substantially increased its effort to raise at least some of the chicks, which
turned out to be successful in two thirds of the nests.
Single parent males generally do
worse, probably because they are not able to keep their chicks warm. Their findings
are published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
Apart from being a popular garden
feeder visitor, blue tits have been the focus of much research on the causes
and consequences of variation in reproductive success. Blue tits typically lay
between 8-15 eggs, of which a varying number of young will survive to leave the
nest. In some nests, however, all the offspring die before they are old enough
to leave the nest.
Finding out what causes these
cases of complete brood mortality has proven challenging. Does one parent leave
all the care to its mate? Can a single parent not cope with the demands? Do
both parents decide to desert their brood? To find out, we need to know exactly
when parents stop bringing food and when the offspring perish.
Therefore, Peter Santema and Bart
Kempenaers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen equipped
all adult blue tits in their study site with a tiny, passive integrated
transponder.
No comments:
Post a Comment