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Editor's Choice: Delayed timing of breeding as a cost of reproduction

Johan
20 July 2015

The start of breeding during a season has generally a large impact on reproductive success in passerines. Given the importance of this trait, we know astonishingly little about what factors determine the start of breeding in individual birds...

Common loons defend chicks according to both value and vulnerability

Johan
29 June 2015

During the spring of 2012, Gabriella Jukkala was just about to graduate from Northland College. After extensive discussions, Gabby and I became interested in how adult loons might protect their chicks during their fragile first weeks of life...

Exploration and exploitation of foraging patches by desert sparrows

Johan
8 May 2015

Food resources are generally patchily distributed which has triggered a plethora of foraging models predicting both exploration behaviours to find high-quality patches and exploitation levels when foraging in a patch...

From Norway to Mali - Tracking Temminck’s stints

Johan
24 March 2015

For a long time, I’ve been fascinated by the variation in breeding systems, morphology, habitats and other general lifestyles of waders. When I first learnt about light-level geolocation as a technique for tracking the non-breeding movements...

Editor´s choice - Systematics and evolution of the Pan-Alcidae

Johan
17 March 2015

A phylogenetic analysis of auks, puffins and their allies including both extant (23) and extinct (28) alcid species gives new and fascinating pespectives about the possible origins and diversification as well as about the reconstruction of ancestral diet...

Editor´s choice - Ratios, adaptations, and metabolic capability of avian flight muscles

Johan
13 March 2015

The adaptive variation in avian body composition has for a long time been interesting from an energy turn-over point of view. Besides being inferred as the basis of variation in basal metabolic rate, such variation is also important for generating work as for example...

Seasonal survival is the key to effective protection

Johan
12 March 2015

With a little bit of ‘basic math’, Russian biologist Eldar Rakhimberdiev shows how changes in seasonal survival may be used as a tool to detect problems in bird populations. ‘A dip in survival during a certain period or in a certain place, means the population...

Editor´s choice - Sexual pigmentation and parental risk-taking in yellow warblers

Johan
17 February 2015

Increased perceived predation risk during breeding is predicted to reduce parental effort as such behaviours often are conspicuous and are traded off against vigilance...

Editor´s choice - Automated tracking of wild hummingbird body mass

Johan
30 January 2015

A male ruby-throated hummingbird approaches an artificial feeder outfitted with a passive-integrated transponder reader and a precision electronic balance. As this bird perches to feed its ID is detected and its mass is automatically recorded.

Using drones to monitor bird nests

Johan
28 January 2015

In late winter 2013/14 the crow fieldwork crew of the Wolf Lab at the Evolutionary Biology Centre in Uppsala, Sweden, started planning the next field season. The goal was to sample two dozen hooded and carrion crow nestlings from sites in Sweden and Germany...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Johan
23 December 2014

Journal of Avian Biology wish all its readers, authors, reviewers and editors a relaxing and enjoyable holiday season. We hope that you all get some well-deserved rest together with family and friends.

Editor´s Choice: Avian body size change in response to environmental change

Johan
18 November 2014

That avian populations respond to climate change by changes in phenology and distribution is well known but should we predict any consistent trends in body size?

Editor´s Choice - Movements and breeding dispersal of Snowy owls

avianbiology
13 November 2014

Tracking snowy owls has been (and still is) a great challenge. The fact that those birds are highly mobile, that they show almost no breeding site fidelity and disperse over huge distances from one year to another yet increases the challenge.

Male testes come in all shapes and sizes

avianbiology
24 October 2014

Male testes come in all shapes and sizes. Male mammals usually have two testes that are equal in size but birds, for some unknown reason, usually have one testis bigger than the other, and it is often said that the left testis is larger than the right.

A canary for climate change?

avianbiology
14 October 2014

Modern-day puffins and auks have long been recognized as environmental indicator species for ongoing faunal shifts, and fossil records now indicate that ancient relatives were similarly informative.

Long-term phenological shifts and intra-specific differences in migratory change in the willow warbler

avianbiology
10 October 2014

Every year, billions of birds move across the Earth to reach their wintering and breeding grounds. One of these mass movement members is the willow warbler, a long-distance migrant that winters in sub-Saharan Africa and breeds in northern Europe and Asia.

Changes in wintering bird populations in Finland

avianbiology
9 October 2014

The numbers of wintering urban birds have increased three times and the number of water birds have increased ten times in Finland since the end of 1950s...

Prey size affects global distribution of the golden eagle

avianbiology
7 October 2014

In this study we show that the availability of optimal-sized prey (between 0.5-5 kg) is a crucial driver of foraging behaviour, breeding success and distribution patterns of the Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos L. on a continental scale.

Spring phenology and timing of breeding in short-distance migrant birds

avianbiology
18 September 2014

In this impressive long-term study the authors explore if common goldeneyes can track environmental cues and adjust their breeding in response to a changing climate. At their study site in Finland the ice-out date has advanced with 2 weeks during their 24 yr study...

Automated tracking of wild hummingbird mass

avianbiology
12 September 2014

In this study the authors examine the use of automated collection of hummingbird mass data using low-cost, low-power radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. In a field study in southern Ontario, wild hummingbirds were captured, subcutaneously implanted with...

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