By critical and elegant playback experiments the authors of this highly interesting study demonstrate that vocal signalling behaviour differs fundamentally between a western and eastern population of the same species (song sparrow, Melospiza melodia).
Surviving in cold environments at high latitudes puts a great premium on behavioral, morphological and physiological adaptations to conserve heat. One of the most prominent adaptations is the plumage of birds which when fluffed may form...
Understanding the population ecology of different phases in the complex annual cycle of long-distance migratory birds, and determining the importance of winter vs summer vs migration impacts, and their carry-over effects, on population dynamics...
Breeding is obviously a very important part in the life of organisms. However, the effort put into breeding need to be traded off against effort put into defense of the parents’ own soma. One often neglected part of parental effort is to protect young...
It is common that avian scientists working with breeding biology claim that weather has a large impact on breeding productivity although this is usually just a “feeling” and seldom formerly tested.
New tracking techniques have opened up possibilities to record individuals on repeated foraging flights and investigate to what degree they show individuality in their behaviour.
This study compares annual survival patterns of red knots Calidris canutus islandica between two periods, when winter food at the Wadden Sea was reduced by cockle harvesting and in following years when cockle-dredging was stopped...
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...
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...
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...
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