Light logger bird drivers#

Lower predation risk for migratory birds at high latitudes. Shorebird incubation behaviour and its influence on the risk of nest predation. A., Tulp, I., Schekkerman, H., Gilchrist, H. Nest predation increases with parental activity: separating nest site and parental activity effects. Biparental incubation-scheduling: no experimental evidence for major energetic constraints. in Avian Energetics and Nutritional Ecology (ed. Supporting Information for ‘Unexpected diversity in socially synchronized rhythms of shorebirds’. Evolutionary transitions in parental care in shorebirds. Avian Incubation: Behaviour, Environment and Evolution (Oxford Univ. Ecology, sexual selection, and the evolution of mating systems. Locomotor activity and non-photic influences on circadian clocks. Birds of a feather clock together–sometimes: social synchronization of circadian rhythms. Social influences on mammalian circadian rhythms: animal and human studies. In search of a temporal niche: social interactions. Socially synchronized circadian oscillators. Animal clocks: when science meets nature. Heritability of diurnal type: a nationwide study of 8753 adult twin pairs. Koskenvuo, M., Hublin, C., Partinen, M., Heikkilä, K. Heritable circadian period length in a wild bird population. Time zones: a comparative genetics of circadian clocks. Chronobiology: Biological Timekeeping (Sinauer Associates, 2004) The risk of predation, not the risk of starvation, may be a key factor underlying the diversity in these rhythms.ĭunlap, J. Our results indicate that even under similar environmental conditions and despite 24-h environmental cues, social synchronization can generate far more diverse behavioural rhythms than expected from studies of individuals in captivity 5, 6, 7, 9. Rhythms entrainable to the 24-h light–dark cycle were less prevalent at high latitudes and absent in 18 species. The length of incubation bouts was unrelated to variables reflecting energetic demands, but species relying on crypsis (the ability to avoid detection by other animals) had longer incubation bouts than those that are readily visible or who actively protect their nest against predators.

Between species, the median length of one parent’s incubation bout varied from 1–19 h, whereas period length-the time in which a parent’s probability to incubate cycles once between its highest and lowest value-varied from 6–43 h. Using data from 729 nests of 91 populations of 32 biparentally incubating shorebird species, where parents synchronize to achieve continuous coverage of developing eggs, we report remarkable within- and between-species diversity in incubation rhythms. Here we investigate these rhythms in the context of biparental care, a particularly sensitive phase of social synchronization 12 where pair members potentially compromise their individual rhythms.

Light logger bird drivers#

The behavioural rhythms that emerge from such social synchronization and the underlying evolutionary and ecological drivers that shape them remain poorly understood 5, 6, 7, 9. Individuals can temporally segregate their daily activities (for example, prey avoiding predators, subordinates avoiding dominants) or synchronize their activities (for example, group foraging, communal defence, pairs reproducing or caring for offspring) 6, 7, 8, 9, 11. Such behavioural rhythms are well studied in isolated individuals under laboratory conditions 1, 5, but free-living individuals have to temporally synchronize their activities with those of others, including potential mates, competitors, prey and predators 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The behavioural rhythms of organisms are thought to be under strong selection, influenced by the rhythmicity of the environment 1, 2, 3, 4. Nature volume 540, pages 109–113 ( 2016) Cite this article

Unexpected diversity in socially synchronized rhythms of shorebirds