Carolina Remacha

• PhD in Biology
• Complutense University of Madrid

Parasites have their strongest impact on fitness when host defences deplete resources needed for other critical life-history stages, such as development, breeding or migration. Among birds, one greatly neglected stage that could be altered by parasites is post-juvenile moult (PJM), through which yearling juvenile birds replace their fast-generated,...

Parasites have their strongest impact on fitness when host defences limit the quantity of resources available for other critical life-history stages, such as development, breeding or migration. One greatly neglected stage that could be altered by parasites is the post-juvenile moult (PJM) of birds, through which inexperienced yearlings replace thei...

Parasites may alter host physiology, which may promote behavioural adaptations to counteract their effect. Adaptive feeding may help individuals to cope with infection, especially during physiologically demanding life stages. For instance, migrating birds need fuel for long‐distance flights and repair oxidative damage caused by intense aerobic exer...

Parasites may alter host physiology, which may promote behavioural adaptations to counteract their effect. Adaptive feeding may help individuals to cope with infection, especially during physiologically highly demanding life stages. For instance, migrating birds need to fuel long-distance flights and repair oxidative damage caused by intense aerobi...

Animal behaviour becomes essential to the dynamics of parasitism if some behaviours favour pathogen transmission or increase exposure to infection. Infections may also influence host behaviour when health and future fitness are compromised, which predicts infected individuals will adaptively change risk-taking behaviours. We studied whether haemosp...

Contemporary phenotypic trends associated with global change are widely documented, but whether such trends always denote trait optimization under changed conditions remains obscure. Natural selection has shaped the wings of long-distance migratory birds to minimize the costs of transport, and new optimal wing shapes could be promoted by migration...

Avian malaria parasites are known to have negative effects on their hosts, including consequences for reproductive success and survival. However, the outcome of disease may vary greatly among individuals, due to their particular genetic background, their past history of exposure to infections, or the way they respond to infections at the physiologi...

Nature recreation conflicts with conservation, but its impacts on wildlife are not fully understood. Where recreation is not regulated, visitors to natural areas may gather in large numbers on weekends and holidays. This may increase variance in fitness in wild populations, if individuals whose critical life cycle stages coincide with periods of hi...

Data used in the S2 Material. Data of 144 blue tit fledglings in La Herreria National Heritage Forest during 2010 and four nest boxes where nestlings died before age 15 days. (TXT)

Data used in the manuscript. Data of 347 blue tit nestlings monitored until fledging (if they survived) in La Herreria National Heritage Forest during 2009. (TXT)

Body mass of males and females blue tit fledglings in quiet and disturbed nest locations. Marginal means ± se of body mass for males (grey bars) and females (white bars) in quiet and disturbed nests born on holidays (unhatched bars) and working days (hatched bars). Broken rectangles represent confident intervals for Tukey tests. * P < 0.05 *** P <...

Analysis of human disturbance around nests and nest attentiveness of blue tits during the year 2010. (DOCX)

Location of nest boxes in La Herrería National Heritage forest. Circles represent disturbed nests located near recreation facilities in areas designated for picnics. Squares are quiet nest locations in the surrounding woods. The shading of symbols distinguishes between holiday broods (black) and working-day broods (grey). Empty symbols correspond t...

Timing of hatching of all blue tit broods monitored in disturbed (ovals) and quiet nest locations (squares). Filled brood symbols correspond to holiday broods (the calendar bar below brood symbols shows weekends and other public holidays filled in grey). Strikethrough symbols represent failed clutches. Below, line plots show daily variation in temp...

Analysis of potential confounding effects. (DOCX)

Human disturbance associated with recreational infrastructures can affect avian behaviour, such as, for example, nest-site choice, but differential tolerance to human disturbance among species likely influences the nest distribution of the overall bird community. From 2004 to 2007, we analysed the spatial influence of recreational trails and buildi...

Collective detection (e.g., enhanced predator detection through the vigilance of conspecifics) is expected to have evolved particularly in social species. However, we assessed the degree to which an avian territorial species (California towhee Pipilo crissalis) would use social cues about predation in a semi-natural assay. We also exposed a social...