Scott K Robinson

University of Florida | UF · Florida Museum of Natural History

Tropical montane communities host the world's highest beta diversity of birds, a phenomenon usually attributed to community turnover caused by changes in biotic and abiotic factors along elevation gradients. Yet, empirical data on most biotic factors are lacking. Nest predation is thought to be especially important because it appears to be common a...

Documenting patterns of spatiotemporal change in hyper‐diverse communities remains a challenge for tropical ecology yet is increasingly urgent as some long‐term studies have shown major declines in bird communities in undisturbed sites. In 1982, Terborgh et al. quantified the structure and organisation of the bird community in a 97‐ha. plot in sout...

Aim Seasonal variation in community composition and species distributional ranges along elevational gradients remain poorly known but are essential to inform conservation. In this study, we aim to understand how species richness, community composition and elevational ranges of montane birds change between the breeding and the non‐breeding season....

Documenting patterns of spatio-temporal change in hyper-diverse communities remains a challenge for tropical ecology, yet is increasingly urgent as some long-term studies have shown major declines in bird communities even in relatively undisturbed sites. In 1982, Terborgh et al. quantified the structure and organization of the bird community in a 9...

Taxonomic revisions using newly available molecular data can have profound consequences for identifying areas of high endemism and, therefore, high conservation priority. A good example of the connection between taxonomy, biodiversity ecology, and conservation issues is genus Phaeiris (Iris subsect. Hexagonae), an endemic taxon of the southeastern...

Aim: We evaluated the influence of climate on the structure of bird communities along precipitation gradients. We hypothesize that mechanisms responsible for community turnover along precipitation gradients are similar to mechanisms operating along temperature and latitudinal gradients. We tested the hypothesis that environmental conditions affect...

To improve our understanding of mechanisms underlying biodiversity patterns, and provide insights for conservation biologists, elevational pattern of bird species richness and its causes were studied in the Gaoligong Mountains, China. On the east slope of the southern part of Gaoligong Mountains (24.79°N-26.49°N, 98.65°E-98.93°E), we conducted fiel...

We explored the elevational richness patterns of birds in a biodiversity hotspot in south-western China, the Gaoligong Mountains and assessed the role of different spatial factors, climatic factors and landscape composition in shaping the richness patterns. The east slope of the southern part of Gaoligong Mountains (24.79°N-26.49°N, 98.65°E-98.93°E...

Capsule: The incubation behaviour of the Fire-tailed Sunbird Aethopyga ignicauda was measured using data loggers in the Hengduan Mountains, China, to test predictions of parental trade-off theory. Overall, female sunbirds prioritized incubation rather than self-feeding when temperatures were lowest, suggesting that brood demands may dominate parent...

The species-sorting hypothesis (SSH) states that environmental factors influence local community assembly of metacommunities by selecting for species that are well adapted to the specific conditions of each site. Along environmental gradients, the strength of selection against individuals that are marginally adapted to the local conditions increase...

One of the main goals of community ecology is to understand the influence of the abiotic environment on the abundance and distribution of species. It has been hypothesized that dry forests are harsher environments than wet forests, which leads to the prediction that environmental filtering should be a more important determinant of patterns of speci...

In this study we propose an extension of the N-mixture family of models that targets an improvement of the statistical properties of rare species abundance estimators when sample sizes are low, yet typical for tropical studies. The proposed method harnesses information from other species in an ecological community to correct each species’ estimator...

1. In this study we propose an extension of the N-mixture family of models that targets an improvement of the statistical properties of rare species abundance estimators when sample sizes are low, yet typical size for tropical studies. The proposed method harnesses information from other species in an ecological community to correct each species’ e...

Brood parasitism is an uncommon and understudied strategy in Amazonian bird communities, within which only 5 species are known to be brood parasites. We present data on the brood-parasitic behavior of the Pavonine Cuckoo (Dromococcyx pavoninus) in 3 host species of small-bodied flycatchers in the Peruvian Amazon that construct hanging globular nest...

Although the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) is the most intensively studied brood parasite in the world, much of the research on cowbirds has focused on the negative effects of parasitism. Here, we argue that negative attitudes toward the cowbird have overshadowed opportunities this species provides for advancing our understanding of social...

Along tropical mountains, species often occupy narrow altitude ranges. Numerous biotic and abiotic factors have been proposed as determinants of altitude occupancy. We measured several aspects of thermal physiology of 215 bird species across a 2·6-km altitude gradient in the Peruvian Andes. We predicted that highland species would show adaptation t...

Mixed-species flocks are formed on the basis of both positive and negative species interactions. We use foraging behavior in two different flock types to interpret the extent to which core species minimize niche overlap to reflect negative interactions. We also use the foraging behavior of alarm-calling species to infer whether their behavior is co...

Within a community, different species might share similar predation risks, and, thus, the ability of species to signal and interpret heterospecific threat information may determine species' associations. We combined observational, experimental, and phylogenetic approaches to determine the extent to which evolutionary history and functional traits d...

Landscape Ecol DOI 10.1007/s10980-015-0312-3 EDITORIAL Habitat fragmentation and biodiversity conservation: key findings and future challenges Maxwell C. Wilson . Xiao-Yong Chen . Richard T. Corlett . Raphael K. Didham . Ping Ding . Robert D. Holt . Marcel Holyoak . Guang Hu . Alice C. Hughes . Lin Jiang . William F. Laurance . Jiajia Liu . Stuart...

Landscape Ecol DOI 10.1007/s10980-015-0312-3 EDITORIAL Habitat fragmentation and biodiversity conservation: key findings and future challenges Maxwell C. Wilson . Xiao-Yong Chen . Richard T. Corlett . Raphael K. Didham . Ping Ding . Robert D. Holt . Marcel Holyoak . Guang Hu . Alice C. Hughes . Lin Jiang . William F. Laurance . Jiajia Liu . Stuart...

AimTo evaluate the roles of Quaternary (< 2.6 Ma) climatic stability and geologic barriers (i.e. the Andes Mountains) in shaping the modern community composition and patterns of endemism in Neotropical dry forest bird communities.LocationMarañón Valley and Tumbes, north-western Peru.Methods We recorded presence and abundance of species in six dry f...

Mixed-species flocks of birds are distributed world-wide and can be especially dominant in temperate forests during the non-breeding season and in tropical rainforests year-round. We review from a community ecology perspective what is known about the structure and organization of flocks, emphasizing that flocking species tend to be those particular...

Abstract. Diverse alien and native floras of the same region provide a good opportunity to test the influence of environmental variables in structuring of plant assemblages because both can be considered as a replicates of the assembly process under identical conditions but with different dispersal capabilities. We performed this test within 11 flo...

1. Life history varies across latitudes, with the ‘pace of life’ being ‘slower’ in tropical regions. Because life history is coupled to energy metabolism via allocation tradeoffs and links between performance capacity and energy use, low metabolic intensity is expected in tropical animals. Low metabolism has been reported for lowland tropical birds...

Background/Question/Methods Tropical mountains harbor some of the world’s most diverse ecological communities due to high species turnover generated by narrow elevational ranges of species. Our research investigates the importance of biotic factors in reinforcing elevational ranges of tropical birds, with the goal to understand how such high speci...

We investigated whether Northern Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) alter their nocturnal foraging behavior in areas with artificial light at night. We observed mockingbirds after sunset at six study sites that varied in levels of artificial light. We hypothesized that birds at the parking lot and residential sites would feed their nestlings later at...

Brood parasitism, also called social parasitism, is the exploitation by one individual (the brood parasite) of the parental care of another (the host). Brood parasites can deposit eggs in the nests or broods of another individual of the same (conspecific brood parasitism) or of a different (interspecific brood parasitism) species. Hosts often raise...

Background/Question/Methods Urban areas often have reduced avian species richness, but greater biomass and abundance per species than non-urban habitats as communities become dominated by a few apparently successful urban species. We looked for indirect evidence of enhanced per capita food resources during the breeding season (the urban food enha...

A post-flowering die-off of bamboo in an established bird-census plot afforded us an opportunity to investigate the response of bamboo-dwelling birds to a natural transformation of their habitat. In 1984 and 1985 SR and JT generated spot maps for an 80-ha plot in terra firme forest near the Cocha Cashu Biological Station, Manu National Park, Peru....

We studied the effects of habitat composition and distance from edges on nesting success and brood parasitism of forest birds in the Kaskaskia River Bottoms, one of the largest remaining tracts of floodplain forest in the agricultural Midwestern United States. Our goal was to help the private landowners, who have maintained this region in forest co...

Tropical mountains contain some of the world’s richest animal communities as a result of high turnover of species along elevational gradients. We describe an approach to study the roles of biotic and abiotic factors in establishing elevational ranges, and to improve our ability to predict the effects of climate change on these communities. As a fra...

Urban bird communities differ fundamentally from those in nonurban habitats. One hypothesis for this altered structure is that altered nest-predator communities in urban habitats affect which species thrive. We counted birds and measured nest-predation rates in a variety of communities in Florida (USA). We predicted that (1) avian nest predators wo...

Th e northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos is a native species that is more abundant in urban than non-urban habitats (i.e. an urban-positive species). Abundance alone, however, is not an accurate index of habitat quality because urban habitats could represent ecological traps (attractive sink habitat) for urban-positive species. We compared mocki...

The northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos is a native species that is more abundant in urban than non‐urban habitats (i.e. an urban‐positive species). Abundance alone, however, is not an accurate index of habitat quality because urban habitats could represent ecological traps (attractive sink habitat) for urban‐positive species. We compared mockin...

The northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos is a native species that is more abundant in urban than non-urban habitats (i.e. an urban-positive species). Abundance alone, however, is not an accurate index of habitat quality because urban habitats could represent ecological traps (attractive sink habitat) for urban-positive species. We compared mockin...

We investigated associations between Northern Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) and the nest parasite Philornis porteri (Diptera: Muscidae), and how they vary with urbanization in northcentral Florida. Our goal was to ascertain if the ‘parasite-release’ hypothesis could contribute to high reproductive success of Northern Mockingbirds in urban areas....

Conservation of Tropical Birds has been written by four conservation biologists whose expertise spans all the tropical regions of the world. It is the first book to cover all the major issues in tropical bird conservation. Current problems faced by tropical bird conservationists are summarised and potential solutions outlined based on the results o...

Source-sink theories provide a simple yet powerful framework for understanding how the patterns, processes and dynamics of ecological systems vary and interact over space and time. Integrating multiple research fields, including population biology and landscape ecology, this book presents the latest advances in source-sink theories, methods and app...

Imperiled bird biodiversityDrivers of endangermentThe enigmatic

Source-sink theories provide a simple yet powerful framework for understanding how the patterns, processes and dynamics of ecological systems vary and interact over space and time. Integrating multiple research fields, including population biology and landscape ecology, this book presents the latest advances in source-sink theories, methods and app...

Plate 1.1Plates 2.3, 2.5Plates 3.1, 3.11Plates 4.1, 4.2Plate 5.1Plates 6.12, 6.16Plates 7.1, 7.9, 7.10, 7.13, 7.17, 7.19Plates 8.2, 8.3Plate 10.7

Half-Title PageTitle PageCopyright PageTable of ContentsPreface

Tropical montane species are characterized by narrow elevational distributions. Recent perspectives on mechanisms maintaining these restricted distributions have emphasized abiotic processes, but biotic processes may also play a role in their establishment or maintenance. One historically popular hypothesis, especially for birds, is that interspeci...

Nest predators can adversely affect the viability of songbird populations, and their impact is exacerbated in fragmented habitats. Despite substantial research on this predator-prey interaction, however, almost all of the focus has been on the birds rather than their nest predators, thereby limiting our understanding of the factors that bring preda...

Many species of common birds, including some known to adapt to urban habitats, have declined in North America. The Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is an urban adapter that has declined in Florida by 1.7% per year since 1966. We used mockingbirds in Florida as a case study to determine possible reasons for the paradoxical decline of an urba...

Habitat fragmentation fundamentally affects trophic interactions and ecosystem function. Understanding how the landscape matrix modulates such interactions can improve our understanding of fragmentation ecology. Studies of breeding birds provide clear examples of the consequences of habitat fragmentation, but the landscape context of these effects...

Background/Question/Methods One of the most important challenges facing ecologists and conservationists is to understand how species composition of communities changes across heterogeneous landscapes. On the level of individual species, an important corollary is to understand ecological factors that enforce the limits of species’ ranges. Tropical...

Practically all animals are affected by humans, especially in urban areas. Although most species respond negatively to urbanization, some thrive in human-dominated settings. A central question in urban ecology is why some species adapt well to the presence of humans and others do not. We show that Northern Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) nesting o...

In the evolution of interspecific social parasites, the shift from facultative to obligate brood parasitism is thought to be driven by the cost of parental investment. Accordingly, avian brood parasites with precocial young are almost exclusively facultative parasites, whereas those with altricial young are almost exclusively obligate parasites. Su...

St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, is one of the most forested islands in the West Indies and provides an opportunity to conserve both resident birds and wintering neotropical migrants. We conducted double-observer point counts of landbirds in December 2005 and 2006 in Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots and National Park Service (NPS) trails in...

CHARGE OF THE COMMITTEE Partners in Flight (PIF) is a coalition of fed- eral, state, and local government agencies; non- governmental organizations (NGOs); philan- thropic foundations; and industry that is work- ing to conserve the birds of the Western Hemi- sphere. PIF was launched in 1990 in response to growing concerns about declines in the popu...

Avian incubation behaviour is thought to be influenced mainly by ambient temperature and food availability. Field studies, however, have generated contradictory results; there is little agreement about the relative importance of food and temperature and how different components of incubation behaviour are affected by them. To date, no studies have...

We used presentations of models to determine the effectiveness of nest defence in the Acadian Flycatcher Empidonax virescens against a nest predator (Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata) and a brood parasite (Brown-headed Cowbird Molothrus ater). Principal components analysis (PCA) of four component variables of nest defence (call rate, swoop rate, closes...

The Hawaiian Islands have lost nearly all their native seed dispersers, but have gained many frugivorous birds and fleshy-fruited plants through introductions. Introduced birds may not only aid invasions of exotic plants but also may be the sole dispersers of native plants. We assessed seed dispersal at the ecotone between native- and exotic-domina...

Reconnecting forest patches, including those of floodplain forest, often involves the creation of long, narrow corridors that have the potential to act as ecological traps for wildlife. We examined the effect of forest width and habitat composition of the landscapes immediately around nest patches on survival and parasitism of 359 Acadian Flycatche...

Why do many hosts accept costly avian brood parasitism even when parasitic eggs and nestlings differ dramatically in appearance from their own? Scientists argue that evolutionary lag or equilibrium can explain this evolutionary enigma. Few, however, consider the potential of parasitic birds to enforce acceptance by destroying eggs or nestlings of h...

Measuring edge effects in complex landscapes is often confounded by the presence of different kinds of natural and anthropogenic edges, each of which may act differently on organisms inhabiting habitat patches. In such landscapes, proportions of different habitats surrounding nests within patches often vary and may affect nesting success independen...

Questions: How can the productivity of a generalist brood parasite be estimated? Does an invasive brood parasite have greater productivity (defined as fledglings/egg and fledglings/area) in a recently invaded habitat than in a habitat similar to its original range? Features of model: We developed a simulation model that uses Bayesian and Monte Carl...