Vladimír Remeš

• Professor at Palacký University Olomouc

Aim The build‐up of local species diversity requires completing the transition from allopatry to sympatry to local coexistence (syntopy). However, understanding processes than enable species arising in allopatry to become syntopic remains an unsolved challenge. Potential explanations include niche conservatism, niche divergence, and energy availabi...

Evolutionary radiations provide important insights into species diversification, which is especially true of adaptive radiations. New World wood warblers (Parulidae) are a family of small, insectivorous, forest-dwelling passerine birds, often considered an exemplar adaptive radiation due to their rapid diversification followed by a slowdown. Howeve...

Many animals exhibit contrast between their dorsal coloration and their ventral coloration. If selection acts differently on dorsal versus ventral coloration, ancestral covariance between these traits should break down, eventually leading to independent modules of trait evolution. Here, we compare the evolution of feather color across body regions...

Recent speciation rates and the degree of range-wide sympatry are usually higher farther from the equator. Is there also a higher degree of secondary syntopy (coexistence in local assemblages in sympatry) at higher latitudes and, subsequently, an increase in local species richness? We studied the evolution of syntopy in passerine birds using worldw...

Nest predation is the most important factor responsible for nest failure in birds. Nest height may be a factor that affects the rate of nest depredation in different species. In this comparative study, we tested a relationship between nest height and nest depredation in open nesting songbirds. We analyzed data from 357 populations of 252 species an...

Předpoklad, že druhy vznikají v tropických oblastech rychleji než v mírném pásu, byl po dlouhou dobu akceptován a podpořen u několika skupin organismů. Nové poznatky ale naznačují spíše vysokou variabilitu v rychlosti speciace napříč klády bez rozdílů mezi oblastmi, nebo dokonce její vyšší míru v druhově chudším mírném pásu. Rychlá speciace by měla...

Allopatric speciation followed by the evolution of range overlap (sympatry) allows the build‐up of regional diversity. However, local species richness requires that species co‐occur locally (syntopy). Importantly, correct estimates of syntopy must be available to identify ecological traits facilitating it. We thus provide a method to correctly esti...

Disentangling regional and local drivers of species richness in communities is a long-term focus of ecology. Regional species pools affect local communities by providing their constituent species. Additionally, the amount and variety of resources enhance diversity locally. Here, we investigated whether the same ecological factor (vegetation complex...

Many animals exhibit contrast between their dorsal and ventral coloration. If selection acts differently on dorsal versus ventral coloration, these body parts should evolve as independent modules of trait evolution, irrespective of ancestral covariance. Here, we compare the evolution of feather color across 11 body regions for a clade of Australasi...

The cover image is based on the Letter AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds by Tobias et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. The sword‐billed hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) is exquisitely adapted to its trophic niche as an aerial pollinator of flowerings plants (angiosperms) in the high Andes. A new global data...

Functional traits offer a rich quantitative framework for developing and testing theories in evolutionary biology, ecology and ecosystem science. However, the potential of functional traits to drive theoretical advances and refine models of global change can only be fully realised when species-level information is complete. Here we present the AVON...

Aim Species interactions are assumed to be stronger closer to the equator. However, numerous studies provided conflicting results and considerable controversy exists concerning the latitudinal patterns in the intensity of biotic interactions. Thus, the question of whether biotic interactions are stronger near the equator remains open. Here, we prov...

Vegetation complexity is an important predictor of animal species diversity. Specifically, taller vegetation should provide more potential ecological niches and thus harbor communities with higher species richness and functional diversity (FD). Resource use behavior is an especially important functional trait because it links species to their resou...

Background: Growth trajectories should be adapted to selective factors of each species' environment. However, major shaping forces of growth and development are unclear, especially when studying several traits at once. Birds provide an ideal opportunity to analyze growth patterns across species due to there being enough available data. We tested t...

We studied the relationship between temperature and the coexistence of great tit Parus major and blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus, breeding in 75 study plots across Europe and North Africa. We expected an advance in laying date and a reduction in clutch size during warmer springs as a general response to climate warming and a delay in laying date and a...

Aim Nest building is widespread among animals. Nests may provide receptacles for eggs, developing offspring and the parents, and protect them from adverse environmental conditions. Nests may also indicate the quality of the territory and its owner and can be considered as an extended phenotype of its builder(s). Nests may, thus, function as a sexua...

While morphological traits are often associated with multiple functions, it remains unclear how evolution balances the selective effects of different functions. Birds' beaks function not only in foraging but also in thermoregulating and singing, among other behaviours. Studies of beak evolution abound, however, most focus on a single function. Henc...

Ecological specialization enables the partitioning of resources and thus can facilitate the coexistence of species and promote higher species richness. Specialization and niche partitioning are expected to exert a decisive influence on local spatial scales, while species richness at regional scales should be shaped mostly by historical factors and...

One of the major questions in ecology is how species share their ecological space and what enables them to coexist. Partitioning of foraging niches should facilitate local coexistence. Thus, detailed data on foraging ecology are needed to provide insight into the assembly of communities. To this end, we quantified foraging behaviour of songbirds (P...

Many species have evolved alternate phenotypes, thus enabling individuals to conditionally produce phenotypes that are favorable for reproductive success. Examples of this phenomenon include sexual dimorphism, alternative reproductive strategies, and social insect castes. While the evolutionary functions and developmental mechanisms of dimorphic ph...

Niche partitioning is presumed to play a prominent role in shaping species richness by facilitating species coexistence. The assumption is that narrow specialization enables finer partitioning of resources and thus enhances local coexistence of species and allows higher species richness. While niche partitioning is assumed to be most important on f...

Abstract Climate is a major driver of species diversity. However, its effect can be either direct due to species physiological tolerances or indirect, whereby wetter climates facilitate more complex vegetation and consequently higher diversity due to greater resource availability. Yet, studies quantifying both direct and indirect effects of climate...

Incubation is an important component of parental care in birds, and species differ widely in their incubation rhythm. In this comparative study, we focused on factors responsible for those differences. As hypothesized by A. Skutch, increased parental activity at the nest increases the probability of nest depredation. High risk of nest predation sho...

Coexistence between great tits Parus major and blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus , but also other hole‐nesting taxa, constitutes a classic example of species co‐occurrence resulting in potential interference and exploitation competition for food and for breeding and roosting sites. However, the spatial and temporal variations in coexistence and its con...

Growth of young is an important part of the life history in birds. However, modelling methods have paid little attention to the choice of regression model used to describe its pattern. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a single sigmoid model with an upper asymptote could describe avian growth adequately. We compared unified versions of...

Klimatické podmínky jsou jednou z nejdůležitějších složek ovlivňujících druhovou diverzitu. Jejich efekt může být přímý (fyziologické tolerance), nebo nepřímý, kdy vlhké klima podporuje bohatší vegetaci a tím dostupné zdroje, které přispívají k vyšší diverzitě. Studie zaměřující se na jak přímé, tak nepřímé vlivy klimatu na diverzitu jsou však stál...

Birds' beaks play a key role in foraging, and most research on their size and shape has focused on this function. Recent findings suggest that beaks may also be important for thermoregulation, and this may drive morphological evolution as predicted by Allen's rule. However, the role of thermoregulation in the evolution of beak size across species r...

The study of clutch size has been a productive approach to gaining better understanding of life-history evolution, especially in Northern Hemisphere birds. Factors driving life-history evolution in Southern Hemisphere species are less well understood. Moreover, studies often focus on single hypotheses for clutch size evolution and rarely test sever...

The evolution of sexual dichromatism provoked one of the greatest disagreements between Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. According to Darwin the main driving force is sexual selection, whereby choosy females prefer showy males, leading to the evolution of conspicuous male plumage. On the other hand, Wallace suggested that dichromatism may...

Mapping species distributions and biological diversity was a focus of many studies, yet our understanding of observed patterns and sources of their variability is still far from comprehensive. Here, we focus on identifying areas with exceptional biological diversity and explaining their occurrence. We determined the relative importance of species r...

Aim Animal coloration often shows high degrees of evolutionary lability, producing variation among species that is easily apparent. This variation may produce consistent geographical patterns as species converge on adaptive phenotypes in similar environments. Some such geographical patterns in colour variation have been recently predicted as a resp...

Physiological characteristics are important determinants of the climatic niches species can inhabit and can help us predict their responses to climate change. In endotherms, most studied aspects so far concerned metabolic rates and thermal tolerances. Less attention was given to another aspect of physiology, evaporative water loss, which plays an i...

What is the tempo and mode of evolution – how fast and in what pattern do traits evolve – is a major question of evolutionary biology. Here we studied patterns of evolutionary change in visual and acoustic signals in Old World orioles. Since producing multiple signals may be costly, we also tested whether there was an evolutionary trade-off between...

Species differ strongly in their life histories, including the probability of survival. Annual adult survival was investigated extensively in the past, whereas juvenile survival, and especially survival to independence, received much less attention. Yet, they are critical for our understanding of population demography and life-history evolution. We...

Evoluce velikosti snůšky ptáků byla a stále je intenzivně studována, avšak většina studií se týká druhů obývajících severní polokouli a faktory ovlivňující evoluci druhů na jižní polokouli nejsou tak dobře prozkoumány. Studie se navíc často soustředí na samostatné hypotézy evoluce velikosti snůšky a jen zřídka testují více hypotéz zároveň. Použitím...

Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is widespread among animals, and is a common indication of differential selection among males and females. Sexual selection theory predicts that SSD should increase as one sex competes more fiercely for access to mates, but it is unclear what effect spatial variation in ecology may have on this behavioral process and SS...

Significance Parents in many animal species care for their offspring. In some species, males care more; in other species, females care more; in still other species, the contribution of the sexes is equal. However, we do not know what explains these differences among species. Using the most comprehensive analyses of parental care to date, here we sh...

Male and female parents often provide different type and amount of care to their offspring. Three major drivers have been proposed to explain parental sex roles: (i) differential gametic investment by males and females that precipitates into sex difference in care, (ii) different intensity of sexual selection acting on males and females, and (iii)...

The interplay between color vision and animal signaling is of keen interest to behavioral ecologists and evolutionary biologists alike, but is difficult to address in terrestrial animals. Unlike most avian lineages, in which color vision is relatively invariant among species, the fairy-wrens and allies (Maluridae) show a recent gain of ultraviolet...

Phylogenetic and functional diversity in Australian birds

Evoluce velikosti snůšky ptáků byla důkladně studována na severní polokouli, ale o faktorech ovlivňujících ji na jižní polokouli se stále ví jen velmi málo. Studovali jsme velikost snůšky australských pěvců a její závislost na vybraných druhově specifických znacích a podmínkách prostředí za použití dvou přístupů, fylogenetického a makroekologického...

Environmental conditions affect species diversity and ecological traits of organisms in communities. We studied effects of environmental conditions including temperature, precipitation, and productivity on species richness and ecological specialisation of Australian birds. We calculated specialisation in habitat use, type of food, and selection of...

Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is widespread among animals, and is a common indication of differential selection among males and females. Sexual selection theory predicts that SSD should increase as one sex competes more fiercely for access to mates, but it is unclear what effect spatial variation in ecology may have on this behavioral process. Here,...

Nests are structures built to support and protect eggs and/or offspring from predators, parasites, and adverse weather conditions. Nests are mainly constructed prior to egg laying, meaning that parent birds must make decisions about nest site choice and nest building behavior before the start of egg-laying. Parent birds should be selected to choose...

Background/Question/Methods Interests of the two sexes when caring for offspring overlap only partially. Resolution of this evolutionarily significant conflict ranges from uniparental care (full conflict) to equal biparental care (full cooperation). Previous comparative studies focused on transitions between uniparental vs. biparental care, where...

In altricial birds, the quantity and quality of food provided by parents is a crucial determinant of nestling performance. Vitamin E is an important micronutrient with various physiological functions, including a positive role in the antioxidant system. Sufficient intake of vitamin E has been shown to condition normal avian development in poultry,...

Male contribution to parental care varies widely among avian species. Yet the reasons for this variation, as well as its consequences, are still unclear. Because the amount of care provided by one sex is ultimately constrained by the time available for energy acquisition, contribution by the other sex should increase when overall parental workload...

Secondary hole nesting birds that do not construct nest holes themselves and hence regularly breed in nest boxes constitute important model systems for field studies in many biological disciplines with hundreds of scientists and amateurs involved. Those research groups are spread over wide geographic areas that experience considerable variation in...

Parental care provided by males occurs in a diverse array of animals and there are large differences among species in its extent compared with female care. However, social and ecological factors responsible for interspecific differences in male's share of parental duties remain unclear. Genetic fidelity of females has been long considered important...

Phylogenetic comparative analyses of complex traits often reduce the traits of interests into a single (or a few) component variables. Here, we show that this may be an over-simplification, because components of a complex trait may evolve independently from each other. Using eight components of parental care in 400 bird species from 89 avian famili...

Introduction Animals are often conspicuously colored and explanations range from aposematism and mimicry to sexual selection. Although sexual selection explains vivid coloration in males, functional significance of vivid coloration in females of socially monogamous species remains unclear. The hypothesis of mutual mate choice predicts that more orn...

Juvenile mortality is one of crucial drivers of life-history evolution, and predation is the main cause of nest loss in birds. Thus, understanding how nest predation and failure vary in nature is important for understanding life history evolution and, moreover, for effective conservation. We used published data and unpublished records to study fact...

Overwintering strategies are important for the survival of resident birds in temperate climates and among the most important are adjustments in roosting behaviour. In cavity roosting birds, previous studies have frequently used contact checks of man-made nest boxes to quantify roost-site occupancy. However, there is a concern that occupancy rate es...

Carotenoid plumage is of widespread use in bird communication. Carotenoid-based feather colouration has recently been shown to be dependent on both pigment concentration and feather structure. If these two components are determined differently, one plumage patch may potentially convey different aspects of individual quality. We evaluated the effect...

Predation is a major factor in ecology, evolution and conservation and thus its understanding is essential for insights into ecological processes and management of endangered populations of prey. Here we conducted a spatially (main island through to offshore islets) and temporally (1938–2005) extensive meta-analysis of published nest predation rate...

Evolution of parental care behaviour has been of considerable interest to behavioural ecologists for a long time. Incubation feeding, where an individual incubating eggs is provisioned by another individual, is an important component of avian parental care. It may be critical for breeding success by allowing the incubating bird to spend more time o...

Females can modify phenotype of their offspring through the deposition of biologically active compounds into eggs, including carotenoids, vitamins and other antioxidants. Understanding patterns of deposition is critical for better insight into the significance of maternal effects. Here we investigated how egg yolk antioxidants (lutein, zeaxanthin,...

Individuals differ in their ability to cope with energetically demanding situations while caring for the current brood, and they can signal this ability by their colouration. We examined the impact of handicapping (clipping of wing and tail feathers) on an energetically demanding care behaviour (incubation) in female Great Tits (Parus major). We hy...

Females can adaptively adjust phenotype of their offspring via deposition of various compounds into eggs, including androgens and other hormones. Here, I investigated how egg yolk androgens (testosterone and androstenedione) related to environmental conditions and parental traits in the great tit (Parus major) across three breeding seasons. Male an...

Selection of a particular host has clear consequences for the performance of avian brood parasites. Experimental studies showed that growth rate and fledging mass of brood parasites varied between host species independently of the original host species. Finding correlates of this phenotypic plasticity in growth is important for assessing adaptivene...

Sexual size dimorphism (SSD), i.e. the difference in sizes of males and females, is a key evolutionary feature that is related to ecology, behaviour and life histories of organisms. Although the basic patterns of SSD are well documented for several major taxa, the processes generating SSD are poorly understood. Domesticated animals offer excellent...

Parental investment and environmental conditions determine reproductive success in wild-ranging animals. Parental effort during incubation, and consequently factors driving it, has profound consequences for reproductive success in birds. The female nutrition hypothesis states that high male feeding enables the incubating female to spend more time o...

The widespread use of artificial nestboxes has led to significant advances in our knowledge of the ecology, behaviour and physiology of cavity nesting birds, especially small passerines Nestboxes have made it easier to perform routine monitoring and experimental manipulation of eggs or nestlings, and also repeatedly to capture, identify and manipul...

Carotenoids are micronutrients with many beneficial health‐related effects. They are effective antioxidants and stimulants of the immune system. Carotenoids cannot be synthesized in animals and must be obtained from food. As such, they may limit reproductive output and performance, and on the proximate level mediate reproductive trade‐offs. We stud...

Previous studies have shown that avian growth and development covary with juvenile mortality. Juveniles of birds under strong nest predation pressure grow rapidly, have short incubation and nestling periods, and leave the nest at low body mass. Life-history theory predicts that parental investment increases with adult mortality rate. Thus, developm...

Sibling competition was proposed as an important selective agent in the evolution of growth and development. Brood parasitism by the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) intensifies sibling competition in the nests of its hosts by increasing host chick mortality and exposing them to a genetically unrelated nestmate. Intranest sibling competition f...

In birds with altricial young an important stage in the life history is the age at fledging. In this paper we use an approach proven successful in the prediction of the optimal age at maturity in fish and reptiles to predict the optimal age of fledging in passerines. Integrating the effects of growth on future fecundity and survival leads to the pr...

In natural nests, parental activity adds an additional layer of complexity to the benefits and costs of nest-site selection with respect to nest concealment. Parental activity around natural nests can disclose nests to visually orientated predators (Martin et al. 2000). The influence of concealment on nest survival may be different in natural nests...

Nest concealment varies strongly within populations of many species. Although some studies have revealed the beneficial effects of concealment in mitigating predation pressure on nests, other studies were unable to find similar effects. One potential reason for the mixed results is that parental behaviour may compensate for the effects of nest cove...

Les ectoparasites qui infestent les nids réduisent souvent le succès reproducteur et la condition physique des oiseaux nicheurs. Il est donc important d'identifier les facteurs qui influencent leur abondance pour mieux comprendre les caractéristiques de la reproduction et l'évolution du cycle vital chez les oiseaux. Selon une hypothèse récente, les...

Traditionally, maternal effects have been treated as a source of troublesome environmental variance that confounds our ability to accurately estimate the genetic basis of the traits of interest. However, the adaptive significance of maternal effects is currently at the centre of the attention of ecologists. Thus, in turn, the genetic basis of trait...

Adaptive within-clutch allocation of resources by laying females is an important focus of evolutionary studies. However, the critical assumption of these studies, namely that within-clutch egg-size deviations affect offspring performance, has been properly tested only rarely. In this study, we investigated effects of within-clutch deviations in egg...

Animals are expected to distribute themselves in a heterogeneous environment in such a way that they maximize their reproductive output. When the environment is profoundly changed by human pressure, however, cues used for habitat selection in the past may no longer provide reliable information about habitat quality. I monitored the nesting success...

The reasons why growth and developmental rates vary widely among species have remained unclear. Previous examinations of possible environmental influences on growth rates of birds yielded few correlations, leading to suggestions that young may be growing at maximum rates allowed within physiological constraints. However, estimations of growth rates...

Several theoretical models have been proposed to describe population dynamics in a spatially heterogeneous environment. The source-sink model is among the most popular. Diffendorfer recently summarized its assumptions and predictions. Given the model reviewed, he argued that source-sink population dynamics arises if dispersal is somehow constrained...