Avian Ecology - Science topic

It may be a bit late but take a look at

You are working on complex ecological aspects. Good, congratulations, and I wish you all success. I know it is not easy to work on environmental aspects, particularly animal ecology. However, you can deal with various aspects and synchronise in discussions because you deal with living beings controlled by biotic and abiotic factors. Their impact is highly delicate as these are interdependent.

To compare diversity indices between groups while accounting for confidence intervals derived from rarefaction, you can use several approaches. Here are some suitable methods for your analysis:

One straightforward approach is to use the confidence interval overlap method. This method is particularly useful when dealing with rarefied diversity estimates.

This method is simple to implement and interpret, making it a popular choice among ecologists.

The Hutcheson t-test is specifically designed to compare Shannon diversity indices between two samples.

While this test is primarily for Shannon diversity, it can be adapted for other indices as well.

For a more robust comparison that accounts for the uncertainty in your rarefied estimates:

This method is particularly useful when dealing with non-normally distributed data or when parametric assumptions are not met.

Permutation tests offer a flexible, distribution-free approach to comparing groups:

This method is robust to violations of normality and can be applied to various diversity indices.

Since you're comparing multiple groups, consider adjusting for multiple comparisons:

To complement your statistical analysis:

These visualizations can provide intuitive understanding of the differences between groups and the associated uncertainty.

Remember to choose the method that best fits your data structure and research questions. It's also advisable to use multiple approaches to ensure robustness of your conclusions. If you're unsure about the most appropriate method, consulting with a statistician familiar with ecological data analysis can be beneficial.

To calculate the variance for each sample in the Hutcheson t-test, you need to use a specific formula designed for the Shannon diversity index. Here's how to do it:

To calculate this variance:

This variance calculation is crucial for the Hutcheson t-test because:

By calculating this variance for each of your samples, you'll be able to proceed with the Hutcheson t-test to compare the Shannon diversity indices between your groups, taking into account the uncertainty in each estimate .

Yes, PERMANOVA (Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance) can be applied to analyze the diversity indices between your groups. It's particularly well-suited for your situation for several reasons:

1. Non-parametric: PERMANOVA doesn't assume normality, which is beneficial when dealing with diversity indices that may not be normally distributed .

2. Multivariate: It can handle multiple response variables simultaneously, allowing you to compare all your diversity indices at once .

3. Flexible: PERMANOVA can be used with various distance measures, including those appropriate for ecological data .

4. Powerful: It's generally more powerful at detecting changes in community structure compared to some other methods like ANOSIM .

5. Handles complex designs: PERMANOVA can be applied to complex experimental designs, including multiple factors and interactions .

To apply PERMANOVA to your data:

1. Prepare your data: Organize your diversity indices for each community into a matrix.

2. Choose a distance measure: Select an appropriate distance measure for your data type.

3. Run the analysis: Use software like R (with the vegan package) to perform PERMANOVA .

4. Interpret results: PERMANOVA provides a pseudo F-statistic and a p-value. A significant p-value (typically <0.05) indicates differences between groups .

5. Post-hoc tests: If significant, you may want to perform pairwise comparisons to determine which specific groups differ.

6. Visualize: Consider using ordination techniques like PCoA to visualize group differences .

Remember to consider the assumptions of PERMANOVA, such as homogeneity of multivariate dispersions among groups . You can test this using PERMDISP (available in R as betadisper() function) .

Given that your indices are expressed as confidence intervals due to rarefaction, you might want to incorporate this uncertainty into your analysis. One approach could be to use the mean values for the PERMANOVA, but then use the confidence intervals to interpret the results more conservatively.

PERMANOVA is a robust and flexible method that should be well-suited to comparing your diversity indices across groups while accounting for the complexity of your data.

Sure, as long as you have comparable situations, where you can find the tracks. It is more the problem that we do not find the tracks in our regions. Only in sand or snow. And recently we hardly have snow anymore...

We also do phototrapping methods in the tropics and all over the world. E.g. Bawean deer

How are the doves being observed? How are the specimens being collected for PCR?

Personally, sexing birds and mammals that are not sexually dimorphic just happens to be my super power. Weird, huh? But that has been acquired through decades of field study. I can look at pictures of a coyote from my game cameras and it is simply obvious by their body language, or a "feeling" as to whether that is a female or male. Ravens, pigeons, geese, roadrunners- studying their behavior and subtle physical clues; they simply carry themselves in a "girl" or "boy" way. Animals never lie. That is strictly a human trait. Like that man, Lia Thomas; what a liar and a cheat!

Anyway, you are obviously a geneticist, but try discerning behavioral clues. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Good luck, Huntnlady

The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placemen...

Jose L. Alcantara i advice have a look at the link shared

I am interested but where this place?

Lots, but less every day. Great question I wish I could answer constructively.

I am sorry because my research work is confined to South America.

Sure. Any off site work, please reach-out.

Please take a look at the following references.

The objective (i.e. what is wanted to know) is not clear. It is required to describe the objective clearly and specifically.

The data, shown in the table, is a kind of time series data. It may be possible to extract information from the data. However, the size of data is small. It will be convenient if more data are collected.

Hello Joao. For a multivariate analysis in this case I would recommend you to apply a PCA (Principal Component Analysis). It can show you several correlations at the same time. And I agree with Andrew, don´t take of the analysis the rare species, maybe they are the ones that can provide the most valuable information. But you always can take of outliers from a single group (or species in this case), which are simply data that, for any reason, is totally different from the normal distribution. I mean, if you have, let´s say 30 records for Species 1 corresponding to forest and 1 record of the same species in the transitional habitat, that would be clearly an outlier and, only for statistical purposes, you can remove that record from the analysis because it will influence in the resulting value, but of course you have to do this only when you are totally confident that you are dealing with an outlier. But, if you have just one record of a rare species, that maybe it´s behaving different from the rest of species into the same Family, you must use that data and try to find out the reasons for that difference. Maybe that will help you to explain why that species is so rare.

In the following manuscript an interesting and very efficient method is proposed, because an integrated methodology of sampling, rarefaction and extrapolation is proposed to compare the species richness of a set of communities based on samples of equal integrity (as measured by the coverage sample) instead of equal size. This method produces less biased comparisons of wealth between communities, and manages it with a smaller total sampling effort. In the work hypothetical and real examples are proposed to demonstrate these advantages.

Chao, A., & Jost, L. (2012). Coverage‐based rarefaction and extrapolation: Standardizing samples by completeness rather than size. Ecology, 93(12), 2533-2547.

When you enter a csv, xlsx aR file, he creates a first column, before performing the analyzes, make sure to delete that column in the edit file and save it. That must be the solution to the problem

Solitary bees are those species which are not eusocial.

That says they have 3 traits together: 1- division of labot /caste system involving sterile individuals that assist those that reproduce. 2- cooperation among colony member in tending the youngs. 3- overlap of generations capable of contributing to colony functioning. This is a basic definition from Gullan & Cranston "The insects - an outline of entomology, all the editions. So your responses (A,B,C and D) are not relevant and not true. Their is a problem with A: what do you call a Bee hive? if it is the "house of the bees" do you call "hive" the hole in the soil or in wood that a solitary bee does to lay her eggs and put food for the future youngs?

I have experience to capture scaly-sided mergansers. In breeding season, they usually forage in narrow forest river. I set mist nets across the river, and it works especially at twilight or foggy days. However, pls be very careful to set the net at least one meter above river, and always monitor nearby, to avoid trapped birds drowned.

Many users still follow and visit this thread. If you are interested in database framework for biodiversity data and/or ringing data, don't hesitate to contact me! I think I found one of the best solutions.

Herbal remedies are the current focus of most livestock researches. indigenous knowledge on plants are being backed up with scientific evidences to provide ideal solutions for safe animal production

There is a short note by McCormick (2007, Notornis 54:116-117) in which she reports on possible tool use by an Australian Magpie. On one occasion she observed an individual adult Magpie using a stick to probe into a hole in a tree and speculated that the bird was possibly using the stick as a foraging tool.

Hi, you can use the 4th generation Song Meter SM4 which is a compact, weatherproof, dual-channel acoustic recorder capable of capturing large amounts of data from wildlife such as birds, frogs and aquatic life.

Hope this link useful https://www.wildlifeacoustics.com/

The short answer is yes. There is a burgeoning literature on this. The big question is how does one do so most efficiently. Some papers in a Special Feature of Avian Conservation and Ecology cover this, and I know of several in review and in preparation that also address efficiency. The Special Feature of Avian Conservation and Ecology is freely accessible here: 

The 3 sites should be called areas. The areas are the replicates. Areas are only independent if they are significantly distant from each other. Then you should create at least 3 subsamples (called sites) within each replicate area. You then collect separate diversity and density data at each site across two seasons. Ordination is okay, but is really only exploratory and just orders objects that are characterized by values on multiple variables so that similar objects are near each other and dissimilar objects are farther from each other. Ordination doesn't really compare data between sites. ANOVA is better for that (with post hoc tests). Your ANOVA table will therefore have the following column headings: area, site and season and data comprising density and diversity. You also need to determine how to obtain diversity and density indices :)

Instead you can use resource selection function (RSF) for use-availability data, e.g., package “ResourceSelection” in R.

Best,

Andrzej

Moving from environmental economics to ecological economics and strong sustainability gives a glimpse about how green we need to go and thereby need to transform our current economic system rather than treating symptoms with the same thinking we applied to create these problems in the first place. Rather than aiming at "good enough" we should first acknowledge "enough is enough" and that consumerism wont be the panacea

 Van Gils, J.A., Lisovski, S., Lok, T., (...), Piersma, T., Klaassen, M. Climate change: Body shrinkage due to Arctic warming reduces red knot fitness in tropical wintering range Science 352(6287), pp. 819-821

Dear All, thank so much for your contribution.

Konstantinos

Dear Sagar,

the paper below has been accepted for publication in Ecology and should be available soon. According to the abstract: " The dataset includes 10,534 observations from freshwater and marine animals of N and/or P excretion rates. These observations represent 491 species, including most aquatic phyla." Sounds interesting.

Kind regards,

Michał Filipiak

Please check the following links and PDF attachments also.

We measured T3 in psittacine birds in 1985. JAVMA 186(1):47-48. The RIA kit used (Gamma Coat may or may not be available. Your procedure would have to be validated for use in the species of interest.

I would contact the authors of this paper. It's possible they may have captured some flight videos that were not the focus of their paper, but may be useful to you: 

I would check out their methods of kinematic analysis as well, some of which are quite new (wand calibration for field based locomotion studies): http://jeb.biologists.org/content/217/11/1843

Hi Jakub!

And, what did you choose as equipment? And what are your experiences with them? And do you get the same lifetime as Ross?

Andy: thanks for the paper, this link will help me more (after following the link you gave). 

René 

Hi Romina. I am a researcher currently working on Agent-based modeling (ABM) of social systems.

 I think there are two approaches to answer your question, statistical analysis of the actual data and a simulation to reproduce the real phenomenon.

To know if birds show any preference for locations, statistical analysis of the actual data of birds’ locations would be the priority to do. Next, we can try to reproduce the obtained result by a simulation model, in which birds' activity space would be divided into many small segments and behavioral rules of birds to move to any of the adjacent segments would be assumed. The behavioral rules include a random movement, but we can also assume more complex behavior including individual’s preference. By comparing the simulated locations with the actual data, we can get more understanding about the behavioral rules which might be likely to occur.

  I hope this would be some help to you

Shigeaki

 Hello Andrew, thanks a lot for your reaction. Unfortunately, although a very interesting article, this is more about flight distance to avoid predators, and a comparison between urban birds (less adapted to disturbance) and non-urban birds. 

Anyway, thanks again and succes with your research there (for us) "down under"!

Anny

Yes, your idea may work, providing you have a good point sample (e.g. 10) per each forest (I don't know if you have such a large extent of different forest in Slovakia, but I suppose so)  to be regularly checked (say at least 2 times per year) for 3 years. That's right. 

Thanks Andrew and Susanne for your responses. In reading the papers on CoCA I found this:

Guisan, A., S. B. Weiss, and A. D. Weiss. 1999. GLM versus CCA spatial modeling of plant species distributions. Plant Ecology 143:107–122.

The authors used the euclidean distance from a given site's scores to a given species' centroid in sd units variance of the species scores as a means to estimate a site's habitat suitability for individual species. I am using this as a means to estimate a novel location's species composition based on a suite of environmental covariates that predict its position in ordination space.

I have sent in my answer

Picoides tridactylus of course, I found it in Bulgaria at Picea abies.

Best wishes, André

If you need to detect and monitor acoustically the presence and behavior of a given species, you can setup a monitoring protocol based on acoustic recording. Depending on the vocal behavior of the species and on its density and distribution, if known, you can perform a short term monitoring or a long term monitoring. You can use short term (few days) continuous recording with a pocket digital recorder or a long term recording with an autonomous programmable recorder. If the area to be investigated is large, you can use several autonomous recorders, located where you think more probable the presence of the species. As for the scheduling of the recorder, you can choose to focus on dawn and dusk periods, or just at night if it is nocturnal, or set a regular scheduling, e.g. 10 minutes every 30 minutes 24/24h. 

The type is termed "neopastel", should be available at any arts store

Laura:  This stain (Bigen) last for a month or more, depending on the weather.  

Thank you Victoria and Rien for the hints to the "zooniverse" and the "vogel het uit!", but I think "animaltrack" is so far the platform which comes closest to what could be needed for such a mobile application. Thanks also to Giuseppe Masciopinto for the offer to develop such a tool. I will most probably come back to some of you in a later stage of my brain storming process!

Dear Scott,

you won't find the exact data answering your question, however below I put the three studies that may help you. You should take into account that concentrations of nutrients in feces depend on concentrations of nutrients in food.

Kind regards!

MF

Hi,

in South Africa the species was introduced in the mid-20th century. Here is what I have from our literature: ca 125 grams from a Guide to Parrots of the World by Juniper and Parr (1998). 

Here are two ringing records from South Africa. Just contact the Animal Demography Unit (SAFRING) from the University of Cape Town, South Africa for those measurements.

The second link is to a paper but, it might not give measurements.

Hi.

In the Canary archipelago we have many banana cultivations in lowland areas of the western and central islands. The avifauna of such habitats is poor, but there are some interesting species like Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola), which can breed inside this "extrange" environment. In any case, I don't know any specific paper or unpublished study on the bird fauna of our banana cultivations, but there is some general information on the subject in different books. With regards to migrants, I have seen very few species in this habitat, like some Hirundinidae (e.g. Barn Swallow of House Martin) or Motacillidae (Motacilla alba alba). When there are some artificial ponds or reservoirs linked to these cultivations you can find, naturally, more species, even ducks and shorebirds, and sometimes breeding populations of Rallidae (Common Moorhen and Coot) and of Grey Wagtail. This last species is common in banana cultivations. 

Best regards. 

i agreed with Gretchen naraf answare. bird's survey techniques are not restricted to only one methodology

Thanks Marcileida. People can find more information at http://www.pipwatch.net/archives/1655. The birds are in north-eastern Australia.

The package GAMLSS in R is much more flexible in terms of error distributions than what the standard exponential family can provide. The fitDist function is very useful in this regard as it optimises the best fit distribution for your particular data. You can use one of these best fits in the gamlss model function. I found much improved diagnostics compared to using the mgcv package or glms. Hope this helps.

Hey John - interesting question(s).  I will take this in 2 parts.  First, if O2 can limit or influence drivers of melanin-based signals.  I have little idea if or how there could be a direct relationship, but I very much doubt it.  There are just too many other things going on.  Second, on the relationship of elevation and phenotype: yes, very clearly there are connections between physiology and phenotype and elevation - most notable are the adaptations and phenotypic plasticity observed at high elevations.  I think fence lizards (Sceloporus) show some pretty amazing differences (See Leache et al, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 100, 630–641).  There is also going to be tremendous correlation with anything that can vary phenotypically that is related to overall metabolism and response to the difference in temperature (as you mention).  But the big answer here is: its too complicated to generalize.  The small answer depends on your system, the organism(s), and the elevational gradient.  Clearly there are many other things can can co-vary with elevation, but there are also artifacts (soil differences, humidity regimes) that might not have anything to do with elevation per se - and could skew your analysis.  If your system is birds - and they can fly, I would be very careful in how you attribute difference in elevation to any phenotypic differences, since the birds might be able to be in habitats every day that differ in elevation by >1000m.  So unless you have extremely low-motility philopatric animals, where you actually see or catch the birds might not be a good indication of the preferred habitat of the individual.  If you can make some fairly clean relationships between O2 and elevation and coloration, great.  But I reckon it is much more complicated than that and you can find much clearer relationships between say temperature and coloration.  Good luck with your research!

Hi Salvatore,

there is no single best method (and consider that to obtain statistical evidence you need alternative models, or null hypotheses), but you can read this:

which provides a recent review of some approaches.

Hope it helps,

Hi Julia,

I have been using e-obs collars on Eurasian lynx in a montane area in Turkey. To my experience if you have severeal high hill tops ascendant to your study area it is very easy to download the data when your animals are in the inactive phase of the day. I could download data many times over more than 5kms away and once even from 16kms from a mountain slope to a hill top directly looking to each other!

I agree with Miha that if the animal is moving during the download, connection breaks very often. So, I always try around 11am to 3pm when the animals are generally inactive and resting on slopes.

As far as I know e-obs is very successful on bird tracking as well.

Cheers,

Deniz

What about moorhens or coots? moorhens have the red faceplate. they are happy in a closed area with a pond.

Thank You for the answers :)

I know well this article about wrens, this is the only one which I know about the arthropod cocoons in bird nests.

I rather expect observations, e.g. this year I observed cocoons in the nest of red-backed shrike. I wonder how much bird species can use this nest material and what is the function of this behaviour. :)

Hi Mohamed,

I guess the most logical explanations are based on what we know of the behaviour of Tetranychus, and that would be (a) overwintering or near-overwintering individuals, as we know that's what at least females do, or (b) huge infestations on the leaves, which lead to numerous wandering individuals that might end up in a bird's nest. As dispersal is by wind or walking for spider mites, it wouldn't surprise me to find some roaming the trunks of trees. But failing those explanations, that just leaves unfounded but interesting speculation. One possibility would be over-summering, which isn't well documented, but in hot climates would not be a surprising behaviour to discover; another is nocturnal behaviour, which I think isn't shown for spider mites but I suspect that's because few have looked (there's a nice paper showing nocturnal behaviour in phytoseiids, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0706.2003.12572.x/full). Perhaps spider mites are unlikely to be nocturnal as they would have to give up feeding for a significant part of each day, thus slowing their development... but if phytoseiids do it, why not the spider mites?

Less likely is that it's a bark-feeding Tetranychus: their distant tuckerellid ancestors might do this, but I know of no Tetranychini - or even Tetranychidae for that matter - that do this.

All the best, Owen.

Hi Orsola!

I used these ones (- Intasolve touch screens) previously with Paridae - as  in  McGregor, A & Healy, SD 1999, 'Spatial accuracy in food-storing and nonstoring birds' Animal Behaviour, vol 58, no. 4, pp. 727-734. DOI: 10.1006/anbe.1999.1190

Hope that's of some help...

J

I can confirm that Herring Gulls may be a predator. Many years ago (~1990, May-June?) I saw a Herring Gull at a high tide roost (Griend, Wadden Sea, Netherlands) standing among hundreds of completely relaxed Dunlins when it suddenly snatched one and gobbled it down on the spot.

Sorry for not publishing it.

In a dissertation by Kees Camphuysen mention is made of wader predation by gulls on page 340: 

Dear Roseanne,

If I am understanding you correctly the data that you have collected yourself plus the others from other workers are the subject of your Master thesis. For some reasons you were asked to do the comparison of three data sets: your own plus other two of other people. You write that the other two data set are not useful at all. Thus, I would suggest that you check the goals of your thesis, that are the foundation of what you are doing, and revise why you were asked for this work. It is not just to say that the other two data sets are not useful, because it is your duty to explain your reasons for saying this. It could be the case that they are not useful, but in sciences it is not just to say that others are wrong; you have to demonstrate that the data from others are wrong! You say that you do not have time now to run new analyses of those two data sets, but this is your problem not a problem of the comparative study that you were asked to perform.  My best suggestion is that you talk to your main advisor as soon as possible, and if it is needed, organize a meeting with your graduate committee about the problem that you have in hands. I strongly suggest to do this, other way you put your thesis in a risky situation.

With my best wishes,

Gloria Arratia

Dear Charlotte,

Sounds fantastic! I hope to be able to visit most of those places you mentioned. Thank you so much!

Best regards,

Indrikis

here you can find rainfall data (from meteorological modelling) worldwide.

Other datasets are also available from remote sensing (e.g. GPM ). Btw, we also provide rainfall data (see my RG page).

Dear Jafet

I am studyng Leptospira for a long time and never read anything about it. 

According to many researches, birds cannot develop infection. It would be a very rare event.

Dear Tomas,

You are probably right, Indonesia (419), Australia (317), and may be Brazil (233) are possibly the countries with the highest number of endemic birds these days

However, you should check birdlife international website, and look for country profiles:

And also thess publications:

Orme, C. D. L., Davies, R. G., Burgess, M., Eigenbrod, F., Pickup, N., Olson, V. A., ... & Stattersfield, A. J. (2005). Global hotspots of species richness are not congruent with endemism or threat. Nature, 436(7053), 1016-1019.

Kier, G., Kreft, H., Lee, T. M., Jetz, W., Ibisch, P. L., Nowicki, C., ... & Barthlott, W. (2009). A global assessment of endemism and species richness across island and mainland regions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(23), 9322-9327.

Best regards and good luck!

Sebastian

Dear Gary,

Please check this PDF attachment.

Good luck

If this is not already within the pdfs above: The selection of random sites in a landscape setting should account for differences in land use or in your case the differences in urban land use types (eg. park, industrial, housing etc). Therefore I would first use a map which differentiates for the land uses within the city and secondly choose random sites stratified by land use..

Dirk,

Perhaps you will find something useful in the linked article. I found this today while searching for information on the pH of pigeon droppings in the context of a project I am working on. I found your query first, and so came back to share.

Perhaps the information is not as species-specific as you would like, but I think an urban context (where the effects of deposited wastes are likely to be most severe) does not readily lend itself to obtaining the type of "pure" wastes you are trying to find evaluations for. This study also does not seem to take into consideration other possible sources of the salts and acidity in the droppings that were sampled.

Hope this helps in some way-

Kind regards,

Lorraine

Measurement beak significantly different in the various groups birds. Generally accepted to measure several options for beak length. One of the most common is measuring the length of the beak to feathers by using caliper. Thus hold the bird in the hand with the little finger, nameless and middle fingers, and the the thumb and index fix beak (tip). One of calipers pressed to the tip of the beak and hold in this position your thumb and forefinger. Another part touch the tip of the feathers (bill-length to the feather) or nostrils (in the case of measuring the length of the beak to the nostrils (bill-length to the nostrils (nalospi), or to the base of the skull - in the case of measuring the length of the beak to the skull (bill- length to the skull).

Measure the height of the beak is carried out in the widest point closer to the base of the beak. Sometimes the best place one piece calipers in the corners of the lower jaw, and the other as high as possible on the upper jaw.

However, when measuring wedge-shaped beak can be difficult. In many species both parts calipers are placed on one side. In this case, the best measure to take off at an angle of 90˚ to the beak and indicate where in it is made, such as "proximal (ext.) Edge of the nostrils", "feathers", etc. (Svensson, 1992).

The width of the beak

You should avoid soft measuring angles of the beak, and measure its horn part. In carcasses beaks inelastic, so measurements of carcasses and live birds should not be compared. Measurements carried out as the height of the beak - the widest point near the base, placing a sponge calipers on each side (Svensson, 1992).

Dear Ricardo, thank you very much! 

I am writing a paper on bird-window collisions, and I was trying to explain why some birds are more likely to collide than others, besides differences in abundance. So I was wandering whether the ability to perform quick maneuvers can make the difference between crashing or not. As passerines that live in urban settlements are usually those from open areas (e.g. countrysides), then they would not perform very well fast maneuvers, and accidents would be inevitable.

best regards!

Indeed: the main difference is the biodiversity, high in natural ecosystems and often very low in plantations - esteem cases being monocultures. High biodiversity means many species, generally in low density; low biodiversity means both a low number of species and a few of them present in very high numbers. So that even with low biodiversity, productivity can be high.

A similar situation can be found in natural ecosystems: high biodiversity, low production in the tropics - both terrestrial as marine - vs low diversity, high production in polar regions.

Thank you very much Mr. Abhishek

Dear Ahmed

I have CV026 and NT1 biosensors, but according the regulation of post in Iran it is impossible to post the bacteria. do you have any suggestion for it?!

Perhaps you must check extructural niche explotation. The capacity or avalability to fly in diferent complexity of habitat must be a factor. Predator detection in open areas is other factor.

Perhaps this reference could help.

Callaway, E. 2016. When chickens go wild. Nature 529: 270-273.

Dear Collegue

Our result in Tyto alba in Cuba are here:

Reference: López-Ricardo, Y. and R. Borroto-Páez. 2012. Alimentación de la Lechuza (Tyto alba furcata) en Cuba central: Presas introducidas y autóctonas. Tesis de Diploma, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de la Habana. 84 pp.

Our results were that, considering MNI (minimum number of individual in remains), an owl could eat until 11 Mus musculus in one day (N=2, 1.1% of the samples). The more frequently was 4-5 individual for day (19.6 to 20.1%) from 175 pellets analyzed. The 93.3% of the pellets presented 1 to 8 house mice. see below

the tesis is in my Researchgate profile

Ratón (Mus musculus)

No. individuos, Frecuencia, (%)

1, 3, (1,7)

2, 26, (14,5) (93,3)

3, 31, (17,3)

4, 35, (19,6)

5, 36, (20,1)

6, 18, (10,1)

7, 11, (6,1)

8, 10, (5,6)

9, 3, (1,7)

10, 3, (1,7)

11, 2, (1,1)

In captivity is known that owl consume a mean of 60.5g of mice for day (it represent round 10% of their body mass. This daily consumes produce 1 to1.7 pellets (egagropilas) with a weigh of 3.2g (see reference). In wildlife the owl consume around 110g of food but depend of different variable (sex, size, season etc)(see Marti 1973 and 1974).

When I was in the Platte River Valley in Nebraska a few springs ago, I was floored by the flocks of Snow Geese. The flocks of Sandhill Cranes were impressive as well. Both were in flocks numbering the tens of thousands.

Hi, they're pretty easy to make.  For the base get some wire mesh.  Roll it out and cut it to the size you require.  The nooses can be made out of strong (30lb+ breaking strain) high tensile fishing line.  It'll take you a wee while to tie up the nooses too the mat, but this gives you several advantages.  Such as by making them you can tailor the mats probably more specifically for your study area. It'll be considerably cheaper than finding someone online to purchase them from. You'll get a good understanding of how the system works.

Do you have just the kernels summarized by month, or do you actually have the individual occurrence data?

Summarized data may be a bit coarse. Polygon overlap extent, month by month, could be used, but would be subject to a lot of uncertainly, and more so if the kernels do not have an associated, spatially-explicit z-value associated to the probability of occurrence of the bird.

If he latter (e.g. time-stamped positions or tracks for each tagged animal, from direct observation, radio-tracking fixes, or satellite tag data), the problem should be relatively simple to tack either by frequency analysis or through Markov matrix.

A large-enough set of primary occurrence records, i.e. a set of time-stamped coordinates should be enough as long as the sample of records do cover randomly or uniformly both activity (day) and roosting (night) times. If the distribution of samples is not random (e.g. time-constrained satellite readings), corrections could be applied but still the problem boils down to no. of occurrences within protected area polygons vs. points occurring outside (frequency analysis) or recording the changes in state, e.g. how often two consecutive readings are within the polygon (or outside it) vs. changes in state, from polygon to outside or vice-versa (Markov process).

One problem you should solve first is when you consider a fix to be inside or outside a polygon, especially if fixes are averaged over time. Although protected areas do have clean limits on a map, (i) they are not so clean in the field (border uncertainty) and (ii) fixes have an implicit precision which might be low, depending on the recording system. So an individual record has a probability associated to it of belonging to the subset of interest (e.g. being recorded inside the area) that decreases with the proximity to the border and the increase in time integration.

We recently had to tackle a rather similar problem, trying to compute biodiversity occurrences within protected areas from disparate sources. In the end we defined a buffer zone around the protected area, and counted records falling within the buffer area. The width of the buffer was calculated from the average precision in the coordinates of the datasets. Here are the papers (Links below.)

Pino-del-Carpio A., Ariño A.H., Miranda R., 2014: Data exchange gaps in knowledge of biodiversity: Implications for the management and conservation of Biosphere Reserves. Biodiversity and Conservation, 23(9): 2239-2258

Pino-del-Carpio A., Ariño A.H., Villarroya A., Puig J., Miranda R., 2013: The biodiversity data knowledge gap: Assessing information loss in the management of Biosphere Reserves. Biological Conservation, 173: 74-79.

Regards

Hi

First, I agree with Igor Fefelov- long rage movements of immature vulture, ranging across hundreds of kms and more are common in various species (e.g., Phipps et al 2013 PLoS One ;-) ). These cases can be considered as dispersal movements (or exploratory movements if the same individual return to its original area). 

Second, adult vultures also show such long forays (see our 2015 AmNat). In contrast to what was suggested in a previous answer to a relevant question - i suspect that these movement are NOT motivated by resources dynamics (too expensive, too risky, no evidence for enhanced intake, etc). Instead, i think/speculate that these are long forays are motivated by social reasons, perhaps particularly in an attempt to find mates and new colonies. This explanation is likely to be more important in populations that suffer from recent reduction (i.e., almost all vulture populations...), forcing individuals to search in remote areas. Given the recent collapse in vultures populations throughout the Indian sub-continent it might be that these rare observations (or adults?) might reflect a similar behavior.

Finally, migration is usually considered as long range movements (i.e., beyond normal foraging range) with strong synchronization among conspecifics (i.e., many individuals do the same journey more or less at the same time, even if not together), with a circular route and with strong seasonal (or other temporal scales) pattern. if one wants to establish the argument that observations are a result of migration, these are points worth validating. There are some evidence that vulture migrate in flocks, but these might not be the most valualbe criteria for mirgration clssification, especially at low densiteis. 

cheers

Orr  

Hi Ronny

    I am also planning to do same for Sunbirds. Can you please provide me 1-2 feeders for nectar.

Hi!  You should include this paper:

S. Herrando, F. Llimona, L. Brotons, and J. Quesada. 2010. A new exotic bird in Europe: recent spread and potential range of Red-billed Leiothrix Leiothrix lutea in Catalonia (northeast Iberian Peninsula). Bird Study 57 (2):226-235.

Depending on species, both adults and immature vultures have the potential to travel far away from breeding sites during the non-breeding season - probably related to food availability. Mundy et al, (1992) suggest that immature vultures might travel to "nursery" areas away from adult competition. African white-backed vultures are know to move to/from different breeding areas depending on food availability and other factors. 

It depends on what you intend to do with the data. Are you averaging the coloration of all pigeons at each site? If  you are, then pseudoreplication won't be the issue for the pigeons. Pseudoreplication is only an issue if you visit the sites multiple times, during different parts of the day. If you think sites and time of day are not fixed effects in your model, then you should incorporate them as random effects to account for pseudoreplication. It is really all about the study design. 

Best of luck! 

I expect your (iii) to produce the smallest home range size, and at only 5 readings during daylight hours, then not very useful.  While (i) and (ii) should be identical, my questions about Hooded (?) Vultures are:  when do they go to roost, when do they fly off in the morning, and do they ever change position during the night, perhaps especially on moonlit nights?  Readings at 7/8 pm and 6 am will answer that.  Readings during the day at one-hourly intervals of a bird that can glide at >80 kph are not enough, but too bad.  I'd have thought that MCPs are ok, because we all understand them, but certainly a vulture (as would a seabird) needs a smarter approach.