Rydgren Knut, Indreeide Bendik, Slagsvold Tore, Lampe Helene M
Department of Environmental Sciences Western Norway University of Applied Sciences Sogndal Norway.
Tyristubbveien 3 Oslo Norway.
Ecol Evol. 2023 Mar 8;13(3):e9852. doi: 10.1002/ece3.9852. eCollection 2023 Mar.
In many bird species, reproductive success is dependent on nest quality. However, detailed data on nest composition are scarce, and quantitative analyses have generally used only rough categories, without species identification. Bryophytes dominate the nests of many passerine bird species, but little is known about whether birds have preferences for certain species. In this study, we determined the bryophyte species composition in nests of blue tits and great tits in a forest near Oslo, Norway. We also sampled the abundance of the bryophyte species in plots on the forest floor surrounding a subset of the great tit nests. Blue tits and great tits both used 15 bryophyte species as nest materials, mainly the same pleurocarpous species but in different proportions. The tits preferred highly branched bryophyte species, i.e., , and but avoided common forest floor bryophyte species that are sparsely branched Great tits clearly collected bryophyte species selectively. We also found that bryophyte species content in great tit nests in the same nest box in different years was very similar. Our results also indicated that the great tits collected bryophyte nest materials close to their nests, mostly within 5 m, supporting the view that collecting nest materials is costly. We review several hypotheses to explain why the tits prefer certain species of bryophytes as nest materials. These include handling costs and their suitability as structural materials. We recommend field experiments to test specific hypotheses and to study whether preferences are heritable.
在许多鸟类中，繁殖成功率取决于巢穴质量。然而，关于巢穴组成的详细数据却很稀少，定量分析通常只使用粗略的类别，且未对物种进行鉴定。苔藓植物在许多雀形目鸟类的巢穴中占主导地位，但对于鸟类是否对某些特定物种有偏好却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们确定了挪威奥斯陆附近一片森林中蓝山雀和大山雀巢穴中的苔藓植物物种组成。我们还对大山雀巢穴子集周围森林地面样地中的苔藓植物物种丰度进行了采样。蓝山雀和大山雀都使用了15种苔藓植物作为筑巢材料，主要是相同的侧蒴藓类物种，但比例不同。这些山雀偏好高度分枝的苔藓植物物种，即[具体物种1]、[具体物种2]和[具体物种3]，但避开了分枝稀疏的常见森林地面苔藓植物物种。大山雀显然会有选择地采集苔藓植物物种。我们还发现，不同年份同一鸟巢箱中大山雀巢穴内的苔藓植物物种含量非常相似。我们的结果还表明，大山雀在离巢穴很近的地方采集苔藓植物筑巢材料，大多在5米范围内，这支持了采集筑巢材料成本很高这一观点。我们回顾了几个假说来解释为什么这些山雀偏好某些苔藓植物物种作为筑巢材料。这些假说包括处理成本以及它们作为结构材料的适用性。我们建议进行野外实验来检验具体假说，并研究这些偏好是否可遗传。
