Ecology and life history predict avian nest success in the global tropics

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Smart, Zachariah Fox; Downing, Philip A.; Austin, Suzanne H.; Greeney, Harold F.; Londono, Gustavo A.; Nahid, Mominul I.; Robinson, W. Douglas; Riehl, Christina
• 署名单位: Princeton University; University of Oulu; Oregon State University; Yanayacu Biological Station; Universidad ICESI; Bangladesh Forest Research Institute (BFRI)
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10631
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2402652121
• 发表日期: 2024-11-19
• 关键词: barro colorado island; rain-forest; reproductive success; habitat fragmentation; long-term; predation; birds; EVOLUTION; survival; biology

摘要

Nest predation rates critically influence avian biodiversity and evolution. In the north temperate zone, increased nest failure along edges of forest fragments is hypothesized to play a major role in the disappearance of bird species from disturbed landscapes. However, we lack comprehensive syntheses from tropical latitudes, where biodiversity is highest and increasingly threatened by habitat fragmentation and disturbance. We assembled data from five decades of field studies across the global tropics (1,112 populations of 661 species) and used phylogenetic models to evaluate proposed predictors of nest success. We found significant effects of several traits, including adult body mass and nest architecture. Contrary to results from many temperate locations, anthropogenic habitat disruption did not consistently reduce nest success; in fact, raw nest success rates were lower in large tracts of primary forest than in disturbed or fragmented landscapes. Follow- up analyses within species, using a subset of 76 species for which we had estimates of nest survival in habitats with different levels of disruption, confirmed that neither disturbance nor fragmentation significantly influenced nest success. These results suggest that nest predation alone cannot explain observed declines in avian biodiversity in tropical forest fragments, raising new questions about the demographic processes that drive extinction in the tropics.