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Territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers

A territorial male can shift the location of its territory from year to year in order to increase its quality. The male can base its decision on environmental cues or else on its breeding experiences (when territory shift is caused by breeding failure in previous seasons). We tested these possible m...

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Autores principales: Zając, Tadeusz, Bielański, Wojciech, Solarz, Wojciech
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer-Verlag 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3214270/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22162903
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00265-011-1241-z
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author Zając, Tadeusz
Bielański, Wojciech
Solarz, Wojciech
author_facet Zając, Tadeusz
Bielański, Wojciech
Solarz, Wojciech
author_sort Zając, Tadeusz
collection PubMed
description A territorial male can shift the location of its territory from year to year in order to increase its quality. The male can base its decision on environmental cues or else on its breeding experiences (when territory shift is caused by breeding failure in previous seasons). We tested these possible mechanisms of territory choice in the sedge warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus), a territorial migrating passerine that occupies wetlands. This species bases its territory choices on an environmental cue: tall wetland vegetation cover. We found that the magnitude of territory quality improvement between seasons (measured as the area of tall wetland vegetation) increased throughout the early stages of a male's breeding career as a result of territory shifts dependent on the earliness of arrival. The distance the territory was shifted between seasons depended negatively on the previous year's territory quality and, less clearly, on the previous year's mating success. On the other hand, previous mating or nesting success had no influence on territory quality improvement between seasons as measured in terms of vegetation. The results imply that tall wetland vegetation is a long-term, effective environmental cue and that a preference for territories in which this type of landcover prevails has evolved into a rigid behavioral mechanism, supplemented by short-term individual experiences of breeding failure.
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spelling pubmed-32142702011-12-09 Territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers Zając, Tadeusz Bielański, Wojciech Solarz, Wojciech Behav Ecol Sociobiol Original Paper A territorial male can shift the location of its territory from year to year in order to increase its quality. The male can base its decision on environmental cues or else on its breeding experiences (when territory shift is caused by breeding failure in previous seasons). We tested these possible mechanisms of territory choice in the sedge warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus), a territorial migrating passerine that occupies wetlands. This species bases its territory choices on an environmental cue: tall wetland vegetation cover. We found that the magnitude of territory quality improvement between seasons (measured as the area of tall wetland vegetation) increased throughout the early stages of a male's breeding career as a result of territory shifts dependent on the earliness of arrival. The distance the territory was shifted between seasons depended negatively on the previous year's territory quality and, less clearly, on the previous year's mating success. On the other hand, previous mating or nesting success had no influence on territory quality improvement between seasons as measured in terms of vegetation. The results imply that tall wetland vegetation is a long-term, effective environmental cue and that a preference for territories in which this type of landcover prevails has evolved into a rigid behavioral mechanism, supplemented by short-term individual experiences of breeding failure. Springer-Verlag 2011-09-13 2011 /pmc/articles/PMC3214270/ /pubmed/22162903 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00265-011-1241-z Text en © The Author(s) 2011 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Zając, Tadeusz
Bielański, Wojciech
Solarz, Wojciech
Territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers
title Territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers
title_full Territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers
title_fullStr Territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers
title_full_unstemmed Territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers
title_short Territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers
title_sort territory choice during the breeding tenure of male sedge warblers
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3214270/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22162903
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00265-011-1241-z
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