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The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placement in Kenyan Weaverbird Colonies

Group living is a life history strategy employed by many organisms. This strategy is often difficult to study because the exact boundaries of a group can be unclear. Weaverbirds present an ideal model for the study of group living, because their colonies occupy a space with discrete boundaries: a si...

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Autores principales: Echeverry-Galvis, Maria Angela, Peterson, Jennifer K., Sulo-Caceres, Rajmonda
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923826/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24551157
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088761
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author Echeverry-Galvis, Maria Angela
Peterson, Jennifer K.
Sulo-Caceres, Rajmonda
author_facet Echeverry-Galvis, Maria Angela
Peterson, Jennifer K.
Sulo-Caceres, Rajmonda
author_sort Echeverry-Galvis, Maria Angela
collection PubMed
description Group living is a life history strategy employed by many organisms. This strategy is often difficult to study because the exact boundaries of a group can be unclear. Weaverbirds present an ideal model for the study of group living, because their colonies occupy a space with discrete boundaries: a single tree. We examined one aspect of group living. nest placement, in three Kenyan weaverbird species: the Black-capped Weaver (Pseudonigrita cabanisi), Grey-capped Weaver (P. arnaudi) and White-browed Sparrow Weaver (Ploceropasser mahali). We asked which environmental, biological, and/or abiotic factors influenced their nest arrangement and location in a given tree. We used machine learning to analyze measurements taken from 16 trees and 516 nests outside the breeding season at the Mpala Research Station in Laikipia Kenya, along with climate data for the area. We found that tree architecture, number of nests per tree, and nest-specific characteristics were the main variables driving nest placement. Our results suggest that different Kenyan weaverbird species have similar priorities driving the selection of where a nest is placed within a given tree. Our work illustrates the advantage of using machine learning techniques to investigate biological questions.
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spelling pubmed-39238262014-02-18 The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placement in Kenyan Weaverbird Colonies Echeverry-Galvis, Maria Angela Peterson, Jennifer K. Sulo-Caceres, Rajmonda PLoS One Research Article Group living is a life history strategy employed by many organisms. This strategy is often difficult to study because the exact boundaries of a group can be unclear. Weaverbirds present an ideal model for the study of group living, because their colonies occupy a space with discrete boundaries: a single tree. We examined one aspect of group living. nest placement, in three Kenyan weaverbird species: the Black-capped Weaver (Pseudonigrita cabanisi), Grey-capped Weaver (P. arnaudi) and White-browed Sparrow Weaver (Ploceropasser mahali). We asked which environmental, biological, and/or abiotic factors influenced their nest arrangement and location in a given tree. We used machine learning to analyze measurements taken from 16 trees and 516 nests outside the breeding season at the Mpala Research Station in Laikipia Kenya, along with climate data for the area. We found that tree architecture, number of nests per tree, and nest-specific characteristics were the main variables driving nest placement. Our results suggest that different Kenyan weaverbird species have similar priorities driving the selection of where a nest is placed within a given tree. Our work illustrates the advantage of using machine learning techniques to investigate biological questions. Public Library of Science 2014-02-13 /pmc/articles/PMC3923826/ /pubmed/24551157 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088761 Text en © 2014 Echeverry-Galvis et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Echeverry-Galvis, Maria Angela
Peterson, Jennifer K.
Sulo-Caceres, Rajmonda
The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placement in Kenyan Weaverbird Colonies
title The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placement in Kenyan Weaverbird Colonies
title_full The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placement in Kenyan Weaverbird Colonies
title_fullStr The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placement in Kenyan Weaverbird Colonies
title_full_unstemmed The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placement in Kenyan Weaverbird Colonies
title_short The Social Nestwork: Tree Structure Determines Nest Placement in Kenyan Weaverbird Colonies
title_sort social nestwork: tree structure determines nest placement in kenyan weaverbird colonies
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923826/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24551157
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088761
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