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Effect of Brood Age on Nestling Diet and Prey Composition in a Hedgerow Specialist Bird, the Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria
The composition and quality of food provided to nestling birds influence their growth and development and offers key insight into the ecological requirements of birds. One bird species whose feeding ecology is poorly understood is the Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), which utilizes semi-natural shru...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4482603/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26114941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131100 |
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author | Orłowski, Grzegorz Wuczyński, Andrzej Karg, Jerzy |
author_facet | Orłowski, Grzegorz Wuczyński, Andrzej Karg, Jerzy |
author_sort | Orłowski, Grzegorz |
collection | PubMed |
description | The composition and quality of food provided to nestling birds influence their growth and development and offers key insight into the ecological requirements of birds. One bird species whose feeding ecology is poorly understood is the Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), which utilizes semi-natural shrubby vegetation in agroecosystems. Because Barred Warbler nestlings vary greatly in body mass we hypothesised that diet and prey properties (size, diversity, taxonomic composition, and chitin content and resulting body hardness and digestibility) would differ as the nestlings aged. We quantified the diet based on faecal analysis, sampling faecal sacs from the nestlings pooled into three age classes: 2-3 days old, 4-6 d old, and 7-9 d old. Nestlings were provided a wide diversity of food and a strong relationship existed between food characteristics and nestling age. The youngest nestlings (2-3 d old) had the lowest values of each dietary characteristic (diversity, number and total biomass of prey, and individual prey weight), that were significantly lower than the oldest nestlings (7-9 d old). Nestlings aged 4-6 d exhibited intermediate dietary characteristics. Differences in dietary composition of the six major food types showed marked differences between the individual broods and age categories. Percentages of the number and biomass of soft-bodied prey were highest in the diet of 2-3 d and 4-6 d old nestlings, and decreased with increasing age, whereas the opposite trend was observed in the percentage of intermediately and heavily chitinised prey. Parent Barred Warblers probably preferentially select soft-bodied prey for the youngest nestlings, and satisfy the greater energy demands of the older ones by providing them with a greater variety of prey containing more chitin, as well as plant food. The provisioning of less-readily digestible prey to older nestlings suggests that as the quality of food decreases the quantity increases, implying that the youngest nestlings may be physiologically limited as regards their ability to digest more heavily chitinised prey. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4482603 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-44826032015-06-29 Effect of Brood Age on Nestling Diet and Prey Composition in a Hedgerow Specialist Bird, the Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria Orłowski, Grzegorz Wuczyński, Andrzej Karg, Jerzy PLoS One Research Article The composition and quality of food provided to nestling birds influence their growth and development and offers key insight into the ecological requirements of birds. One bird species whose feeding ecology is poorly understood is the Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), which utilizes semi-natural shrubby vegetation in agroecosystems. Because Barred Warbler nestlings vary greatly in body mass we hypothesised that diet and prey properties (size, diversity, taxonomic composition, and chitin content and resulting body hardness and digestibility) would differ as the nestlings aged. We quantified the diet based on faecal analysis, sampling faecal sacs from the nestlings pooled into three age classes: 2-3 days old, 4-6 d old, and 7-9 d old. Nestlings were provided a wide diversity of food and a strong relationship existed between food characteristics and nestling age. The youngest nestlings (2-3 d old) had the lowest values of each dietary characteristic (diversity, number and total biomass of prey, and individual prey weight), that were significantly lower than the oldest nestlings (7-9 d old). Nestlings aged 4-6 d exhibited intermediate dietary characteristics. Differences in dietary composition of the six major food types showed marked differences between the individual broods and age categories. Percentages of the number and biomass of soft-bodied prey were highest in the diet of 2-3 d and 4-6 d old nestlings, and decreased with increasing age, whereas the opposite trend was observed in the percentage of intermediately and heavily chitinised prey. Parent Barred Warblers probably preferentially select soft-bodied prey for the youngest nestlings, and satisfy the greater energy demands of the older ones by providing them with a greater variety of prey containing more chitin, as well as plant food. The provisioning of less-readily digestible prey to older nestlings suggests that as the quality of food decreases the quantity increases, implying that the youngest nestlings may be physiologically limited as regards their ability to digest more heavily chitinised prey. Public Library of Science 2015-06-26 /pmc/articles/PMC4482603/ /pubmed/26114941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131100 Text en © 2015 Orłowski 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 Orłowski, Grzegorz Wuczyński, Andrzej Karg, Jerzy Effect of Brood Age on Nestling Diet and Prey Composition in a Hedgerow Specialist Bird, the Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria |
title | Effect of Brood Age on Nestling Diet and Prey Composition in a Hedgerow Specialist Bird, the Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria
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title_full | Effect of Brood Age on Nestling Diet and Prey Composition in a Hedgerow Specialist Bird, the Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria
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title_fullStr | Effect of Brood Age on Nestling Diet and Prey Composition in a Hedgerow Specialist Bird, the Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria
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title_full_unstemmed | Effect of Brood Age on Nestling Diet and Prey Composition in a Hedgerow Specialist Bird, the Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria
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title_short | Effect of Brood Age on Nestling Diet and Prey Composition in a Hedgerow Specialist Bird, the Barred Warbler Sylvia nisoria
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title_sort | effect of brood age on nestling diet and prey composition in a hedgerow specialist bird, the barred warbler sylvia nisoria |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4482603/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26114941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131100 |
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