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Movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features

Private gardens provide vital opportunities for people to interact with nature. The most popular form of interaction is through garden bird feeding. Understanding how landscape features and seasons determine patterns of movement of feeder-using songbirds is key to maximising the well-being benefits...

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Autores principales: Cox, Daniel T. C., Inger, Richard, Hancock, Steven, Anderson, Karen, Gaston, Kevin J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5120271/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27876884
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep37669
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author Cox, Daniel T. C.
Inger, Richard
Hancock, Steven
Anderson, Karen
Gaston, Kevin J.
author_facet Cox, Daniel T. C.
Inger, Richard
Hancock, Steven
Anderson, Karen
Gaston, Kevin J.
author_sort Cox, Daniel T. C.
collection PubMed
description Private gardens provide vital opportunities for people to interact with nature. The most popular form of interaction is through garden bird feeding. Understanding how landscape features and seasons determine patterns of movement of feeder-using songbirds is key to maximising the well-being benefits they provide. To determine these patterns we established three networks of automated data loggers along a gradient of greenspace fragmentation. Over a 12-month period we tracked 452 tagged blue tits Cyantistes caeruleus and great tits Parus major moving between feeder pairs 9,848 times, to address two questions: (i) Do urban features within different forms, and season, influence structural (presence-absence of connections between feeders by birds) and functional (frequency of these connections) connectivity? (ii) Are there general patterns of structural and functional connectivity across forms? Vegetation cover increased connectivity in all three networks, whereas the presence of road gaps negatively affected functional but not structural connectivity. Across networks structural connectivity was lowest in the summer when birds maintain breeding territories, however patterns of functional connectivity appeared to vary with habitat fragmentation. Using empirical data this study shows how key urban features and season influence movement of feeder-using songbirds, and we provide evidence that this is related to greenspace fragmentation.
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spelling pubmed-51202712016-11-28 Movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features Cox, Daniel T. C. Inger, Richard Hancock, Steven Anderson, Karen Gaston, Kevin J. Sci Rep Article Private gardens provide vital opportunities for people to interact with nature. The most popular form of interaction is through garden bird feeding. Understanding how landscape features and seasons determine patterns of movement of feeder-using songbirds is key to maximising the well-being benefits they provide. To determine these patterns we established three networks of automated data loggers along a gradient of greenspace fragmentation. Over a 12-month period we tracked 452 tagged blue tits Cyantistes caeruleus and great tits Parus major moving between feeder pairs 9,848 times, to address two questions: (i) Do urban features within different forms, and season, influence structural (presence-absence of connections between feeders by birds) and functional (frequency of these connections) connectivity? (ii) Are there general patterns of structural and functional connectivity across forms? Vegetation cover increased connectivity in all three networks, whereas the presence of road gaps negatively affected functional but not structural connectivity. Across networks structural connectivity was lowest in the summer when birds maintain breeding territories, however patterns of functional connectivity appeared to vary with habitat fragmentation. Using empirical data this study shows how key urban features and season influence movement of feeder-using songbirds, and we provide evidence that this is related to greenspace fragmentation. Nature Publishing Group 2016-11-23 /pmc/articles/PMC5120271/ /pubmed/27876884 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep37669 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Cox, Daniel T. C.
Inger, Richard
Hancock, Steven
Anderson, Karen
Gaston, Kevin J.
Movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features
title Movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features
title_full Movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features
title_fullStr Movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features
title_full_unstemmed Movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features
title_short Movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features
title_sort movement of feeder-using songbirds: the influence of urban features
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5120271/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27876884
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep37669
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