Cargando…

Construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours

Previous studies have suggested that birds and mammals select materials needed for nest building based on their thermal or structural properties, although the amounts or properties of the materials used have been recorded for only a very small number of species. Some of the behaviours underlying the...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Biddle, Lucia, Goodman, Adrian M., Deeming, D. Charles
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5333539/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28265501
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3010
_version_ 1782511731280445440
author Biddle, Lucia
Goodman, Adrian M.
Deeming, D. Charles
author_facet Biddle, Lucia
Goodman, Adrian M.
Deeming, D. Charles
author_sort Biddle, Lucia
collection PubMed
description Previous studies have suggested that birds and mammals select materials needed for nest building based on their thermal or structural properties, although the amounts or properties of the materials used have been recorded for only a very small number of species. Some of the behaviours underlying the construction of nests can be indirectly determined by careful deconstruction of the structure and measurement of the biomechanical properties of the materials used. Here we examined this idea in an investigation of Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) nests as a model for open-nesting songbird species that construct a “twig” nest, and tested the hypothesis that materials in different parts of nests serve different functions. The quantities of materials present in the nest base, sides and cup were recorded before structural analysis. Structural analysis showed that the base of the outer nests were composed of significantly thicker, stronger and more rigid materials compared to the side walls, which in turn were significantly thicker, stronger and more rigid than materials used in the cup. These results suggest that the placement of particular materials in nests may not be random, but further work is required to determine if the final structure of a nest accurately reflects the construction process.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5333539
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher PeerJ Inc.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-53335392017-03-06 Construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours Biddle, Lucia Goodman, Adrian M. Deeming, D. Charles PeerJ Animal Behavior Previous studies have suggested that birds and mammals select materials needed for nest building based on their thermal or structural properties, although the amounts or properties of the materials used have been recorded for only a very small number of species. Some of the behaviours underlying the construction of nests can be indirectly determined by careful deconstruction of the structure and measurement of the biomechanical properties of the materials used. Here we examined this idea in an investigation of Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) nests as a model for open-nesting songbird species that construct a “twig” nest, and tested the hypothesis that materials in different parts of nests serve different functions. The quantities of materials present in the nest base, sides and cup were recorded before structural analysis. Structural analysis showed that the base of the outer nests were composed of significantly thicker, stronger and more rigid materials compared to the side walls, which in turn were significantly thicker, stronger and more rigid than materials used in the cup. These results suggest that the placement of particular materials in nests may not be random, but further work is required to determine if the final structure of a nest accurately reflects the construction process. PeerJ Inc. 2017-02-28 /pmc/articles/PMC5333539/ /pubmed/28265501 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3010 Text en ©2017 Biddle 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Biddle, Lucia
Goodman, Adrian M.
Deeming, D. Charles
Construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours
title Construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours
title_full Construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours
title_fullStr Construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours
title_full_unstemmed Construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours
title_short Construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours
title_sort construction patterns of birds’ nests provide insight into nest-building behaviours
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5333539/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28265501
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3010
work_keys_str_mv AT biddlelucia constructionpatternsofbirdsnestsprovideinsightintonestbuildingbehaviours
AT goodmanadrianm constructionpatternsofbirdsnestsprovideinsightintonestbuildingbehaviours
AT deemingdcharles constructionpatternsofbirdsnestsprovideinsightintonestbuildingbehaviours